The best music player software for Mac ? - Page 4

Quote:

Originally Posted by pigmode 

I was satisfied with each player, till I tried the next. 

LOL that is the absolute best and most concise summarization of the mental illness of compulsive audiophilia I have ever seen. Just replace the work "player" with headphone, amp, speaker, cable, whatever and you have a statement that is undoubtedly true! We're all nuts, but it's a fun kind of nuts :-)

Quote:

Originally Posted by sferic 

LOL that is the absolute best and most concise summarization of the mental illness of compulsive audiophilia I have ever seen. Just replace the work "player" with headphone, amp, speaker, cable, whatever and you have a statement that is undoubtedly true! We're all nuts, but it's a fun kind of nuts :-)

Haha so true.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZDrSitE4Ik&feature=player_embedded

Amarra might be expensive but is definitely the best one I've ever heard

I'm a Pure Music user, and have demo'd Amarra and Audirvarna Plus. I would say that Pure Music has the best iTunes integration, while the other two have their pluses and minuses in that department. Amarra seems to take a slight lead sonically though. Decibel and Fidelia are up for demo next.

If you have a DAC or usb to coaxial converter capable of integer mode, Audirvana Plus is the best on Lion and Mountain Lion, in my opinion.  I just picked up the Hiface 2 converter and with direct /integer mode enabled, Audirvana Plus is the best my system has ever been.  There is absolutely no veil and background is completely black.  Just feels like a direct feed into the music.  I saw Pure Music has integer mode but doesn't work on Lion or Mountain Lion yet.  Audirvana Plus found some work around to get this feature working.

Previously Amarra was my favorite sound wise, but always hated the interface.  Audirvana Plus was my favorite for usability but wasn't the most musical but direct mode really makes that big of an improvement.

Audirvana Plus beta:

http://audirvana.com/?p=304

You can also read 6moons.com review and at the end mention the beta with direct mode.

http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/players/1.html

I've recently switched from using Fidelia to Audirvana Plus.

The stability/performance seems to be a tick above Fidelia while sonically, I can't tell a difference between the two. The UI completely trumps Fidelia's size/skin in every way as well (IMO)

I like that I can use the media keys to control track selection, which wouldn't work on Fidelia.

The only issue I have is that the playlist doesn't allow header sorting but I hope that is addressed in the next version or an upcoming update.

Fidelia and Audirvana + is the best imo. I mainly use Fidelia atm as audirvana+ beta mess up spotlight.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mtkversion 

I've recently switched from using Fidelia to Audirvana Plus.

 

The stability/performance seems to be a tick above Fidelia while sonically, I can't tell a difference between the two. The UI completely trumps Fidelia's size/skin in every way as well (IMO)

 

I like that I can use the media keys to control track selection, which wouldn't work on Fidelia.

 

The only issue I have is that the playlist doesn't allow header sorting but I hope that is addressed in the next version or an upcoming update.

You can click in iTunes integreation mode and use iTunes as your interface.  Then in preference, iTunes tab, check all those boxes to achieve same sound quality as stand alone.  Only feature missing is the progress bar on the song while playing.  Think he's working on having the work even with boxes checked.

Out of all my players, Audirvana Plus is by far the best looking one as well as crashes the least from them all. Sound wise also a great option. Even though Amarra is better, I still prefer Audirvana + for its convenience. Simple, elegant and works.  

Quote:

Originally Posted by iamoneagain 

 

You can click in iTunes integreation mode and use iTunes as your interface.  Then in preference, iTunes tab, check all those boxes to achieve same sound quality as stand alone.  Only feature missing is the progress bar on the song while playing.  Think he's working on having the work even with boxes checked.

Cool, thanks for the heads up.

It doesn't bother me enough to run two apps though .. my laptop is a 2008 so I'm already maxed out at 4 gigs.  Still works fine so haven't felt the need to upgrade yet but 8 or 16 gigs of RAM would be nice in the near future.

Quote:

Originally Posted by paullindqvist 

Fidelia and Audirvana + is the best imo. I mainly use Fidelia atm as audirvana+ beta mess up spotlight.

How did you get Spotlight back in action?

Quote:

Originally Posted by eron 

How did you get Spotlight back in action?

Well i don't, unless i reboot...and once i started Audirvana spotlight is gone again until next reboot.

Do you have those optimizer checkboxes in Audirvana Plus checked?  I leave them all unchecked since I do other tasks when I'm playing music. It takes way too long for Spotlight to restart once you shut the program down.  If you use your Mac is mostly as a music server, then checking all those boxes is probably the best idea.

That's not the issue, the issue is that spotlight never get's restored if you have the system optimizer checked (spotlight isn't checked yet it's disabled until you reboot)

I prefere Fidelia over Audirvana, mainly because of the FHX crossfeed, it works amazing...