[whohasaquestion]

Hi, so far I've tried iTunes, Google play music. foobar2000, VLC and Vox.

The reason not to use iTunes is because I don't want to be bothered converting FLAC to ALAC.

Also the ease of use is secondary as I really want to get the best sound out of iPhone SE. So far, I want to say Vox sounds best to my ears. However, it seems to distort the treble and sounds rather bright. I don't know if it's just me so give it a try and perhaps we can build a consensus here.

FLAC (ALAC) used on all players except for Google play music.

 

[whohasaquestion]

I will start the review of each app...just to get the ball rolling

iTunes: Sounds great. The only complaint is I don't want to keep two copies of lossless format (FLAC, ALAC) of the same song, hence the birth of this discussion.

Google Play Music: Not compatible with lossless format. Big thumb down. Also sounded like everything is EQed to V shape even though I have it turned off. Convenient with free cloud storage but fidelity comes second, third or non-existent...

Foobar2000: Sounds a bit dry to me. Most feature-rich of all apps but the interface left something to be desired.

Vox: Dynamic and fuller sounding. However, it's often sibilant on treble. Again, EQ is turned off so I don't understand why I am getting sibilance from songs I don't get using other apps. Much more polished than Foobar2000.

 

[kvik]

There's already a thread about this in the portable source section
https://www.head-fi.org/threads/audiophile-ios-audio-player.699741/