Amarra for iTunes at RMAF...

Cool. I wonder if they offer a trial version to try out.

Chadeffect,

Everything marketed as an audiophile item is going to cost more. Remember the blue tack? It sells for $2 at OfficeDepot but 5 to 7 times more at an audio store. I have also seen a pair of cart mounting screws selling for $200 and they are not made of gold.

It is pricing like this gives our hobby a bad name.

Chadeffect,

Don't get me wrong. I am not saying audio manufactures and vendors are all dishonest. I know it is a niche market and I have no problem paying $13,000 for a pair of Vandy 5 and $8,000 for a BAT preamp, both are in my system. Because I know there are R&D involved and they can't sell thousands and thousands of units to keep the price down. As you said, they need to make a living. But I do have problem with someone repackaging and rebranding common items and reselling them as audiophile specials for 5, 10 times the normal price.

Don,

I have download and installed the Amarra Mini demo on my Mac Mini. It goes into a Benchmark DAC-1 USB. I have tried to drive the power amp directly from DAC-1 and even listen to a HD-650 headphone plugged into the DAC-1 in order to eliminate any inference from the preamp, speaker, and room. Here is what I find:

Playback of 24/96 tracks is virtually identical to iTunes. Amarra might be a little bit cleaner at the high but the difference is so small that it could be purely psychological. It definitely will not pass my blind test. So I consider them to be identical in sound quality.

Playback of 16/44 tracks is a different story. Amarra sounds decisively cleaner. In the High Life track of Jazz at the Pawnshop, cymbals and tambourines sound more delicate, drums are tighter with more "skins", instruments are in general better focused and have more presence.

In terms of female vocal, iTunes does sounds a little bloated in the mid bass and gives singers a little bit more chest and throat sound. That might be the phrasing you referred to in your post. I can hear that difference very clearly in the Danny Boy track sang by Jacintha.

Which is better is hard to say. I think it depends on what you like and your system. In my system, that little bloated mid bass often being exaggerated a bit by the BAT preamp. So I much prefer the Amarra presentation.

Just saw that Amarra 1.1 is out. The readme says it supports Apple Lossless but not the ones generated from Max. Well, I am bummed since most of my hi-res tracks are just that. I was going to place an order as soon as Apple Lossless support is in but now I guess I am going to wait some more.