[Currawong]

Quote:

Amos, do you not perceive any sonic merit to using VOX?  Why would it be classified as a non audiophile product?
 

Not sure to be honest. I was grouping the players according to their intended purpose.
 
Quote:

I have downloaded the trial version of pure music and while the SQ is definitely good, it kinda irritates me that it pops up my itune everytime the next track in my itune library was played.

You can switch this off in the preferences. Also, if you hide the application, it only shows as a tiny line that floats across iTunes to indicate that it is working.
 


Quote:

hey guys,
 
how long did it take Fidelia to load the Itunes Library in your experience? For me it just disappears and never comes back in the process of loading it... Seems to be very buggy...

 
I like Vox for the implementation of AU plug-ins. Would like that feature for Decibel too

The first few times I used it all sorts of things didn't work, now it works fine. I suggest not starting it up if you have any of the other music players open, especially if they are in interface "hog" mode.  I found using Decibel in hog mode would cause issues with Firefox because presumably flash couldn't access the audio interface.
 
Presently my favourite for sound quality is Fidelia using iZotope up-sampling and Dither. That's specifically for my system though, tested with a lot of Chopin to see which gives the most realistic piano (to my ears).

 

[uelover]

I went into preference but I couldn't find it. Maybe I have missed it.
 
Anyway, I second that Amarra sounds a little harsh but that was when I am using macbook pro --> stagedac --> aktimate speaker.
 
Out of curiosity I went to compare Amarra together with other players on macbook pro --> iqube v2 --> ck100. Surprisingly, the harshness is gone and Amarra sounded better (clearer) than Decibel on my iem. I guess its that my amp smooths out the edginess that makes it more pleasant to my ears.
 
It is just fun to switch around and determine which would sound best for you.
 
Fidelia looks promising. Perhaps they could have some introductory prices to head-fiers =D

 

[paconavarro]

Im enjoying very much Fidelia, I haven't got any problem so far with it, Im even using the iPhone app for remote control and its cool.
My first option was Play then I switched to Neutrino, I hope we have some prices soon for Fidelia cause it's noticeable the SQ in it.

 

[Mr.Sneis]

This is a great topic Currawong!  I have heard that Decibel will only be free for a little while longer, then it may cost some money to use.  I don't think we will be able to use the older versions because sbooth seems to build in expiring updates.
 
The good news is that sbooth mentioned it will be very much affordable so even if/when it starts costing money the cost will be something manageable.

 

[bulmanxxi]

UE lover, PureMusic should not be popping anything.  Just make sure to enable Memory Play and Track Pre-loading.
 
Adornoserbe, you should NOT need to load your iTunes library - it should already be linked under the iTunes Library below the Fidelia library.  If you iTunes library is not showing under the link, go to preferences>iTunes> and manually point to your iTunes Music Library.xml file.  That should do the trick.  But yes, it is a bit buggy, as it worked right away on one computer but took quite a few tries to work on a second one for the same reason.

 

[Irick]

iTunes is bit perfect if you turn off any mixers/auto-volume adjust, put the volume on max and pipe it through optical or USB audio. I'm pretty sure it is the same with most of the players on the list.
(PS: erf, not only did it not quote reply, but it didn't show me there was more then one page! what's going on with my browser today? =/)

 

[hdufour]

Quote:

hey guys,
 
how long did it take Fidelia to load the Itunes Library in your experience? For me it just disappears and never comes back in the process of loading it... Seems to be very buggy...

 
I like Vox for the implementation of AU plug-ins. Would like that feature for Decibel too

My library of ~4500 ALAC tracks took about 10 mins to show up.....I had only safari and mail open at the time, though I was playing a track in Fidelia for "testing" purposes....

 

[SoupRKnowva]

ive been a big fan of ayrewave for quite a while now, i think it does sound better than iTunes, so does audirvana. My only gripe is that lack of library support in either, though what i do is just make my entire library a playlist in Decibel(ayrewave) and just have it save the playlist, yeah it takes it a bit to open the program that way, but it works for me

 

[JamesMcProgger]

from all the list i just know songbird. which IMO is nowhere near Foobar2000, too bad foobar is only available for windows...
 
btw doesnt the zune softweare runs in MAC OS too? i think it does.

 

[elcoholic]

Would any of these really offer a significant improvement in either of these two playback modes - a) iMac head phone out to a receiver driving speakers or HP's or b) airport extreme with optical out to receiver?  Most of my serious listening is all analog.  Most of my digital music is CD's ripped with iTunes to 256k VBR, the priority was fitting 10,000 songs on my 80 gb iPod.  However I'm thinking about ripping my 1100 CDs in full res and going for higher SQ at work where I play my iPod through an Onkyo receiver and modded HP-1's.  This might lead me to do more serious listening on my main home setup as long as I can still use the remote app on my wife's touch and use my 3 airport extreme links.

 

[sphinxvc]

^ There's really no reason to rely on opinions, all these options are free to use or at the very least, free to try.
 
I think I hear a improvement going from iTunes to Fidelia but it's so imperceptibly small, if it exists at all, that I can't help but wonder if it's in my head.  And I'm sure it doesn't help that my usb input can only process 44/16.

 

[bulmanxxi]

Nothing wrong with using a receiver but instead of using the headphone out of the iMac use a TOSlink/fiber optical - it's actually a dual analog and digital output.  You will need a mini toslink adapter.  That should do it for you.  Airport express is convenience but there is a lot of opinions that it is not best for sound quality due to jitter.  In any case, if you can make a direct connection between your iMac and receiver via optical that should serve you well.  The headphone out of your receiver may not be "the best" but you'd have to check for yourself.  For speakers it should be fine.  If headphones is your main intent and you find that your receiver is not good enough, you could also try a cost effective solution such as the uDac-2 or uDac-2 (HP) which are both just around a $100 and sound pretty good with less demanding headphones.  It just depends on your equipment and preferences.

 

[bulmanxxi]

If you can, you should rip your CDs in lossless though as this is the most important factor - your source sound quality and resolution.  If your music is not as good as possible, nothing down the chain would solve that.

 

[turimbar1]

audirvana takes the cake for me, if it had an EQ and a binaural converter it would be perfect, I notice a difference between it and VOX (got max upsampling and hog mode on) but it could be placebo

 

[mrspeakers]

I rip lossless and switch between phones and using HDMI audio out on the Mac Mini to the surround processor, or via coax to my Burson.  I definitely appreciate the upgrade in SQ, but don't hear much when source is 256K, but as noted, it's FREE to try, so what harm in trying?