Mac OS X Music Players - alternatives to iTunes - Page 116

Quote:

Originally Posted by merkil 


How often does this player crash or freeze up your system? Is it pretty stable with all the newer updates?

This question goes out to all the audirvana plus owners.

Thanks

I'm using early '09 iMac and latest OS.  Only time I've every had issues if I was doing way too many things at once.  Like ripping a movie, having Aperture open, and playing Audirvana + at the same time.  But if I'm just surfing the web at the same time, I have no issues at all.  

I use integrated mode and it's pretty seamless. Just like using iTunes.  Only way I can tell it's Audirvana + is I have progress bar in iTunes disabled with one of the options.  I found leaving it working sometimes caused glitches if was looking at iTunes store at same time as Audirvana + was running.  With it disabled, no issues at all.  This toggle is in one of the preference tabs of Audirvana +.

If you upgrade the amount of RAM in the machine you could probably get away doing all of that at once.  I have a 10' Macbook with 8gb of RAM and I have used A+ with high res. while ripping a movie, and writing a paper with safari and word open with no pops or clicks or lag.

I also have 8gb of RAM.  The issue I had was the whole computer would automatically just restart. Might have been some kind of kernel panic. This could have been due the the direct/integer mode of the betas.  Don't think it was as stable at the point.  Only time had any skipping was on one of bad betas.  Now it works great.   

Amarra would still occasionally give me loud static, which is the worst thing you ask for.  Knocks you out of you seat.  BitPerfect was still having a problem with track listings if I don't play from a playlist.  Also doesn't sound nearly as good.  But since the latest version of Audirvana + sounds the best and is the most stable, I see no reason to use the other players anymore.  

I have finally uninstalled Fidelia, BitPerfect and Amarra from my iMac and has been using Audirvana Plus version 1.4.3 as my default player for at least a month. With integer mode, direct mode and exclusive access mode all turned on, maximum memory for tracks pre-load reduced from default to 5504 MB and running as standalone application without iTunes integration, it has never crash at all on the iMac (2.8 GHz Core i7, 16 GB DDR3 RAM, 256 GB SSD). The only sure way to crash this application is to quit the application by control-click on Audirvana Plus icon in dock and select Quit option (you can always quit in other ways). Since any playlist in iTunes can be imported easily into Audirvana Plus, I see no reason to run it with iTunes integrated mode. In fact when running as standalone application, the CPU time is the minimum compared to other players when monitored with Activity Monitor in Mac OS 10.8.2. So final verdict is to set parameters according to hardware specifications of your Mac and external DAC (first step is to reduce real memory usage by reducing memory allocated for tracks pre-load to much lower setting than default) and don't run it in iTunes integrated mode and don't think that you can run unlimited number of applications simultaneously with no respect to your Mac hardware specification (particularly on notebook computer with limited resources).

iTunes sucks big time in term of playback sound quality (flame not warranted if you have sub-standard audio equipments less than USD 1000 as sound quality is not distinguishable) , so it is used only for syncing my iPhone 5 and iPad mini.

In fact BitPerfect (iTunes required) and Amarra (no real-time up-sampling and ugly/slow interface) are far more unstable and slow than Audirvana Plus, so there are just two options for me: Fidelia 1.2.1 in advanced mode (USD 20 + USD 50) or Audirvana Plus 1.4.3 (USD 70). Since I want to bypass Apple's Core Audio and iTunes all together, and I want minimum effort in tweaking parameters, Audirvana Plus is selected over Fidelia.

Quote:

Originally Posted by littletree76 

I have finally uninstalled Fidelia, BitPerfect and Amarra from my iMac and has been using Audirvana Plus version 1.4.3 as my default player for at least a month. With integer mode, direct mode and exclusive access mode all turned on, maximum memory for tracks pre-load reduced from default to 5504 MB and running as standalone application without iTunes integration, it has never crash at all on the iMac (2.8 GHz Core i7, 16 GB DDR3 RAM, 256 GB SSD). The only sure way to crash this application is to quit the application by control-click on Audirvana Plus icon in dock and select Quit option (you can always quit in other ways). Since any playlist in iTunes can be imported easily into Audirvana Plus, I see no reason to run it with iTunes integrated mode. In fact when running as standalone application, the CPU time is the minimum compared to other players when monitored with Activity Monitor in Mac OS 10.8.2. So final verdict is to set parameters according to hardware specifications of your Mac and external DAC (first step is to reduce real memory usage by reducing memory allocated for tracks pre-load to much lower setting than default) and don't run it in iTunes integrated mode and don't think that you can run unlimited number of applications simultaneously with no respect to your Mac hardware specification (particularly on notebook computer with limited resources).

 

iTunes sucks big time in term of playback sound quality (flame not warranted if you have sub-standard audio equipments less than USD 1000 as sound quality is not distinguishable) , so it is used only for syncing my iPhone 5 and iPad mini.

 

In fact BitPerfect (iTunes required) and Amarra (no real-time up-sampling and ugly/slow interface) are far more unstable and slow than Audirvana Plus, so there are just two options for me: Fidelia 1.2.1 in advanced mode (USD 20 + USD 50) or Audirvana Plus 1.4.3 (USD 70). Since I want to bypass Apple's Core Audio and iTunes all together, and I want minimum effort in tweaking parameters, Audirvana Plus is selected over Fidelia.

That's not necessarily true but OK.

I really like Audirvana Plus but the "hog mode" kind of gets annoying for me to toggle, or just quitting Audirvana Plus for other audio playback.

I would agree that Audirvana Plus is the new big player in the audiophile market and the best value for its feature set.

Amarra: clunky, ugly, and slow, lacking basic features such as exclusive access, meters, transport (a usable one at any rate), and it is priced far higher than comparable players . It reacts like it is programmed in BASIC. If the programmers can't program a simple clean interface, why should one trust their audio programming skills?

Fidelia is much better. I think it trumps Audirvana Plus and clearly puts Amarra to shame in interface and features (until Audirvana update with VST support in the next version), and hopefully though not announced: level meters. But Fidelia is substantially more resource heavy, often causing my computer's fans to start running. Decibel is set to default player on my system since it is the only audiophile player that will launch tracks when double-clicked from the Finder.  

Of these players, Audirvana Plus is the only one I do not own, but I probably will stop paying for updates for the other players and switch over in the future. I used the 15 day demo and was disappointed to see it go. Since my demo copy expired, Audirvana has received several substantial updates with intriguing features. While Amarra sees the occasional update, there is little or no difference other than claimed "audio performance improvements." Meanwhile, the interface continues to dutifully salut DOS 1.0. 

+1 for Audirvana.

Been using Audirvana Plus for the past week (just purchased it) and absolutely love it.  The sound quality is great, quite a step up from Decibel and Bitperfect.  Not too diss either of them since they are great alternatives to iTunes playback which IMO is terrible.  Before upgrading, I would get clicks and pops and overall "unclean" sound from iTunes.  Audirvana is just the opposite, I would call it "pristine" sound.  Not only that, the interface just right, clean and uncluttered.  BTW, using the v-dac II and playing either apple lossless or 24 bit/96 files from HDtracks and LinnAudio.  

I have forgotten to mention that I purchased Fidelia because I wanted standard AU/VST plugin to create warm tube sound as all my audio gears have neutral sound signatures. Only Fidelia and Pure Music accept standard formats (AU/VST) audio plugins (pick your audio preference here: http://www.macosxaudio.com), hopefully Audirvana Plus will follow suit. After listening to warm tube sound for a while, I realised that it does not suit all music genres (good for vocal but bad for instrumental), thus my preference right now is still neutral and transparent signature. Pure Music requires iTunes to work as plugin and there is no standalone version.

Thus if you want high fidelity without additional audio processing, go for Audirvana Plus and if you need tweaking in sound profile with AU/VST plugins, go for Fidelia (advanced mode). Audirvana Plus, Fidelia and Pure Music are the three alternative media players that have impressed me most but Pure Music need iTunes to work though it has the most features among these media players.

It seems that Audirvana+ wins the glorius battle of the OSX music players :)

Folks, what do you think about the forthcoming release of Mac version of JRiver Media Center? I'm personally curious about it :).

Quote:

Originally Posted by GarySaville 

I would agree that Audirvana Plus is the new big player in the audiophile market and the best value for its feature set.

Amarra: clunky, ugly, and slow, lacking basic features such as exclusive access, meters, transport (a usable one at any rate), and it is priced far higher than comparable players . It reacts like it is programmed in BASIC. If the programmers can't program a simple clean interface, why should one trust their audio programming skills?

Fidelia is much better. I think it trumps Audirvana Plus and clearly puts Amarra to shame in interface and features (until Audirvana update with VST support in the next version), and hopefully though not announced: level meters. But Fidelia is substantially more resource heavy, often causing my computer's fans to start running. Decibel is set to default player on my system since it is the only audiophile player that will launch tracks when double-clicked from the Finder.  

Of these players, Audirvana Plus is the only one I do not own, but I probably will stop paying for updates for the other players and switch over in the future. I used the 15 day demo and was disappointed to see it go. Since my demo copy expired, Audirvana has received several substantial updates with intriguing features. While Amarra sees the occasional update, there is little or no difference other than claimed "audio performance improvements." Meanwhile, the interface continues to dutifully salut DOS 1.0. 

I mostly agree ! :D

Quote:

Originally Posted by hubee 

It seems that Audirvana+ wins the glorius battle of the OSX music players :)

 

Folks, what do you think about the forthcoming release of Mac version of JRiver Media Center? I'm personally curious about it :).

I still think Amarra reigns the favorite.

The JRiver port has a long way to go, but I'm very excited.

Quote:

Originally Posted by paradoxper 

I still think Amarra reigns the favorite.

 

The JRiver port has a long way to go, but I'm very excited.

We should set up a poll and see what's what.  

Quote:

Originally Posted by hubee 

I mostly agree ! :D

To be fair, I should note I like the sound signature of Amarra despite myself. I know objectively that I should not hear any difference between Fidelia & Amarra since they both claim to be bit perfect, but with certain genres, Amarra seems to have more detail and impact in the bass. Amarra sucks to use, but I would not knock its sound quality.

I've been playing around with Bitperfect, Pure Music and Audirvana Plus.  I like iTunes so it had to work well with it.  Audirvana Plus is the first one I tried that I could hear a difference.  The others I thought made a little difference, but I switch to A+ and enjoy it more.  It has never crashed and integtrates with iTunes.