Mac OS X Music Players - alternatives to iTunes

[Currawong]

Can anyone explain why so many Mac players don't allow navigation by folder tree? I really liked the demo of Swinsian but I dropped a line to the developer asking if he had any plans to introduce folder navigation and got a rather pompous, curt reply that it wouldn't be happening. I mean, why not? What harm would it do? My music is all organised neatly in a proper folder structure and it's all for nothing. I use JRiver right now but although it sounds great it doesn't half look ugly.

There's surely a market for a Mac Foobar equivalent.

 
Why not just use the Finder? You can set it so that music files will open with your favourite music player when you double-click on them easily enough. 

 

[Solrighal]

I don't want to have to type something every time I select music. I just don't get why it's so damned difficult for Mac developers to provide a function that's kinda there by default anyway. It's just willful ignorance.

 

[Yoga]

  I don't want to have to type something every time I select music. I just don't get why it's so damned difficult for Mac developers to provide a function that's kinda there by default anyway. It's just willful ignorance.

Is you music organised in Artist - Album format?

 

[Solrighal]

Is you music organised in Artist - Album format?

Yes it is. I started putting my CD's on hard drives in 2001 and I've always used that format. Back then I was quite naive and so tagging only really started in around 2005. That collection now stands at somewhere around 8000 albums. I'm gradually getting through the tagging but it's annoying when I can find any particular album in 5 seconds if I do it the old-fashioned way.

 

[Yoga]

Yes it is. I started putting my CD's on hard drives in 2001 and I've always used that format. Back then I was quite naive and so tagging only really started in around 2005. That collection now stands at somewhere around 8000 albums. I'm gradually getting through the tagging but it's annoying when I can find any particular album in 5 seconds if I do it the old-fashioned way.

In Audirvana 2, there is an Artist - Album filter. You can also choose any other filter type (bit depth etc)...
 


The browse section can be toggled/hidden with a click of the filter bar...
 


No different to navigating an Artist/Album directory structure. Easier, in fact (that's how I used to do it also).

 

[Solrighal]

It's not as simple as that because that method pre-supposes accurate tag meta data. It's not using physical location as a criteria so it will not be 100% accurate.

Here's the thing - I'm not asking the software to do anything it's not already doing in the background already. It has to know the physical location in the first place in order to play the file. All I'm asking is that I get to see that view too.

 

[Yoga]

It's not as simple as that because that method pre-supposes accurate tag meta data. It's not using physical location as a criteria so it will not be 100% accurate.

Here's the thing - I'm not asking the software to do anything it's not already doing in the background already. It has to know the physical location in the first place in order to play the file. All I'm asking is that I get to see that view too.

Indeed. Perhaps it's time you faced adding metadata :¬)
 
There are apps to help automate that.

 

[Krutsch]

 
In Audirvana 2, there is an Artist - Album filter. You can also choose any other filter type (bit depth etc)...
 

 
My music *is* really well tagged; what really sucks about Audirvana's filter, in this above case, is that it's ARTIST and not AlbumArtist (and no option that I can find to set that).
 
It's like we are back to 2004 with MusicMatch, using the "new" Audirvana UI; I swear, he's learning all of the same lessons everyone else learned 10 years ago about how to build a library manager.

 

[Solrighal]

I am updating my tags as we speak. I just resent that these developers can't implement such a bare-bones 'feature'. And don't get me started on why these playback programs sound different at all. I still can't get my head around that.

 

[Krutsch]

I am updating my tags as we speak. I just resent that these developers can't implement such a bare-bones 'feature'. And don't get me started on why these playback programs sound different at all. I still can't get my head around that.

Is it your experience that they *do* sound different?

 

[bixby]

Can anyone explain why so many Mac players don't allow navigation by folder tree? I really liked the demo of Swinsian but I dropped a line to the developer asking if he had any plans to introduce folder navigation and got a rather pompous, curt reply that it wouldn't be happening. I mean, why not? What harm would it do? My music is all organised neatly in a proper folder structure and it's all for nothing. I use JRiver right now but although it sounds great it doesn't half look ugly.

There's surely a market for a Mac Foobar equivalent.

Decibel does allow navigation by folder tree and it is one of the best sounding and lightest weight players available.  But don't look for lasting fm or scribbling  

 and all  the other bloat you get with many other so called players that are more social media engines.

 

[Lohb]

   
Why not just use the Finder? You can set it so that music files will open with your favourite music player when you double-click on them easily enough. 

An oldie but goldie for that music software launching connection. Preferences pane add-on. Still alive and working on OSX Mavericks.
 
http://www.rubicode.com/Software/RCDefaultApp/

 

[Solrighal]

Is it your experience that they *do* sound different?

Yes, they do. There's certainly a difference between JRiver & Vox anyway. Vox is very dark sounding.

Decibel does allow navigation by folder tree and it is one of the best sounding and lightest weight players available.  But don't look for lasting fm or scribbling    and all  the other bloat you get with many other so called players that are more social media engines.

Thanks for the suggestion. I actually tried out Decibel once but uninstalled it for some reason. I'll check it out again & see if anything has changed.

An oldie but goldie for that music software launching connection. Preferences pane add-on. Still alive and working on OSX Mavericks.

http://www.rubicode.com/Software/RCDefaultApp/

I'll look into that tonight when I get home, thanks.

 

[Lohb]

  2) Amarra - best Sound Quality - but slow as hell; It takes about a minute to start up on an iMac.
3) Audirvana - 2nd in Soundquality IMHO - fast and easy; Can play about anything out there - including ISOs - although a lot of people are complaining about the missing drag and drop feature from the previous version, I use it everyday for tagging and quickly finding things in my library.
4) Fidelia - SQ slightly below Audirvana - All the extras you have to pay for don't really improve the situation.
5) BitPerfect - Cool if you use ITunes a lot. SQ similar to Fidelia. Cool thing - it runs in the background and doesn't clutter anything. Just takes over the playback from iTunes.
6) PureMusic - SQ similar to Amarra  - but oh boy is this GUI ugly. Even the design of the icons sucks.

Was number 1 Decibel ?

 

[Solrighal]

The best interface I've ever used on a Mac was Cog but that got updated to remove the folder tree functionality. I think it was called progress.