Audirvana Origin – Back to basics

Audirvana Origin is the name of a new version of the French software company Audirvana SAS‘ software solution for Apple macOS and Microsoft Windows, which will not be offered in the form of a subscription, but only as a classic purchase version. The reason for this step is to offer potential customers an alternative to the subscription model of the Audirvana Studio software, which concentrates solely on the essentials, namely the playback of audio data from a local media library.

Audirvana Studio by subscription only since May 2021

With the market launch of Audirvana Studio in May 2021, Damien Plisson’s software company Audirvana SAS announced that the software solution, which is considered one of the most flexible and highest-quality media management solutions and hi-res audio players on the market, will no longer be offered for sale as before for a one-time purchase price, but only in the form of a subscription – sempre-audio.at reported.

With this, the French company followed a trend that has been observed for some time in software in all areas, namely towards a subscription model that secures a fixed income for the manufacturers to push their development and guarantees customers to always use the latest version of the software tools.

In principle, this business model has advantages, also for the user, but in the end many customers are not willing to accept fixed costs over a longer period of time. In many cases, they prefer a one-time payment to an ongoing contract over many months.

Audirvana SAS must have realised this and is now presenting an alternative to the Audirvana Studio subscription model in the form of the new Audirvana Origin.

Audirvana Origin – Reduced to the Essentials

Audirvana Origin’s goal is to get back to the basics, according to the French software company, and describes this solution as one that serves to play content from a local media library.

In principle, the company is returning to its own roots, because originally Audirvana Plus was nothing more than a hi-res audio player software that was only available for Apple macOS. In the beginning, Audirvana Plus was nothing more than a solution that hooked into Apple iTunes and took over the audio signal processing and thus handled it at a significantly higher level of quality.

Audirvana Origin is, according to the French, ultimately a powerful update of the original version of Audirvana, which is dedicated to the management and playback of local content alone, thus dispensing with the implementation of streaming services or Internet radio and podcasts.

Exclusive Audirvana Core Player

The Audirvana Core Player has always been at the heart of the software, and it remains so with the new Audirvana Origin. The software forge thus takes the sovereignty over the signal processing for the playback of audio data away from the operating system and relies on sophisticated algorithms that ensure a significantly higher quality and also allow the playback of all relevant hi-res audio formats.

The Audirvana Core Player prioritises the music on the computer by minimising processor activity during playback and always following the shortest possible software path to the audio output. Continuous improvements over the past 10 years ensure the best digital audio playback performance from a Mac or PC, according to the manufacturer’s promise, which points in particular to Kernel Streaming Mode and native compatibility with Apple Silicon and Microsoft Windows 11.

Audirvana Origin also offers the user various possibilities to intervene in the signal processing, for example by upsampling or the integration of audio plug-ins.

Clearly arranged media management

Audirvana Origin is also supposed to offer the user an intuitive administration of his audio data, whereby favourites and playlists can of course be created, an extensive search function is available, and editing of information is also possible.

Streaming content via UPnP

Even though Audirvana Origin is supposed to be focused on the essentials, it still offers the possibility of streaming content in one’s own network, using the industry standard UPnP.

Simple control is guaranteed by the well-known Audirvana Remote App, which the software company offers for Apple iOS and Google Android. It can be used on smartphones and tablets alike and is available free of charge in the respective app stores.

Price and availability

Audirvana Origin is now available for download on the Audirvana SAS website for Apple macOS and Microsoft Windows. The price is listed at €119.99, with the vendor promising no library limit, at least two years of OS compatibility updates and at least one feature update per year until 2025. In addition, and this is probably not insignificant for some, Audirvana Origin allows multiple installations, thus the use on different systems. This can even mean a mixture of Microsoft Windows and Apple macOS, but only one use at a time can be made with one licence.

For those interested, the software company offers a free trial version. This can be used without restriction for a period of 30 days.

Getting to the point

It was probably not in the interest of all users that Audirvana SAS also changed its sales concept last year with the introduction of Audirvana Studio and opted for a subscription model instead of a one-off purchase price. At least this is what the newly available version Audirvana Origin suggests, which is advertised as a subscription-free solution. In principle, this is a return to the roots, a media management solution and a software hi-res audio player that is limited to a locally available media library and does not include the implementation of various streaming providers.