And of course the Naim app is of no use to me. Selling the ND5XS more than paid back the cost of the MM plus Audirvana, while giving me a silent NAS that otherwise I was going to buy to replace the noisy cheap NAS I was using, so overal financially beneficial as well. Audirvana on Mac Mini as renderer improved sound quality over ND5XS as renderer, so decision made. Roon was worse with my collection, and to me had nothing beneficial to offer for its much higher cost.įor me, I had already upgraded my ND5XS by adding an external DAC (Chord Hugo - vast improvement to my ears). However whilst its styling and operation are fine, it struggles with the poor metadata of parts of my collection, though there is at least a workaround. It is its effectiveness as a renderer that keeps me with it at present, likely having to pay a lot to improve. How it compares to Roon as a renderer I don’t know, nor other rendering devices/software. The result is excellent in terms of sound quality, better than the digital output of an ND5XS, and at one point I compared my Mac Mini / Audirvana setup against a Melco N1A and there was no difference evident in the sound. If used with an older OS (which is what I do), or using a script to revert one of Apple’s more recent OS blocks, it can bebe run in ‘direct mode’ which bypasses the Mac’s sound card and drivers, again for best possible integrity. Minor Version upgrades, which are frequent, are free.) if you are using as a UPnP player I don’t see why there would be any sound quality difference between any of them, unless perhaps using also to transcode say flac to wave, or to upsample (which will depend also on the capabilities of the device on which it is running).Īs a renderer, at least on a Mac Mini which is ideally suited, though I assume also other Macs, Audirvana in its fully optimised mode can shut down everything not needed on the computer to prevent possible interference, processor activity, etc, and set up a dedicated USB bus likewise to prevent interference. Major Version upgrades have so far been at half the new user price, and there have been 2 so far in 9 years. Otherwise as a uPnP server it is simply a matter of preference for interface and how it manages ones own store, ease of use, desired or undesired features, and cost (Audirvana is £84, as a one-off cost with lifelong licence. As a UPnP server the one thing it offers that not all do is MQA first unfold for Tidal for anyone interested in that oddity. Audirvana comes into its own as a renderer, playing direct to a DAC.
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