amarra or pure music..?

Lots of folks like some of these players because they sound "smoother". If your system needs "smoothing", then they are the right choice for you.

IMO, once you have achieved really low sibilance, jitter and noise in your system, you abandon "smoothness" for liveness. This is a long road and a spendy road for some.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

I'm pretty sure Windows MEdia player just passes the bit stream and does not change it by default, at least when used just as a music server and not player.

Newer versions do have a loudness leveling option that helps keep different loudness level tracks more equal level, but that is it and you have to select to turn that on.

Hi mapman,

I have media player on one of my studio computers and it does sound a little different from the mastering and production software on the same machine. Not by much. There is something in the treble which is more relaxed and it is not quite as separated compared to Nuendo 5 or Wavelab 6. I do like it though.

I find it odd that they can sound different as they are using all the same hardware.

Having been listening to Fidelia in my hifi system for a couple of days now I think it is very close to Amarra 2.1.1. It has something very slightly sweeter in the highs and I find imaging is more compact, smaller or pinpoint on some recording. It is only on really good recordings that these differences show themselves. Orchestral recordings seem the best way to tell.

As I said I feel both these 2 bits of software sound better than Pure Music 1.74 in my system. Remember all this software is on the same machine and playing through the same DAC/Amp/cables/speakers/same room and same ears!

If I were blind folded I could tell the difference between PM and Amarra or PM and Fidelia, but I would find it hard to tell between Amarra and Fidelia.

Unfortunately regardless of the sonics it is the interface that makes or breaks it for me. When you have spent so much effort getting the system to sound good, it is a real let down when your main interaction with it is clunky, slow or unstable due to the playback software.

Maybe Apple will just get itunes to sound good and all these little software companies will go away or at least sell their code to Apple to integrate properly.

Maybe some players that target high end audio users go for a "house sound" to help distinguish them from the competition along with the various features? I suppose these "components" should not be much different from a marketing perspective than the more traditional ones.

Its possible I suppose that different software sources might sound different with an attached DAC again depending on how well it is able to provide the bit stream in real time. PErhaps jitter comes into play here similar to other scenarios.

I use a network music player (with outboard DAC) connected via wifi network to the laptop I use as a server. I think in this configuration in particular, the interaction between the remote (to the windows server) player and the DAC is what determines the exact nature of the sound (jitter, etc.)with any particular DAC. I suppose when the player is onboard the PC the same types of interactions would occur but the nature of the hardware and software involved is different and quite variable.

So two things I could envision accounting for sound differences from player to player are 1) the "house sound", if in fact a distinct one exists for the player, at least in some cases perhaps, and the player/DAC process and interaction in regards to jitter.

When you have spent so much effort getting the system to sound good, it is a real let down when your main interaction with it is clunky, slow or unstable due to the playback software.

Chadeffect (System | Answers | This Thread)

That's the crux of the computer audio issue for me, and it overshadows any subtleties in the sound of the software. The playback system first has to work: smoothly and flawlessly. Only then can one's attention focus on the fine details of the sound itself, and IMO computer audio front ends have a long way to go before they work properly.