A field guide for people who have opinions about sample rates

The basic idea

Svarga is built around four promises:

1. Keep your library local-first.
2. Route audio cleanly to the output you chose.
3. Tell the truth about the signal path.
4. Do useful things — radio, Mixtapes, metadata, DSP, CD ripping — without turning your music collection into a subscription hostage.

The app can be gentle and pretty, but under the hood it is a CoreAudio HAL creature. It talks directly to your Mac's audio system, asks the DAC what it can do, switches rates, acquires exclusive access when appropriate, and reports whether the result is actually pure.

First launch

When you open Svarga, you will see the main window with a compact top navigation bar, a main content area, a bottom player bar, a library action menu, a settings button, and an output picker in the player area.

If your library is empty, start by adding music.

Add music quickly

• Drag a folder into Svarga.
• Use the toolbar menu: Library Actions → Add Music Folder.
• Go to Settings → Sources → Add Source.

Svarga scans supported audio files, reads metadata, builds albums/artists/genres, extracts artwork where available, and stores library data locally.

Supported local library formats in v1: FLAC, ALAC/M4A, WAV, AIFF/AIF/AIFC, AAC, MP3, DSF, DFF. Internet radio supports additional stream types, including Ogg Opus radio. Local OGG/Opus, WavPack, and APE are not v1 local-library formats.

The main navigation

The top navigation menu gives you the real map of Svarga: Home, Albums, Artists, Songs, Genres, Recently Added, Folders, Queue, Radio, Mixtapes, DSP/EQ, Playlists.

Search

The search field filters library views. If you search while sitting in a screen that does not naturally filter, Svarga redirects to Songs so your search actually has somewhere useful to land.

Home

Home is the "where am I in my collection?" screen. It shows library-level stats and album shelves such as recently played and recently added — a soft landing instead of filing-cabinet archaeology.

Use Home when you want to resume listening or see what was recently added.

Albums

Albums is the classic library view. You can browse your collection as album artwork, switch view density, and sort. Use it when you know the record you want and care about albums as albums.

Album Detail

Open an album to see artwork, title, artist, genre/year metadata, play controls, track list, audio technical details, album information where available, and related navigation such as more by the artist or more in the genre.

Album and artist info is cached — Svarga doesn't keep searching the web every time you open the same album. If nothing useful is found, the app leaves the field blank rather than spinning indefinitely.

Artists

Artists groups the library by performer. Open an artist to see their albums and artist-level information where available. Use it when you're following a discography or remember the musician but not the album title.

Songs

Songs is the direct track list — for precise search, sorting or queuing individual tracks, and dealing with singles, compilations, and loose files. Global search tends to land here, because it's the broadest and most literal view.

Genres

Genres gives you a higher-level browse mode. Svarga uses embedded tags and metadata enrichment to organize albums and tracks by genre. Genre metadata can be imperfect — Svarga lets you edit it when needed.

Recently Added

Recently Added shows new arrivals first — useful right after importing a folder, ripping a CD, adding a NAS source, or downloading new purchases.

Folders

Folders shows your music by file-system folder. It's not a second-class view — it's for real-world libraries: live recordings, DJ folders, downloads, bootlegs, label collections, box sets.

Svarga can treat a folder like an implicit playlist. If a folder contains multiple artists or doesn't behave like one clean album, Folders is often the sanest place to use it.

Queue

Queue shows what's coming next. You can add tracks or albums to the queue, clear it, start local-library radio continuation from a seed, and see auto-queued or radio-generated items. If the queue says something is coming, the engine agrees.

Playlists

Svarga supports normal playlists without pretending they are a lifestyle. You can create, rename, add tracks and albums, assign custom artwork, sort, import M3U/M3U8, export as M3U8, play in order/shuffle/repeat, and queue playlist content.

M3U import works best when the referenced files are already in your Svarga library — it's a playlist importer, not a psychic file detective.

Smart Mix

Smart Mix generates playlists from your local library using rules and seed context. Use it when you want something coherent without hand-building it, or a local-library alternative to algorithmic streaming. It does not stream mystery tracks from the internet — it works with what you own.

Mixtapes

Mixtapes is Svarga's mood-radio mode for your own library. It uses library metadata, tags, BPM, artist information, and scoring logic to build a session, and can open into a fullscreen listening mode with a more immersive visual treatment.

If the library doesn't contain enough confident matches for a mood, Svarga may fall back to a broader mix and tell you. That's good behavior — fake confidence is how bad playlists happen.

Radio

Radio is Svarga's live-streaming side: favourites, a curated Lossless Radio catalogue, station search/filtering, FLAC/Icecast support, Ogg Opus and MP3/AAC streams, now-playing metadata where available, station logos, and a station suggestion flow.

Radio and network output

Radio can route through local output, DLNA, or Chromecast depending on what you select. Svarga avoids opening duplicate metadata connections when DLNA is active, since some radio servers don't handle that gracefully.

The bottom player bar

Always there unless a fullscreen mode takes over. It shows artwork or station logo, track title/artist/album, radio now-playing info, transport controls, shuffle, repeat, volume, the output picker, and a waveform seek bar (or live waveform for radio). Click the track info area to open the Now Playing overlay.

Seeking

For normal PCM formats, seek uses the audio file timeline. For active DSD playback, Svarga performs a practical rebuild-at-position seek — this may briefly stop/restart the DSD engine and cause a DAC re-lock click. Expected behavior for v1.

Now Playing overlay

Now Playing gives the current track more room. Use it when you want larger artwork, a focused playback view, or to see the current track without browsing away from the library.

Output picker

The small speaker/network icon in the player controls, with three sections: Local, DLNA/UPnP, and Chromecast.

Local outputs

CoreAudio devices such as Mac speakers, external headphones, USB DACs, HDMI displays, and other macOS audio devices. Svarga's strongest signal-path claims apply to local wired, non-virtual outputs — especially USB DACs.

DLNA / UPnP

Lets compatible network renderers pull audio from Svarga over the local network — Sonos-style renderers are supported through this path. If a renderer doesn't appear: confirm it's on the same network, use Search for Renderers or Refresh, check discovery status in Settings, or use Connect by IP if the device is reachable but not discovered.

Chromecast

Lets Svarga discover and connect to Google Cast devices on the same local network. Network output is useful — it's also different from verified local USB bit-perfect output, and Svarga treats those claims separately.

Signal Path

Signal Path is the truth window. It shows source format, decoder path, DSP status, sample rate, hardware output, hog mode status, integer/path status, whether the current path qualifies as Pure Signal Path, and — for DSD — what transport is actually active.

Audio settings

Settings → Audio is where output behavior gets serious: output device behavior, bit-perfect/hardware path controls, DSD Delivery Mode, playback repeat behavior, DLNA/UPnP output, and Chromecast output.

DSD Delivery Mode

Svarga v1 exposes three modes:

• Auto — use unless you have a reason not to.
• DoP — for a DAC that supports DSD over PCM, when you want explicit failure instead of silent PCM conversion.
• PCM Conversion — when your output doesn't support DoP, or you're playing through speakers, HDMI, network output, or a non-DSD path.

Native DSD is not a v1 user-facing choice. On macOS, true native raw DSD is not a universal CoreAudio app path for class-compliant DACs.

DSP / EQ

Svarga's sound-shaping section has seven panels: EQ, Crossfeed, Preamp, Room Correction, Headphones, ReplayGain, and BPM.

EQ

Parametric equalization with presets and editable bands, for taste correction, speaker balancing, headphone touch-ups, and problem-frequency taming. If EQ is on, Pure Signal Path is off — not a tragedy, just honesty.

Crossfeed

Blends a portion of left and right channels to reduce extreme headphone separation on old stereo mixes.

Preamp

Applies global gain after EQ processing. Use negative preamp when EQ boosts may clip, ReplayGain needs headroom, or you want conservative gain staging — a common safe starting point for ReplayGain-heavy libraries is around −6 dB.

Room Correction

Imports filters from Room EQ Wizard. Workflow: measure your room in REW, export filters as text, import the file in Svarga, enable Room Correction. It can sound much better than "pure," but it is not bit-perfect.

Headphones

Includes built-in profiles derived from AutoEQ/oratory1990-style measurements and can import ParametricEQ.txt files — for known correction profiles or Harman-style correction.

ReplayGain

Normalizes perceived loudness. You can turn it off, use track or album-style gain modes, prevent clipping, and scan current track, album, or the full library. Excellent for sane listening volume — but it is gain processing, so it disqualifies strict Pure Signal Path.

BPM

Scans tempo and stores the result in the library — used for Mixtapes, DJ-style browsing, sorting out bad imported BPM tags, and finding rhythm-compatible tracks.

Library Sources

Settings → Sources manages where Svarga reads music from: Local folder, External USB drive, iCloud Drive, SMB share, AFP share, and scaffolding for Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, and pCloud.

For v1 practical use, local folders, USB drives, iCloud Drive, SMB, and AFP are the main paths.

Add a local folder

1. Open Settings → Sources.
2. Click Add Source.
3. Choose Local Folder.
4. Select the folder.
5. Click Scan.

Add an external drive

Use the External Drive source type. Svarga stores a security-scoped reference so it can find the folder again later, within macOS permission rules.

Add iCloud Drive

Use iCloud Drive if your library lives inside iCloud. Svarga handles files that may not already be downloaded locally.

Add SMB or AFP NAS

Use SMB Share or AFP Share. You'll enter server address, share/path details, display name, and credentials if required — stored in macOS Keychain. After adding the source, use Test, then Scan.

Metadata editing

Svarga lets you edit track metadata: title, artist, album, album artist, year, track number, disc number, genre, composer, BPM, comment, lyrics, ISRC, and artwork.

Intentional clears are respected — if you remove a field, Svarga doesn't immediately repopulate it behind your back.

Metadata auto-fill

Svarga can fetch missing metadata and enrich albums/artists from online sources: Auto-fill Missing Metadata, re-fetch genres from Last.fm, MusicBrainz search/edit flows, and album/artist info enrichment.

Metadata enrichment is cached in the library — the app doesn't repeatedly query every time you open the same album.

Last.fm

Settings → Last.fm lets you sign in for Now Playing updates, scrobbling, loved tracks, and artist/album enrichment. Browser sign-in opens Last.fm in your browser, and Svarga stores the returned session key in macOS Keychain.

Scrobbling happens after a meaningful listen threshold, not after a two-second accidental click.

CD ripping

Open CD ripping from Library Actions → Rip CD / Import Disc, or the Library menu. The workflow includes disc detection, output folder choice, format choice, rip progress, AccurateRip-related verification/reporting, Show in Finder, and Add to Library.

A rip can be complete, unverified, absent from AccurateRip, or in need of better drive/offset reporting — the goal is to show the difference rather than marking every result as successful.

Internet radio workflow

1. Open Radio.
2. Choose Favourites or Lossless Catalogue.
3. Filter by genre, era, quality, or search text.
4. Play a station.
5. Add stations to favourites with the heart/menu.

Radio shows station name, genre, quality badge, now-playing title/artist where available, artwork, station website, and a live waveform. You can suggest new stations for review — suggestions open in Mail and aren't automatically added.

DSD workflow

If you have a DSD-capable USB DAC:

1. Connect the DAC.
2. Select it in the output picker.
3. Open Settings → Audio.
4. Set DSD Delivery Mode to Auto or DoP.
5. Play a DSF or DFF file.
6. Open Signal Path.
7. Check the DAC display.

Expected behavior: DSD64 uses a 176.4 kHz DoP carrier, DSD128 uses 352.8 kHz, and DSD256 uses 705.6 kHz if the DAC supports it. The DAC display should show DSD when DoP is recognized. If your DAC doesn't recognize DoP, use PCM Conversion.

Network output and DSD

DSD over local USB DAC is one thing. DSD over network renderers is another. For v1, Svarga does not send raw DSF/DFF or DoP blindly to unverified DLNA renderers — Sonos is not a DSD renderer. If you're playing DSD and switch to a non-DSD network output, the correct behavior is warning, blocking, or conversion, depending on the supported path.

Privacy and storage

Svarga stores: library index in Application Support, artwork cache in Caches, library source configuration in Application Support, credentials in macOS Keychain, and DSP settings in UserDefaults.

Svarga does not need a subscription account to play your files. Last.fm is opt-in. Cloud provider credentials, where used, belong in Keychain.

Troubleshooting

The short version

1. Add your library.
2. Select your DAC.
3. Play a known-good album.
4. Open Signal Path.
5. Turn on DSP only when you mean it.
6. Use Radio and Mixtapes when you want discovery.
7. Use Sources when your music lives on iCloud, USB, or NAS.
8. Use DoP for DSD-capable USB DACs.
9. Use PCM Conversion when compatibility matters.
10. Enjoy your music without renting it back from someone.

That is Svarga: local-first, signal-path honest, and allergic to subscription fog.