Amarra 4 pretty nice

Hi All,
To clarify the comments above:
- We are aware that importing Artwork from iTunes can perform better however, your results will vary depending on the file types you have.  If the artwork is attached to the file or there is an artwork file in the folder where the music is, Amarra 4 will find it during your scan.
-  Regarding podcasts, they are just audio files that you've chosen to add to your library.  Why you would do that is your own choice, not something we would recommend.  If you want an iTunes library for your podcasts, just make another library and keep your audio files in a separate iTunes library. 
- As an alternative, instead of using SCAN iTUNES, you can use SCAN FOR MUSIC and navigate to your Music folder which hopefully only contains your true audio files and not podcasts as well.  If it does, you can add a folder of music at a time to your library and avoid the podcasts altogether.
- Deleting an album is the same as in most other apps.  Click on the 3 dots in the upper right corner of an album artcard, select Delete Album and confirm your delete.
- If you go to Album View and click on an Album then use the '<' at the top of the screen, you'll go back to where you were in the Album list and not to the top of the Album list.  The same is true for Songs, Artists and Playlists.
- We have seen issues with a channel going out when using upsampling.  The chance in sample rate is causing a click that is cutting out a channel.  We are looking into this and would recommend not using the upsampling for the moment.

In reality, these are not fatal flaws by any means, there are many users who have no issue using Amarra 4 with their library at all.  We are making improvements in many areas as well and expect the UI to continue to get better without impacting the sound quality.

All the best,
Sonic Studio Support

I agree with gocubs999.  Amarra 4 Luxe is terrible.

I have been using Amarra Symphony w/IRC and love the sound quality, so I was happy when Amarra 4 Luxe came out. Until I started using it. It is incredibly buggy. Here are a few examples I can think of at the moment:

- When you load your album library from iTunes, it fails to import the art for perhaps half of the albums, so they are all listed with the same default art.

- It also loads all of your podcasts, hundreds of episodes, with each episode as a separate album, leading to a huge number of non-album albums (but somehow got the art right for all of them). And you can’t delete them as a set -- you have to do them one at a time, each one taking several clicks.

- When you click on an album to see the tracks it contains, then go back to the album view, it goes back to the head of the list of albums, instead of to wherever you were in the list.

- While playing music, after a few songs one channel cuts out. The only way to fix it is to restart the app.

There were other issues as well. When I contacted Sonic Studios about the problems, I was told that they are "known issues". In my opinion, they are not "issues", they are fatal flaws.  The software is not ready for release. And even if all of these problems were fixed, the music library interface is clunky and unpleasant to use.  I strongly prefer the iTunes interface and would prefer that Amarra focus on improving sound quality and leave the library management to the competent professionals at Apple

On the plus side, if you can get past these issues, find the album you want, and get it to play through two channels, it sounds great.

Great to hear you have had no issues with customary bugs and "library management" feature issues. If you look to "Computer Audiophile" website/forums, many have complained version 4 has more bugs than an ICU Isolation Room. You must have a natural resistance.

I also have A+ and it appears Damien's recent version with "library management" also has its share of issues. It is frustrating when new releases fall flat. iTunes has its on share of issues with metadata retrieval, but; after spending significant time getting rid of duplicates, finding album art work, repairing "compilations", etc. , just don't need or want to invest in that again.

My preference for both companies is to focus on SQ as the priority for next GEN releases and utilize iTunes for "library management" until R&D yields a stable product.