[ccklone]

Quote:

has anyone tried "Hear" software audio EQ for the Mac? It's a system wide EQ app that works in the background and has many tweaks like up to 96 band EQ, 3D effects, Limiter, Fidelity changes, and a whole lot of other things. It goes fairly deep in sound in how you'd like to change your sound. I just got it and the settings are a bit overwhelming. I just wanted to know if any of you Mac users have tried this EQing method. 

Hey Now,
 
I got HEAR back in December 2008. It really helped my desktop speakers out (Harmon Sound Sticks), it sounded much fuller and dynamic. The EQ settings can get overwhelming. I used the stored settings as a baseline and tweaked from there. It was kind of fun playing around to see how the different effects changed the sound signature. Learned a little bit along the way.
 
Before HEAR, there was a program called Volume Logic which did a very similar dynamic on the fly processing of the sound. It died with OS X upgrades. I think it might still be available on Windoze. It was easier to use.
 
I don't use HEAR much anymore. I am running the data stream out to a DAC and then feeding some Audio Engine A2s, Sound Sticks are long gone 8^). I might have to start HEAR up again and give it a twirl, it has been a while.
 
--
Finest kind,
Chris
 

 

[holland]

Fidelia and Decibel don't support cuesheets.  half my library is with cue and a single flac or ape image.  bummer.  
 
Fidelia seems bright.  I can't tell if it's boosted or not.  I'd have to compare to my main system.
 
Audirvana and Decibel can't control the volume on my DAC.
 
I don't know...this Mac stuff isn't all that great.  I can't find anything with the features I'm used to (foobar2000) and the lack of libraries are annoying.  Not to mention the lack of all the codecs I have used in the past, flac is just one of them, but I have ape as well.

 

[ccklone]

Hey Now,
 
I played around with Hear again last night. I have also been testing out Pure Music as well. Hear actually can control the output of PM as well as iTunes. I was able to adjust the sound to increase the bass a bit for the Fostex T40s and reduce the treble on the SR325s and then save the profile for each headphone as separate presets. I used the pre-stored headphone settings (of which there are many) as a baseline and worked from there. 
 
I am going to futz with Hear some more with the other headphones and see what happens. I did notice that with newer recordings the settings I saved sounded pretty good, but the same setting on older recordings didn't sound as good. I am going to inventory these settings on different genres and recordings. It is a highly adjustable application with a somewhat steep learning curve. I'll admit, when I got Hear I set it up to improve the sound of the Sound Sticks and basically, set it and forgot it. Now this idea of making custom settings for different headphones sounds kind of fun. Off to listening and learning some more 8^).
 
--
Finest kind,
Chris
 

 

[elcoholic]

I can't imagine an equal or better music manager than iTunes for the price ($0), especially since I use an iPod for portable music.  The players that seamlessly integrate with iTunes hold some appeal for me.  That said what happens when the next iTunes update comes along?  Anybody have experience with that?

 

[middachten]

 
After reading a lot about all these audio players for OSX I thought I'd just try some for myself. 
 
My test setup: Macbook Pro > TC-Konnekt 24D (FireWire) > Straightwire Rhapsody > Stax SR404/SRM-1MkII
 
The Software I tried: Audirvana, Clementine, Decibel, Fidelia, iTunes, Pure Music, VLC and Vox.
 
The music:

1. Spanish Harlem / Rebecca Pidgeon
2. Ganges Delta Blues / Ry Cooder + V.M. Bhatt
3. Famous blue raincoat / Jennifer Warnes

 
I choose the first two tracks because I have the original CD release and the recent 24/96 release on HD-Tracks of both tracks. I included Famous blue raincoat (16/44.1) because I think its still a great recording and I use it for more than 20 years now to evaluate audio equipment. All songs where played from FLAC files.
 
Until recently I always used VLC to play a few tracks, or iTunes for albums and playlists. The main reason for using VLC was that it plays everything you throw at it. I don't know of any other player that is able to play so many audio/video formats.
 

The comparison

Overall there are 3 leagues for me:

• players that sound significantly better (Decibel, Clementine, Fidelia and Vox)
• average players (VLC, Audirvana)
• players that don't play the tracks in the first place (iTunes, Pure Music)

 
IMO the differences between these players within the same category are noticeable, but not huge. 
 
All players in the first category had a few things in common: better details, wider soundstage, smoother highs and more controlled bass. I found Decibel and Fidelia sounding best, both in 'exclusive mode'. Where Decibel had slightly smoother highs and more lucid mids with the 24/96 recordings.
Clementine came quite close. In comparison it is losing some detail and soundstage.
Vox was also good, but there seems to some sort of loudness curve going on. Slightly increased bass and highs. Soundstage and detailing are slightly less good, but only by a small margin. If there is some DSP involved here, its incredibly good! Nice for late-night listening, but I prefer to use an equalizer that can be switched off. NB: be aware to check the audio settings. Standard it re-samples to 44.1k! 
 
In this category Clementine has by far the best library support. Vox and Fidelia support the use of AU plugins. Vox already includes several cross-feed plugin options. but you can also use an AU plugin such as Canz3D.  
As far as I could find out only Fidelia and Decibel give manual control over the sample rate settings. Allowing to choose the original sample rate of the song. I noticed that Clementine also does this(by watching my TC-konnekt panel while switching tracks), but there is no setting to choose for fixed sample rate.
 
The second category only disappointed me. I had never realized that I was missing out on such a noticeable improvement by using VLC. The soundstage is small, two dimensional and lacks detail. The bass is a bit muffled and the highs rather rough. 
Surprisingly enough the same applies to Audirvana. Only with 24/96 it sounded better than VLC. Not worth keeping on my system though……
 
The third category is simply not interesting for me. Since I have my entire CD collection ripped in FLAC, and bought several HD albums in the same format.
 

Conclusion

Overall I found Decibel the best sounding player. Clementine is not far off, and has good library support. Apart from the nice interface, I see no additional value in Fidelia.
 
so I have decided to keep Clementine

 as my 'general player' and use Decibel

 when I want to sit down and only enjoy music. 
VLC will stay on my system, but only because I might need it when I want to play some sort of exotic format (SF2 anyone

)
And iTunes will also stay on my system because……, well just because?
 
All the others are removed to make space for some music

 

[JIGF]

 
Quote:

I found Decibel and Fidelia sounding best, both in 'exclusive mode'. Where Decibel had slightly smoother highs and more lucid mids with the 24/96 recordings.
Clementine came quite close. In comparison it is losing some detail and soundstage.
 
Conclusion
Overall I found Decibel the best sounding player. Clementine is not far off, and has good library support. Apart from the nice interface, I see no additional value in Fidelia.
 

 
That echoes a lot what I have been listening, although I did like Fidelia for speakers (not headphones).
 
Edit: Great post btw.

 

[kwkarth]

Quote:

After reading a lot about all these audio players for OSX I thought I'd just try some for myself. 
 
My test setup: Macbook Pro > TC-Konnekt 24D (FireWire) > Straightwire Rhapsody > Stax SR404/SRM-1MkII
 
The Software I tried: Audirvana, Clementine, Decibel, Fidelia, iTunes, Pure Music, VLC and Vox.
 
The music:

1. Spanish Harlem / Rebecca Pidgeon
2. Ganges Delta Blues / Ry Cooder + V.M. Bhatt
3. Famous blue raincoat / Jennifer Warnes

 
I choose the first two tracks because I have the original CD release and the recent 24/96 release on HD-Tracks of both tracks. I included Famous blue raincoat (16/44.1) because I think its still a great recording and I use it for more than 20 years now to evaluate audio equipment. All songs where played from FLAC files.
 
Until recently I always used VLC to play a few tracks, or iTunes for albums and playlists. The main reason for using VLC was that it plays everything you throw at it. I don't know of any other player that is able to play so many audio/video formats.
 

The comparison

Overall there are 3 leagues for me:

• players that sound significantly better (Decibel, Clementine, Fidelia and Vox)
• average players (VLC, Audirvana)
• players that don't play the tracks in the first place (iTunes, Pure Music)

 
IMO the differences between these players within the same category are noticeable, but not huge. 
 
All players in the first category had a few things in common: better details, wider soundstage, smoother highs and more controlled bass. I found Decibel and Fidelia sounding best, both in 'exclusive mode'. Where Decibel had slightly smoother highs and more lucid mids with the 24/96 recordings.
Clementine came quite close. In comparison it is losing some detail and soundstage.
Vox was also good, but there seems to some sort of loudness curve going on. Slightly increased bass and highs. Soundstage and detailing are slightly less good, but only by a small margin. If there is some DSP involved here, its incredibly good! Nice for late-night listening, but I prefer to use an equalizer that can be switched off. NB: be aware to check the audio settings. Standard it re-samples to 44.1k! 
 
In this category Clementine has by far the best library support. Vox and Fidelia support the use of AU plugins. Vox already includes several cross-feed plugin options. but you can also use an AU plugin such as Canz3D.  
As far as I could find out only Fidelia and Decibel give manual control over the sample rate settings. Allowing to choose the original sample rate of the song. I noticed that Clementine also does this(by watching my TC-konnekt panel while switching tracks), but there is no setting to choose for fixed sample rate.
 
The second category only disappointed me. I had never realized that I was missing out on such a noticeable improvement by using VLC. The soundstage is small, two dimensional and lacks detail. The bass is a bit muffled and the highs rather rough. 
Surprisingly enough the same applies to Audirvana. Only with 24/96 it sounded better than VLC. Not worth keeping on my system though……
 
The third category is simply not interesting for me. Since I have my entire CD collection ripped in FLAC, and bought several HD albums in the same format.
 

Conclusion

Overall I found Decibel the best sounding player. Clementine is not far off, and has good library support. Apart from the nice interface, I see no additional value in Fidelia.
 
so I have decided to keep Clementine

 as my 'general player' and use Decibel

 when I want to sit down and only enjoy music. 
VLC will stay on my system, but only because I might need it when I want to play some sort of exotic format (SF2 anyone

)
And iTunes will also stay on my system because……, well just because?
 
All the others are removed to make space for some music

Well done!  Thanks for the write up!

 

[khollister]

I agree that Fidelia and Decibel are the best sounding players along with the insanely expensive (and buggy) Amarra. I think Fidelia is a little more detailed, has greater depth, but has a very slight edge (not brightness, but a harder edge to transients) and a very subtle midrange coloration I don't like on the HD650's (which could also be what gives the greater perception of depth. Decibel is smoother sounding (and not in a necessarily good way), but is slightly more effortless sounding and the midrange doesn't have the very slight hooded or honkiness I sometimes think I hear in Fidelia. I still think Amarra has the best sound overall, but it is hard to deal with due to quirkiness and bugs. 
 
On the other hand, Fidelia definitely sounds much more resolving and dimensional with 96/24 material - go figure.
 
Love the feature set of Fidelia (the IOS remote app is reall handy), the sound of Amarra and the simplicity of Decibel.
 
Audirvana and Pure Music don't get for me sound-wise.
 
I also feel that there is a very slight improvement in the sound of playing back uncompressed audio (AIFF) versus ALAC or FLAC. Perhaps some additional overhead in realtime expansion of the lossless compressed files? 

 

[limpidglitch]

I read all these testimonial of improved sound quality using Fidelia, Amarra and other players of their ilk, over iTunes, but could someone please tell my why this should be so?

 

[bixby]

Quote:

I read all these testimonial of improved sound quality using Fidelia, Amarra and other players of their ilk, over iTunes, but could someone please tell my why this should be so?

there is no answer to this riddle, grasshopper

 

[JIGF]

 
Quote:

I read all these testimonial of improved sound quality using Fidelia, Amarra and other players of their ilk, over iTunes, but could someone please tell my why this should be so?

You'd have to ask a software programmer.

 

[limpidglitch]

So we're left with just assuming? That's not very satisfying.

 

[aamefford]

Regarding Clementine:
 
I have tried to play from my itunes music folder, and by importing the library and I get:
 
 
 
Can anyone offer any help?  Nothing obvious jumped out at me.  File is either apple lossless or AAC.
 
EDIT - Never mind - AAC plays, ALAC (Apple Lossless) does not.  So - Transcode from ALAC to FLAC to use Clementine - one point down on Clementine for me.

 

[vert]

Audrivana has integer mode now. I preferred Decibel easily before, but with the integer mode Audirvana sounds really good. Don't think it's as stable though.

 

[AVU]

Fidelia sounds quite good. Sometimes as good or even better than Decibel.  They are both very similar.  But after a lot of A/Bing, I still prefer Amarra 2.1 (full version) - it's fuller and richer, without sacrificing any detail.  It just sounds more lush and musical, with greater bottom end, at least on my JH13s.