Mac OS X Music Players - alternatives to iTunes - Page 7

The "problem" may be the 256K rips.  HDMI or optical from the Mac Mini to your received should both be fine.  Not sure how you get coax out of the Mac Mini (unless you are going to your receiver first and then getting the coax from the receiver to the Burson) but, in any case, the digital connections should be fine.

Actually, HDMI to your receiver should be "technically" better than optical.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bulmanxxi 

The "problem" may be the 256K rips.  HDMI or optical from the Mac Mini to your received should both be fine.  Not sure how you get coax out of the Mac Mini (unless you are going to your receiver first and then getting the coax from the receiver to the Burson) but, in any case, the digital connections should be fine.

Oh, I totally know the 256 is the problem.  For music I like I've been repurchasing CDs.  No more online for me unless it's lossless 16/44.1, 24/88.2 or 24/96 FLAC.  

I get coax out via the HiFace adaptor (see my signature).  Up to 24/192 coax output.

First let me apologize for a very dumb question... but is Amarra really worth $695? For the people who have it, what benefits do you get with it? Thanks a lot for your comments.

MrSpeakers - got it on the coax.

JCvalenz - I only have the cheapest Amarra version - Amarra Jr.  It is buggy enough and SQ is not apparently better than the free options - Audirvana and Decibel.  It seems Amarra is seriously overpriced given the outstanding free options.  If you want to "pay" then Pure Music is a much much better value.  Fidelia may be a worthwhile option too, depending on its price when its released.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jcvalenz 

First let me apologize for a very dumb question... but is Amarra really worth $695? For the people who have it, what benefits do you get with it? Thanks a lot for your comments.

Only if you have at least $556 you don't care about.  Just joshing, I haven't played with Amarra.  But being more "purist inclined" I'd never touch most of the features, and it just seems extraordinarily pricey for what it does. 

As far as I could tell they license the iZotope software (doing this from memory, with a headache, so apologies if I'm mangling brand names), which Fidelia also uses.  Pure Music has their own engine, and Fidelia is going to be priced to compete with Pure Music, it seems.  So I'd look at Pure Music and Fidelia.  Again, they can be tried for free, so it'll be easy to decide if it's worth it to you to purchase....  And Amarra requires dongles, I'm told, which I find abhorent.  It's so early '90s.  

well, yes... on the other hand, come on now - many people here have spent that amount and more on a pair of cans, on cables (forsooth!), or even on stands. so why not if we are chasing the elusive last 5% of audio goodness? I personally have been focusing on getting the computer further away from the transducers, because even my mini server isn't completely silent, and I won't even mention the noises emitted by my laptop right now as I type this. anyway, for me the mac audio software isn't the most tractable bottleneck, there's cabling and software formats and tubes and other tweaks that will have more of an impact than whether or not I turn to PureMusic or Cog to play a Flac file here (I probably could not tell the difference without looking, but I haven't tried). if people are at the point where picking a dedicated apple-mac program is chosen, try anything that floats your boat.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jcvalenz 

First let me apologize for a very dumb question... but is Amarra really worth $695? For the people who have it, what benefits do you get with it? Thanks a lot for your comments.

I have heard alot of dumb questions before, and I dont think this is one of them. if you believe that an 800 dollar usb cable makes your DAC more "resolving" then yes I would get it, because you obviously have too much money. 

if you are a starving college student like me (who is using school and food and rent money to save up for a DAC), use audirvana (free!) or vox(also free!).

Quote:

Originally Posted by melomaniac 

well, yes... on the other hand, come on now - many people here have spent that amount and more on a pair of cans, on cables (forsooth!), or even on stands. so why not if we are chasing the elusive last 5% of audio goodness? I personally have been focusing on getting the computer further away from the transducers, because even my mini server isn't completely silent, and I won't even mention the noises emitted by my laptop right now as I type this. anyway, for me the mac audio software isn't the most tractable bottleneck, there's cabling and software formats and tubes and other tweaks that will have more of an impact than whether or not I turn to PureMusic or Cog to play a Flac file here (I probably could not tell the difference without looking, but I haven't tried). if people are at the point where picking a dedicated apple-mac program is chosen, try anything that floats your boat.

I think the key here is still "try it it's free" and anyone can decide if it's right for them.

But I actually do have some logic here, flawed though it probably is:  since iTunes will output bit perfect, unless you want a complete new UI and don't like iTunes, the real value to a paid player is upsampling and sample rate switching to avoid Audio Midi and lot's of iTunes relaunches.  

Upsampling can't "create" true missing data, though in some instance if the interpolotion is really good, it can synthesize it, but the real benefit is to get potential aliasing artifacts out of audio band.  And for this I really like the upsampling and it's easily worth the $130 for Pure Music, to me, others don't notice or aren't bothered by it and don't care.  I couldn't get Fidelia to run, but I really liked the way it looked, and they were super-response for customer support, but I had no time to spend on this so I will try in a few months when they have it stable.

The Amarra uses the same scaling engine as Fidelia, and is 1/5 the price, more or less, and provides a nice UI, so I just can't see needing Amarra unless you have some very specialized needs, and of course someone will.  Pure Music is totally utilitarian but sure sounds nice to me, and makes their own upsampler.

As you note, there are other areas to invest in and one I find valuable was adding HiFace, as a lot of 24/96 USB devices don't support 88.2 because they use the tenor chip, so 88.2K files downsample to RedBook, which just conceptually bugged me so much I had to find a solution.    The HiFace card worked for me after I upgraded the driver, as I could use coax, and both my USB devices that couldn't take 88.2 over usb could take it over coax.  That was definitely "extra 5% goodness" and totally made the most of Pure Music.  I think the coax sounds better, but I may just be imagining it too.  Haven't bothered to test A/B as I'm happy...

I just have to say that Clementine gives me fits about internet radio streams.  75% of the time, it fails to connect, whereas iTunes (and Foobar) work just fine.

Can someone give me a rundown of Izotope? is it a seperate program file that some of the Audio programs utilize to enhance audio output?

thanks,

Cuki

I've listened to Fidelia, Vox, and Play so far. Some of the other ones require Snow Leopard and I only have Leopard. =(

Out of those 3, I think I like Fidelia the best. The music sounds crisper compared to Vox, Play, and iTunes. I'm not audiophile by any means, so I'm not sure what it is that I'm hearing. It feels like the other plays have an extra "layer" and it doesn't sound as clear. I think iTunes sounds warmer compared to Fidelia and so do Vox and Play.

I think Play comes in under Fidelia for my preferences.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mrspeakers 


The Amarra uses the same scaling engine as Fidelia, and is 1/5 the price, more or less, and provides a nice UI, so I just can't see needing Amarra unless you have some very specialized needs, and of course someone will.  

 

I'm not sure what this means but I don't think Amarra sounds the same.  I have Amarra Mini and in cache/playlist mode, it sounds better than all the other players I've tried.  I really want to like another player's sound more because Amarra is buggy.  I thought Decibel sounded pretty good but then compared it again to Amarra and Amarra was clearly better.  I'll have to try Fidelia again, but I didn't even like the sound as much as Decibel.  I'm testing these only using optical but clearly hear differences between all these player with just 44/16 tracks.

Quote:

Originally Posted by leechi 

I've listened to Fidelia, Vox, and Play so far. Some of the other ones require Snow Leopard and I only have Leopard. =(

 

Out of those 3, I think I like Fidelia the best. The music sounds crisper compared to Vox, Play, and iTunes. I'm not audiophile by any means, so I'm not sure what it is that I'm hearing. It feels like the other plays have an extra "layer" and it doesn't sound as clear. I think iTunes sounds warmer compared to Fidelia and do Vox and Play.

 

I think Play comes in under Fidelia for my preferences.

I agree with this.  iTunes does sound a tad bit warmer & smoother as well.  

(Fidelia's support team replied to me & they won't be supporting the Apple Remote)

New version of Fidelia released just this minute, including "Advanced Settings". Check it out. $20 basis version and $50 for unlocking the advanced features.