ToTo Man
the band not the dog
I recently downloaded the free trial of AV 3.5, having used AV+ 2.6.x for several years. I always use AV+ 2.6.x in iTunes Integrated Mode because I find it runs so much faster and more efficient and I prefer the iTunes GUI and Remote app to the Audirvana GUI. However I thought I should give AV 3.5 a try as a standalone player without iTunes integration to see if it's improved any.
The v3.5 GUI is much improved over v2.6.x IMO, but it takes ages (more than 2 minutes!) for the player to initially launch, and it's still very sluggish when I'm browsing my Library. The AV app on my iPod touch is also very sluggish and takes ages to display the list of Artists, Albums, etc. It's so slow it's almost unusable. When I switch back to iTunes Integrated Mode the speed and responsiveness is exponentially better and provides a far more efficient and enjoyable user experience.
Is this because: a) the machine I'm running AV on is under-specced (a 2010 Mac Mini C2D 2.66GHz with 8GB); b) my music library is abnormally large (40,000 songs occupying 2TB space on an external firewire SATA HDD); or c) is AV simply not as speedy as iTunes regardless of machine spec and library size?
If I install AV 3.5 on a 2012 Mac Mini i7 2.6GHz with 16GB RAM and run it in standalone mode, will it rival the speed/efficiency of running it in iTunes Integrated Mode?
I should state that I'm perfectly happy to run AV in iTunes Integrated Mode from a sound quality POV. I've tried hard to listen out for sonic differences between the two modes and I honestly can't hear any. Neither can I hear any difference between that and running iTunes on its own (I clearly lack golden ears!). My main reason for running AV is access to the AU plugins.
The v3.5 GUI is much improved over v2.6.x IMO, but it takes ages (more than 2 minutes!) for the player to initially launch, and it's still very sluggish when I'm browsing my Library. The AV app on my iPod touch is also very sluggish and takes ages to display the list of Artists, Albums, etc. It's so slow it's almost unusable. When I switch back to iTunes Integrated Mode the speed and responsiveness is exponentially better and provides a far more efficient and enjoyable user experience.
Is this because: a) the machine I'm running AV on is under-specced (a 2010 Mac Mini C2D 2.66GHz with 8GB); b) my music library is abnormally large (40,000 songs occupying 2TB space on an external firewire SATA HDD); or c) is AV simply not as speedy as iTunes regardless of machine spec and library size?
If I install AV 3.5 on a 2012 Mac Mini i7 2.6GHz with 16GB RAM and run it in standalone mode, will it rival the speed/efficiency of running it in iTunes Integrated Mode?
I should state that I'm perfectly happy to run AV in iTunes Integrated Mode from a sound quality POV. I've tried hard to listen out for sonic differences between the two modes and I honestly can't hear any. Neither can I hear any difference between that and running iTunes on its own (I clearly lack golden ears!). My main reason for running AV is access to the AU plugins.
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