And how does Audirvāna Core Player sound?
Contents
The question is whether it sounds different from the Mac and Windows versions. Yes it does, but it is a tricky question because it depends on the hardware, just like with the Mac and Windows versions.
But when Core Player on a 70 Euro Raspberry Pi sounds significantly better than the Mac version on a 1,500 Euro Macbook Pro, you scratch your head a bit. That Macbook Pro is not bought just to run Audirvāna on it and the Raspberry Pi was gathering dust in a drawer. However, when you are faced with the choice between buying a NUC with Windows, a Mac Mini or a Raspberry Pi specifically for Audirvāna, the cards are suddenly very different. But not all that clear either.
The question “what does Core sound like?” is at once simple and complex. The simple answer is “just as good as the other Audirvāna versions and maybe even a little better”.
The difficult answer is ‘it just depends on which hardware and with which Linux OS’. And exactly that difficult answer is the focus of an extensive background article that will soon appear here.
The future of Audirvāna Core Player
The number of downloads of Core Player and feedback from the industry is giving thumbs up to the further development of Core Player. Audirvāna is pleasantly surprised by the popularity, Core Player fills a clear need.
Not everyone is handy with Linux or with a NAS. There are music server manufacturers who will supply Audirvāna with Core Player. There are Linux distributions, such as Gentoo Player and moOde Audio, that could incorporate options to make enabling and updating Core Player easy through a friendly user interface, if they are willing to include Audirvāna Core Player as part of their distribution. Gentoo Player and moOde Audio are in turn offered by streamer manufacturers as software you can order with the streamer.
In short, the future of Audirvāna Core Player, and therefore Audirvāna’s focus on developing the product, looks bright. An overhauled Remote App with more functionality will be available sometime next year.
For much of our readership, auditioning Audirvāna Core Player on your NAS or computer running Linux is highly recommended.
Conclusion
Audirvāna Core Player is not just another version, next to the Windows and MacOS versions. The lean requirements enable the Linux versions to run on very small computers like the Raspberry Pi, but more importantly on a Synology or QNAP NAS. Linux is proven to be very stable and can run unattended for years if necessary.
Next to the hardware options, Audirvāna Core Player on Linux just sounds better than its Windows and MacOS equivalents when using a NAS or minimalistic Linux OS distribution.
Audirvāna Core Player is not fully mature yet and in active development, but in its current state (version 2.9.2.) it is pleasantly usable for every day listening habits. It can only get better with future updates.
Its update mechanism, relying on Linux software distribution or manual NAS updates, makes it most suitable for the computer-savvy music lover or computer audio enthusiast. We do expect that third parties will turn it into a more consumer friendly option. For instance, by adoption of streamer manufacturers or audio Linux distributions that are the base of commercial music servers and streamer software, who will integrate it into their offerings and automate the updates.
Audirvāna Core Player is probably the future of Audirvāna, enabling expansion into a wider market.
Interesting question. From my own experience, I cannot add a very good power supply to my DAC which has a streamer built-in and connected to the DAC via I2S. So I bought a very good power supply for my Roon Nucleus, which is sort of a NAS or computer. That helps but not to a great extent. It is physically connected to a switch and from that switch to my streamer/DAC. What did help to a great extent, was the addition of a passive ethernet filter. I think, even without the Nucleus, I would still have to connect my streamer/DAC to the internet so filtering would still be beneficial. Adding a really good streamer with good outboard power supply like you mention would be the best solution IMO.
My own experience is that you can achieve an even lower digital domain noise floor if there is no computer/NAS physically connected in the signal path, even if it is connected earlier on the network, behind a switch.
Would you agree that for ultimate sound quality, which many are probably looking for, you are better off by concentrating on a really really low digital noise floor using a good Streamer (only) with very good power supply and fed with an VERY clean ethernet signal?
I have a feeling that as long as you have a computer or NAS physically connected to a switch/router/DAC you will (in general) have a lot more noise to fight than if removing the computer/NAS completely.
It very much depends on the implementation of the USB input on DAC side and the quality of the powersupplies on the motherboard of the streamer or PC. Most streamers are based on (industrial) Small Board Computer components, like Raspberry Pi.
It ain’t that black and white, but in general the Audio manufacturers are more aware of these issues and design their streamers accordingly.