[escaflo]

Hey guys, just wanted some opinion....

I might be moving to a Mac soon and I don't really want to use iTunes to organize my music. Most of my music is in FLAC and currently I am using J. River Media Center for my music library. I am thinking of running Parallels/Vmware Fusion just for the purpose so that I can continue using J.River Media Center but I am wondering if it is possible to use ASIO4ALL when using Parallels/Vmware. I assume that I would need that in order to bypass the Windows XP kmixer in Parallels.

Or do you all have any good library management program for Mac that you think is better than iTunes? Don't necessarily have to be free. I just want something that's close to or as powerful as J.River Media Center.

This is going to be my first Mac and as such, I am pretty noob in terms of the applications available for Mac. Let me know if there's any other thing that I need to look out for for the best sound quality.

I would be using Stello DA00 with the Mac. I assume that there would be no problem with it?

Thanks a lot!

 

[bigshot]

If you aren't going to use iTunes, you shouldn't use a Mac. There really isn't anything as good as the synergy between iTunes and OSX. If you are definitely going Mac, you should look into transcoding your flac to Apple Lossless somehow.

See ya
Steve

 

[Macwizard]

I use a mac and find cog plays all of my flac with perfect gapless and sounds better than itunes. Although much simpler and not as smooth as an interface as foobar, it does the job nicely. itunes does the ipod job well, but just sucks for the hi-fi guy.

 

[n4k33n]

Go to jackaudio.com and install the jack low latency audio stream router. Follow the instruction for the mac and VLC. This is the best solution I have found.

 

[gz76]

DA100 works flawlessly with the Mac - both optical and USB.

If you do opt for iTunes (works great for me, but you'd have to transcode to Apple Lossless), you can also stream your music wirelessly to an AirPort Express, then optical out into the DA100 if you want to. Of course, there are most likely ways to do this without iTunes too, but I doubt any of them will work so easily!

 

[Oliver :)]

I have no idea why anything on a Mac should sound "better" than something else unless there was some tinkering done / "enhancement" de/activated. Otherwise, the Mac puts out a bit perfect signal, period.

 

[escaflo]

Hi, I am not opting for anything to sound better.. I know from what I read is that Mac is capable of outputting bitperfect as long as we turn off everything.. and set volume to the max.

The problem is that I've gotten use to J.River Media Center for organising my songs and I've tried iTunes for Windows before and I am not too excited about its library organisational capabilities. I wanted to be able to use something like Media Center .. or just use Media Center on OS X. Of course I can do that using Parallels or VMware Fusion. But if I am not wrong, since I will still be playing through Windows XP (albeit on a virtual PC), the sound would still be resample by the Windows XP kmixer and thus the question of asking whether it is possible to use ASIO4ALL in Parallels or VMware fusion.

Thanks for all the suggestion so far though.. and I am thinking of whether should I just try to get use to iTunes for now before I buy my Mac..

Cheers!

 

[KenW]

I was in a similar situation a while back. Loved foobar and hated the thought of giving it up. To the point....I use iTunes exclusively now. Even have ipod portables. Just so darned convenient. Even re-ripped all my music into AAC and ditched my vbr mp3 database. Still have everything in FLAC as a backup but once you get into that Mac, you'll find yourself thinking less and less of what you left behind in Windows. Once I learned my way around iTunes, it's really quite a handy and nice way to manage your music. Give it a chance.

 

[n4k33n]

You guys could always install the X11 libraries and fink, and use Amarok instead, which is nicer than either foobar or itunes.

 

[escaflo]

Amarok sounds nice. Use it for a while before when I was using Ubuntu. Is it easy to get Amarok working on OS X? If it is not too much of a problem.. then I might give it a try.

As for iTunes, yeah I do have iPod as well. I guess I really do have to give iTunes a try as well. Hopefully it can do things the way I want it to.

Cheers for all the comments and suggestions.. keep 'em coming in..

 

[n4k33n]

Its not very hard to get running in OSX. You need to install the developer tools + X11 (it came with the computer). Then install fink (fink.sourceforge.net). Then follow the instructions installing that and install amarok. Not only can you run amarok on osx, you can run many gnu (linux) programs. I would be lost without them, as many are far superior to their osx equiv.

 

[bigshot]

Quote:

Originally Posted by escaflo /img/forum/go_quote.gif The problem is that I've gotten use to J.River Media Center for organising my songs and I've tried iTunes for Windows before and I am not too excited about its library organisational capabilities.

iTunes is integrated totally into the OS. What may not have made sense on windows will make perfect sense on OSX. Organizational capabilities are exactly what iTunes excels at. I have a massive iTunes library with multiple libraries, all organized by genre. No other program would make loading my iPods so easy.

See ya
Steve

 

[johnas]

Hi,
You can import and play your Flac and OGG files in Itunes using the XiphQT component for OSX. You don't need to convert your Flacs to use them with iTunes.
See this link: http://earpick.wordpress.com/2007/06...itunes-on-mac/

 

[skeeder]

decode to wav?

(is that possible?)

 

[Oliver :)]

Quote:

Originally Posted by skeeder /img/forum/go_quote.gif decode to wav? (is that possible?)

FLAC to WAV? Sure, why not? Better decode to AIFF though. All the same, but with tag support.