Applies to

Studio

Origin

Audirvāna Remote

Operating System

macOS

Windows

Linux

Audirvāna is very versatile in how you can connect your device to it. From USB to Chromecast and UPNP, you have the choice!

Every way to connect your device to Audirvāna

In this article:

• Airplay (only MacOS)
• Bluetooth
• Chromecast
• HDMI
• UPNP
• USB

Airplay (only MacOS)

Apple has not fixed a regression since OS X 10.11 (El Capitan), which makes the AirPlay device unavailable to any application other than iTunes.

There is a workaround to get it back:

1) Option/alt-click on the loudspeaker icon on the menu bar.

Note: If the Sound control isn't in the menu bar, choose Apple menu > System Settings, then click Control Center in the sidebar. (You may need to scroll down.) Click the pop-up menu next to Sound on the right, then choose whether to show Sound in the menu bar all the time or only when it's active.

2) Select AirPlay in the selection menu that appears

3) You can then select AirPlay in Audirvana Audio Device Settings.

Also, be sure iTunes is set to use something other than the Airplay device.

Bluetooth

You will first need to select your audio output in your operating system's audio settings before you can choose your device in Audirvāna.

Chromecast

Any Chromecast device can be selected from the device output list. Once you play on this device, the playback will be gapless, and you will see the Google Home app's "Audirvāna Gapless Playback."

If you have multiple Chromecast devices at home, you can group them in the Google Home app and select the group in Audirvāna to achieve multizone playback!

You can find more about creating a group of Chromecast devices from the Google blog post.

HDMI

For example, you can use HDMI to connect your computer to an AVR and enjoy multichannel playback with Audirvāna. If you do not have a PCM/DSD sample rate available, please look at your device's manual or contact the manufacturer.

UPNP

By default, Audirvāna only outputs audio from UPNP devices that support WAV format. It sends the audio without altering it, thus giving you the best quality possible for your device.

UPNP mainly relies on the device you play with:

• For example, if you cannot change the position on a playing track, your device doesn't support WAV playback. We recommend contacting your device manufacturer so they can add it.
• Depending on your device's capabilities, Audirvāna can also send DSD tracks to it if it supports DSD playback.
• Playback control (Play, Pause, etc.) is also an element the device sends to Audirvāna. If it is not working correctly, please contact the device manufacturer.
  
• If you hear a gap during the transition from one track to another, your device either does not support gapless or has an issue the manufacturer needs to solve.

Note: if you get an issue during playing back to a UPNP device, please read this article.

USB

Using USB with Audirvāna on Windows will give you Three options: WASAPI/ASIO and Kernel Streaming:

WASAPI: Windows Audio Session API is the default driver for Windows 10 and 11. Audirvāna uses it exclusively, bypassing the entire Windows audio stream, including the mixer and audio processing objects, to get the most direct, low-latency audio stream to your computer's DAC or output device.

However, if you try to play DSD in this mode, you must use DSD over PCM. Find more about DSD over PCM.

SoundASIO: Audio Stream Input / Output is a computer sound card driver protocol for digital audio specified by Steinberg. It provides a low-latency, high-quality interface between a software application and a computer sound card. If your audio device has an ASIO driver, we recommend using it to get your DAC's full DSD capability.

Kernel Streaming: Kernel Streaming is the most direct and transparent mode, allowing Audirvāna to bypass the Windows 10 and 11 audio mixer and instead use the kernel streaming interfaces to interact directly with the output audio driver.

However, if you try to play DSD in this mode, you must use DSD over PCM. Find more about DSD over PCM.

For macOS, Core Audio is completely bypassed. However, since macOS cannot send raw DSD streams, the DSD over PCM standard has been developed to send raw DSD in a fake PCM stream.
To identify it as such, there are 8-bit markers in it.
The presence of these markers doubles the bandwidth requirement, explaining why only half of the max DSD rate is available on a Mac.

Note: if you get an issue to connect to your device, please create a ticket.