Mac OS X Music Players - alternatives to iTunes

[DougofTheAbaci]

Never really tried MPlayer Extended, to be honest.
 
As for the largest files... My largest HD movie is 30.25 GB. But the file I noticed it worst was playing Ponyo (shush) which is only 9.39 GB. MPlayerX didn't do a great job on my laptop (Intel Core 2 Duo) but VLC Player was useless. Boxee did the best job.
 
I'm actually working on putting all my movies into Boxee and just using that. That way instead of browsing a long list of files I'm using a nice, clean interface and I don't have to put everything in iTunes.
 
With .ISO images, I've never really found a situation where I needed to play one. I either ripped them to MP4's or MKV's as tickled my fancy since you get a similar quality at half the file size (or less). HD movies are the same. There are very few movies that need to be that large. The largest I have is the extended version of The Lord of The Rings: The Return of The King, which is something like 4 hours long.

 

[Hero Kid]

And....... back on topic?

 

[uelover]

Yeah, was just suggesting that the use of VLC can enable one to play dvd from different regions and suddenly all the irrelevant things came in. Whatever it is, the player that does the job well is 'the' player.
 
 
Anyone who owns both Fidelia Advanced and Amarra care to compare the SQ between these two players? Amarra is buggy but the SQ is the best I have heard when played via its Playlist. My Fidelia expired 3 months ago and there is no way I could try it out anymore.
 
 
Edit: I went ahead and bought one to compare myself.

 

[Shiryu]

I got the evaluation for Fidelia, as I wanted to see if the grass was greener on the other side. For now, since my headphones aren't really "wide" (Oboe's from Wesc), I can't tell MUCH difference (unless with Isone VST, gives the music another "feel").
 
Since I'm upgrading to a more decent pair (sound quality wise) of portable headphones, I think that it'll be more obvious. Although, do you guys all use Fidelia with just isone and/or dither on or not? (I don't know what the latter does)
Will this provide a better sound than iTunes?
 
Only thing that's bugging me is that having Firefox open and just surfing causes stutter from time to time. Maybe I should contemplate upgrading RAM but I didn't think a C2D 2.26Ghz MBP (2GB Ram) should offer any problems for just playing music;

 

[Rdr. Seraphim]

I've been very happy with Pure Music (1.8a), but I recently upgraded to OS X 10.7 and the Lion release client of Pure Music. Anyone else have any experience with this combo? Any observations? 

 

[mrspeakers]

PM works fine, but the Integer mode has been dropped by Apple in Lion, according to Channel D.  
 
The very first time I used PM there was a lot of distortion, but rebooting made that go away and not return...

 

[Rdr. Seraphim]

Hmm... Integer mode is definitely in 1.81d5, and still show's up in the PM User's Guide (p24). Maybe, it was removed from an dot release? It show's up in Prefs. 

 

[mrspeakers]

I have 1.8a.  The Channel D support indicated it had been removed, maybe it was just changed.
 
I'll try D5.

 

[agentsim]

Integer mode is still included for users on 10.6, but it will not work on Lion. Lion has disabled Integer support for all programs.

 

[mrspeakers]

Can you actually USE Integer Mode?  It's in the UI but not selectable on my DACPort, which used to support it in Snow Leopard.  
 
 

 

[DougofTheAbaci]

I believe the word is that Apple removed the functionality from OS X Lion.

 

[mrspeakers]

Right, I think I am the one who posted "the word" based on Channel D's communication to me.  Just wanted to verify with agentism that he was not actually able to use the feature in case the original information was updated...

 

[kchapdaily]

has anyone tried neutrino? im downloading the trial right now. not sure if it will actually improve sound quality, but it has itunes integration like amarra.
 
http://machinecodex.com/neutrino/

 

[iamoneagain]

BitPerfect has been released in the app store:
 
link

 

[DougofTheAbaci]

Quote:

BitPerfect has been released in the app store:
 
link

 
...Has been compared with multi-hundred-dollar software in terms of sound quality and costs... $4.99. Go buy it.