[bixby]

VOX just sent an email. Looks like a major interface update, still free and leading to an in-app purchase for an internet radio.

Anyone try it out yet? I'll download it shortly and give it a try.

I'ts pretty good.  Depending on what dac I am using, different players can come out on top.  Using A+, vox, and VLC at the moment.
 
Oh, be sure to uncheck some weird surround sound tick box which is on by default.

 

[aamefford]

No time to try it out right now, but I did look over preferences. Looks like some cross feed options?

 

[bombjoke]

i like the interface of Vox.  (didnt notice any weird default box.)
i tried head-to-head with Decibel (ATH-AD900X playing bluette.flac (lots of creaking and lip pursing and licorice stick valve levers)) and if i did notice that Decibel sounded slightly more detailed, it was a tough call.  
 
what i did notice was that it was using as much cpu as clementine (which i use when im plugged into power).  but Decibel uses literally 1/10th the power of these, so i prefer decibel when on battery (using a fiio e11 to save just a bit more macbook air battery (if indeed that helps)).
 
does anyone know how to make decibel respond to the play control keys F6, F7, and F8?  either nothing happens, or itunes launches (always unwelcome with me).
 
has anyone heard of a product which is an extension to a headphone cord that includes a mic and pause/advance buttons?
 
i was wondering- is the first page of this thread kept updated with new entries, or, are they displayed on a table somewhere with a row that includes cpu use, price, active support, etc?
 
EDIT: i've been trying A+.  although the interface is a bit silly, im happy to hear a difference between it and clementine.  i like clementine for organizing and batch-editing tags, but i never suspected to hear a difference between them.  im not sure i could hear a difference between A+ and Decibel.  however, A+ uses about HALF the cpu Decibel does!   I tried with both flac and 320 (thinking maybe big data decoding would use more cpu than just pushing flac, but in both cases, A+ used half the resources of Decibel.  i checked both the cpu column, and the "energy impact" column.)  some very efficient code there!
 
also A+ responds to the play control keys F6, F7, and F8 while decibel doesnt.
 
SIDENOTE- my new headphones ruined So What (kind of blue take).  if you'd like this excellent track ruined as well, try not to hear a faint wet raspy buzz in the right channel from each miles puff at 0:58, 1:05,:08,:12,:19,:22,:26 and then back again at 8:21, and finally at 8:35.  i was listening to the 50th anniversary release at 320 and couldnt believe my "designed in japan" (made in china) headphones were having a right membrane problem within a month of purchase.  but i hear the same thing with se315.

 

[Slaphead]

EDIT: i've been trying A+.  although the interface is a bit silly, im happy to hear a difference between it and clementine.  i like clementine for organizing and batch-editing tags, but i never suspected to hear a difference between them.  im not sure i could hear a difference between A+ and Decibel.  however, A+ uses about HALF the cpu Decibel does!   I tried with both flac and 320 (thinking maybe big data decoding would use more cpu than just pushing flac, but in both cases, A+ used half the resources of Decibel.  i checked both the cpu column, and the "energy impact" column.)  some very efficient code there!

It's looks efficient, however what A+ does is that it reads the whole track into memory and at the same time processes it in one job lot, meaning all it's then got to do is feed the data from memory to the DAC which has very little processor overhead. If you watch the processor stats as A+ loads a track you'll see a huge spike in activity for a few seconds while it does all the pre processing and then virtually nothing.

With decibel it processes on the fly meaning that it's always using a bit of the processor.

In truth both probably use more or less the same total amount of processor resources but just do it in a different way. A+ gets the heavy lifting out of the way right at the start, and decibel does it as it goes along.

 

[snowshoe]

If you are using Mavericks, you can check how much energy each app uses over time in Activity Monitor.

 

[djsykez]

Hello guys... sorry for joining the party late.. but i felt this thread was the place i needed to post if i was to find a answer to my question... 
 
so the question in hand is the old iTunes alt software.... iv tried / researched all of these different music players in the list above and none of them cover everything i want.. 
 
what i need... 
 
i need a music manager software that can have unlimited amount of playlists and for the those playlist to pop up into there own windows (alot like iTunes 10) 
 
and i need these playlist to burn to Audio CD format 
 
i dont need / want Radio feeds or ipod sync etc etc,,, just something to play, manage and burn wav files 
 
reason for all of this, 
 
itunes 11 doesn't support the multiply windows / playlist players option any more. 
 
its all gone into one window and its become hard to navigate / pre plan my Dj sets.. 
 
 
honestly if anyone can help with this id be  very grateful 
 
Cheers 
 
Ned  

 

[tempest11]

  Hello guys... sorry for joining the party late.. but i felt this thread was the place i needed to post if i was to find a answer to my question... 
 
so the question in hand is the old iTunes alt software.... iv tried / researched all of these different music players in the list above and none of them cover everything i want.. 
 
what i need... 
 
i need a music manager software that can have unlimited amount of playlists and for the those playlist to pop up into there own windows (alot like iTunes 10) 
 
and i need these playlist to burn to Audio CD format 
 
i dont need / want Radio feeds or ipod sync etc etc,,, just something to play, manage and burn wav files 
 
reason for all of this, 
 
itunes 11 doesn't support the multiply windows / playlist players option any more. 
 
its all gone into one window and its become hard to navigate / pre plan my Dj sets.. 
 
 
honestly if anyone can help with this id be  very grateful 
 
Cheers 
 
Ned  

 
 
Hi Ned,
 
 
Have you looked at JRiver Media Center? I believe it supports most of your requirements. I know it can be really difficult to meet all of one's requirements with proprietary software but I think Media Center generally has enough features to keep everyone happy.

 

[tgrbin]

Hi,
 
I didn't like anything out there so I starting writing my own player.
I tried Cog, Vox, Clementine, and running QuodLibet which I used to use on linux.
Ended up using Cog until my player was usable enough.
 
You can try it out here, it's free and open source: http://tgrbin.github.io/Martin/
Here is a screenshot: http://tgrbin.github.io/Martin/images/screenshot.png
 
It displays your library's folder hierarchy in a tree pane on the left, from where you can search and drag and drop to tabbed playlists interface.
I like using folders to organize my music.
Search queries are just modifying that left pane folder tree.
 
It can't play FLAC files or URL streams for now.
Reproducing music wasn't written by me, I just use what's available in OSX framework.
There are no options regarding sound quality, equalization, normalization, or anything like that.
 
Memory footprint is not that low, because I decided to keep the whole library in memory so that searching and dragging around works very fast.
This comes to about 60Mb on 100Gb music collection, which didn't seem that bad to me.
 
I apologize if you encounter annoying problems, this is written only by me in my own time, I'm sure there are bugs I haven't found.
 
Thanks,
Tomislav

 

[stuartfang]

After researching and trying out many open source players (including Play and Cog, and Fluke plug-in for iTunes), I recommend Clementine. Does about everything and plays any format any specs with no problem; best free player, almost the same as foobar2000 but with different (more) features (such as internet radio, cloud play, streaming, syncing with devices etc.)
 

 

[bombjoke]

its my favorite as well.  also good for organizing, with batch tag editing and automatic tagging by looking up the sound signature in a db somewhere.  impressive.
it can get stuttery so you might need to increase the buffer in the settings.
the only drawback is that you pay for all this functionality in power, which is fine if you are plugged in.  but if youre running on battery power it will noticeably shorten your battery life.  so on battery i use decibel or A+ which use 10x less power according to the activity monitor.

 

[Red Jacket Mike]

I just downloaded the trial version of Audirvana Plus (the newest version 1.5.12).  In the past I've tried Pure Music (a couple of years ago--didn't like the interface, and it was just awkward to use) and more recently I've been using BitPerfect.  I use iTunes, and I have tracks with various sample rates (mostly ripped CDs, but some HD tracks 24/96 and 24/192, etc.).  I liked BitPerfect just because it would switch sample rates on the fly.  I didn't notice much of an audible difference with either it or Pure Music--I just wanted the memory play, hog mode, and auto switching of sample rates that iTunes alone couldn't handle.
 
It seems that with every OS X update, though, and/or with iTunes updates, BitPerfect would sometimes stutter and crackle when switching tracks.  I tried all of the suggested preference changes and fixes, and although it would work fine for awhile, it was never completely glitch free when starting new tracks.  
 
With Audirvana, I'm getting all of the above advantages; I get to use iTunes like I always have, I can use my iPhone or iPad as a remote, and there are absolutely no glitches or stutters when switching tracks.  Only silence.  If I'm playing a 24/96 track, I can double click on a 16/44.1 track on the fly, and after a second or two of silence, the new track will begin without issue.  (Not that I hop around that way when I'm listening, but if the software can do that, I'm happy).
 
And, in addition, I do hear, for the first time, an audible difference with Audirvana.  Everything is just a bit more spacious and open.  It's a slight difference with some recordings, and quite dramatic on others.  I'm going to spend some time with the trial version before I buy the license code, but so far it's looking good.
 
Also, some info that might be helpful to others:  I've just installed the newest Mavericks (10.9.2), along with the newest iTunes (11.1.5) and Audirvana + (1.5.12), and everything seems to work together very well so far, after a couple of hours of listening and playing with the settings.

 

[aamefford]

 

Spoiler: Warning: Spoiler!

I just downloaded the trial version of Audirvana Plus (the newest version 1.5.12).  In the past I've tried Pure Music (a couple of years ago--didn't like the interface, and it was just awkward to use) and more recently I've been using BitPerfect.  I use iTunes, and I have tracks with various sample rates (mostly ripped CDs, but some HD tracks 24/96 and 24/192, etc.).  I liked BitPerfect just because it would switch sample rates on the fly.  I didn't notice much of an audible difference with either it or Pure Music--I just wanted the memory play, hog mode, and auto switching of sample rates that iTunes alone couldn't handle.
 
It seems that with every OS X update, though, and/or with iTunes updates, BitPerfect would sometimes stutter and crackle when switching tracks.  I tried all of the suggested preference changes and fixes, and although it would work fine for awhile, it was never completely glitch free when starting new tracks.  
 
With Audirvana, I'm getting all of the above advantages; I get to use iTunes like I always have, I can use my iPhone or iPad as a remote, and there are absolutely no glitches or stutters when switching tracks.  Only silence.  If I'm playing a 24/96 track, I can double click on a 16/44.1 track on the fly, and after a second or two of silence, the new track will begin without issue.  (Not that I hop around that way when I'm listening, but if the software can do that, I'm happy).
 
And, in addition, I do hear, for the first time, an audible difference with Audirvana.  Everything is just a bit more spacious and open.  It's a slight difference with some recordings, and quite dramatic on others.  I'm going to spend some time with the trial version before I buy the license code, but so far it's looking good.
 
Also, some info that might be helpful to others:  I've just installed the newest Mavericks (10.9.2), along with the newest iTunes (11.1.5) and Audirvana + (1.5.12), and everything seems to work together very well so far, after a couple of hours of listening and playing with the settings.

 

Nice to hear - your listening setup sounds similar to mine.  I haven't upgraded to Mavericks in part due to worries over bit perfect, and the fact that we have an old whit macbook, and the iPhoto and aperture libraries sometimes become incompatible.  I'll give A+ a test drive when I'll have mer than an hour or two to play with it.

 

[JHern]

  I just downloaded the trial version of Audirvana Plus...With Audirvana, I'm getting all of the above advantages; I get to use iTunes like I always have, I can use my iPhone or iPad as a remote, and there are absolutely no glitches or stutters when switching tracks.  Only silence…audible difference with Audirvana.  Everything is just a bit more spacious and open.  It's a slight difference with some recordings, and quite dramatic on others...

 
I agree Audirvana Plus is quite nice, but there are a few annoying things you should know about. Some functions do not work while Audirvana Plus is running, even if SysOptimizer is turned off in the preferences. This includes audio from DVD Player or video clips (e.g., YouTube) from web browsers. Quicktime player cannot play movies. AppleTV does not work, when I try to mirror my display it drops the connection. Etc., etc.. Every time I find something strange has happened and all of a sudden simple things are no longer working on my MBP, then I find that quitting Audirvana Plus solves the problem.
 
It is maybe a minor annoyance, but I sure wish I could just pause the playback and have everything else on my machine work normally without the need to quit Audirvana Plus (then start-up again later when I want to listen to tunes).

 

[Red Jacket Mike]

Yes, I understand that--and I have the SysOptimizer turned on--this is on a headless Mac Mini, dedicated just for music playback.  I am controlling it from an iPad with Apple Remote.  I leave it on all the time, with iTunes and Audirvana (and formerly BitPerfect) launched and ready.  I'm listening to music right now, and typing this on another laptop.  
 
I can see that it might be an annoyance if you want to use the Mac for other things while you are listening, but in my situation it's fine.  I'm going to sleep on it, but I think I'm ready to plunk down my $74.00.  I've been listening for hours, and actually trying occasionally to get it to stutter, freeze or crash, and I've not been able to.  
 
I've got the prefs set to all of the options for improving the audio, except for the track position/time slider--for some odd reason, I like to have that working.

 

[ISeeDesignHer]

I LOVE Audirvana Plus 1.5.12 and I am using it in stand alone mode with 'Direct' and 'Integer Mode' options on, driving a Chord Electronics Chordette QuteEX 32b DAC with great results!
 
Super high resolution digital audio files with data rates all the way up to 24b/32b, 384 kHz PCM and DSD128 on DoP, both running on a late 2012 rMBP over USB, sound spectacular! 
 
However, when I "upgraded" from OS X 10.9.1 to 10.9.2, the "Prevent App Nap' option box in the Get Info window on Audirvana disappeared; this happened on most of my 3rd party software, BTW.
 
Now, I have to overwrite an NSAppSleepDisabled variable from command line in order to avoid kernel panics with 'spindump' logs reporting 'process Audirvana Plus[nnnn] caught causing excessive wakeups' - these system log errors occur immediately after hearing audio dropouts.
 
OS X (especially since Mavericks) has increasingly been embedding aggressive software techniques to extend battery life, and my resulting experience is that both coreaudio drivers and USB drivers are increasingly challenged to provide contiguous real time audiophile quality data flow from 3rd party digital players out through USB ports to external DACs!
 
For me, OS X 10.9.2 has removed the ability of the user to permanently preclude App Napping, resulting in dropouts and brief crash-and-restart events. There is a manual workaround, but this has to be applied at each and every launch.
 
There seems to also be an USB data buffer stream problem (deriving from using indirect, interrupt-based time stamping) that results in the dreaded IOAudioStream[0xffffff804677da00]::clipifNecessary() gap-generating excruciating loss of mid-stream data! This is NOT an Audirvana's issue but appears instead to be a DAC driver vulnerability that accrues from following Apple's recommended programming guidelines for indexing buffer time stamps.
 
Whether accidental or not, Mavericks appears to be less and less friendly to audiophile (read, "better than native iTunes") quality digital audio playback.
 
However, since it would be slow suicide for Apple to poison the audiophile excellence, much less usability, of OS X, I must believe that these easy to resolve but highly damaging problems will be addressed.
 
Anyone else experiencing either the unpreventable App Nap problem, or the clipifNecessary problem?
 
Please check your Console logs if you even think you heard a glitch, stutter or gap during audio playback. Suggested search terms are: 'wakeups' or 'clipifNecessary', although you can just look for crash reports for your audio player.
 
Audio SQ is finally catching up with retina video quality - let's not let this slip-slide away from us guys.