Pure Music vs. Audirvana Plus

When I was using a tricked out mini as my server, I also found Pure Music to sound more musical with better body and dimensionality than Amara or Audirvana. Later I came to enjoy the flexibility of the onboard parametric EQ in Pure Music. I did not find it to be at all susceptible to drop outs or pops.

Thanks all for your comments - I have the newest MacBookPro, with two Thunderbolt and two USB ports. I bought an external hard drive that has both hookups. I do not have a network set-up, everything is hard wired.

I downloaded a free trial version of both software programs, and I must say that Pure Music sounded significantly better in my system, and I have pretty much decided on it already on just the third day of the trials. Quite a bit bigger soundstage, and better imaging are the biggest differences. I also had some issues with the library portion of the Audirvana software.

I am by no means done experimenting yet, but so far Pure Music seems quite a bit better.

Another vote for Audirvana. I also have Amarra...

Wait a MacBook?

You mean the new one?

With a single USB-C port?

Avoid that.

Get a MBA at least.

Ideally use something like a USB DAC - and use FireWire (Thunderbolt adaptor) or Thunderbolt HDD for your music files since it is unlikely you can keep all your music on the small internal HDD

Or use a Thunderbolt-Ethernet adaptor to get your music on the network.

No comparison. However, I use a Aurdirvana Plus on a MacBook Air and could not be happier with the results. See my previous post on this subject

Audirvana Plus

simpler to use
less buggy
better support from Damien
and v2.0 was a real change not a bug fix