[treyking11]

hello all! the last piece of my puzzle for my office setup is the media player. just purchased the grace m9xx and will be running my denon d2000's from my macbook pro. not worried about cost, but the sound needs to justify it... is there really an audible difference? free would be best, but at this point $100 to tie it all together is not the end of the world. i have really nice lame-encoded variable bit mp3's along with some FLAC that are being played though itunes. streaming "might" be a possibility, since i am not sure i want to get into a subscription scenario, but those thoughts are welcome as well. any input is appreciated! thanks in advance!

 

[Defenz0r]

Free: Media Player Classic HC
Free&Customizable: Foobar2000
Convenience: JRiver Media Center.
 
For your Music best rip CD with Exact Audio Copy.

 

[treyking11]

ha! i use EAC with lame, funny you should bring that up. amazing sound quality without the crazy size that FLAC produces... thanks for the input!

 

[sterling1]

Your not playing FLAC files from iTunes. iTunes does not do FLAC. It will do AIFF, ALAC, AAC, WAV. and maybe MP3 but not FLAC.

 

[treyking11]

you are right, i listen to my FLAC files on my portable rig; sorry for the confusion. i would like to incorporate them into the mix, thats why i mention them. 

 

[HiFiGuy528]

sound quality alone, my vote is on Amarra by Sonic Studio
 
http://www.sonicstudio.com/amarra/products
 

 
On a side note. I wish people would stop using FLAC. IMHO, FLAC is the Flash of audio.

 

[Slogra]

Your comparison of Flac with Flash makes no sense at all. Flac is by far the best lossless format.

I wish people would stop using Apple products with all their limitations.

 

[manishex]

Bughead Emperor, dunno if it's Mac compatiable

 

[Richsvt]

I have been using Clementine for the Mac and works great. Nice features as well as great sounding playback...
 
https://www.clementine-player.org/about
 
Great alternative to iTunes.

 

[dockie7]

Media monkey is a good choice for me and its free.

 

[ExtremeGamerBR]

On a side note. I wish people would stop using FLAC. IMHO, FLAC is the Flash of audio.

 
Could you explain this comparison, please?

 

[treyking11]

yes, i am curious about this as well. 

 

[LajostheHun]

Hope you guys are not holding your breath on that one. ^^^^^

I use Music Bee it is also free and has a very good ripper as well.
Edit: it doesn't support Macs, oops!

 

[Neccros]

FLAC is like Flash???  Ummm SO what SHOULD I use??
 
FLAC is basically a perfect representation of all my CDs not to mention it has different levels of compression and can be converted into any number of other formats w/o losing the original source quality...
 
I never saw Flash do any of this, only crash my browser.

 

[gmplus]

JRiver