Choosing the right audiophile playback software can be a daunting task. While audible differences can occur in going from an entry-level software like iTunes to one of the audiophile playback engines mentioned below, the transition between high-end software boils down to a preference between real cherry flavor and artificial cherry flavor. It should also be mentioned that with a properly designed and optimized music server or HTPC, the sonic benefits and differences between operating systems and playback software shrink and selection most often can be made based on form and function. However, the differences in supported file formats, file management systems, user experience vary greatly.
The Case for Specialty HiFi Software
One of the main concepts behind high-end playback software is to aid in the elimination of background processes and improve the ability of non-real-time operating systems to process real-time audio information. Simply put, you want the operating system to focus on audio and not useless services, and you want the audio signal to reach the computers output with as little handshaking as possible.
The Astell&Kern SR15 is a sweet-sounding, portable high-res music player with loads of features and refinements, arguably making it the best high-res digital audio player priced less than $800. BitPerfect 3.2.0 - Audiophile-grade music player with iTunes compatibility. Download the latest versions of the best Mac apps at safe and trusted MacUpdate.
.some people will hear a tremendous difference while others will not.
Because many operating systems can be optimized outside of playback software, the benefits of these audio applications may diminish. This doesn’t mean they make no difference, it just explains why some people will hear a tremendous difference while others will not. There are lots of layers here, and I’ll talk about them more in-depth in our upcoming optimization guides.
Age of empires 1 mac os x download. Before diving into the software comparison, I need to address bit-perfect playback. There are three camps here. Conventional wisdom states that in order for a system to be bit perfect it must act as a pass-through device, not altering the digital data in any fashion through the use of matrixing, DSP, or other means. The idea behind this is to say the output is exactly the same as what was put in. This idea is supported by the camp's theory that bits are just bits and that digital is just ones and zeros, so if a one is a one and a zero a zero the data has passed un-fooled around with and is thus bit perfect. This means that all bit perfect signals should be created equal.
The second camp states that bit perfect means that the bits are exact, but jitter may still be introduced. When doing something in non-real-time (running an application) bit-perfect is applicable because the data are buffered and sent in packets that are just resent if there are any errors (otherwise you would have applications crashing constantly). Audio, on the other hand, is real time. Bit perfect implies that the data and sample rates match, it does not mean jitter isn't introduced within those same sample rates.
Author's Opinion on Bit Perfect Playback
Finally the third camp, my camp, gets two paragraphs because it's my camp and I'm writing this. Let's all start by agreeing that audio is areal-time process. Even if an application loads data into memory forprocessing, everything before and the whole operation after is a real timeoperation. Real time processes in a computer take the form of a square wave,specifically a pulse width modulation. This pulse width modulation is an analogrepresentation of what we conceptualize as a digital signal and is created byvoltage in the power supply. This PWM signal has both amplitude characteristicsand timing characteristics. The timing, or duty cycle, along with the amplitudedetermine the frequency response of that square wave. A computer is made up ofbillions of transistors, all switching very quickly to changes in logic(mathematical algorithms created by the operating system and software). Basedon the input voltages, logic switches create a new version, a duplicate, of thesquare wave (either theoretically identical or altered). That new version ofthe square wave is also created from power in the power supply. Because audiois real time, there is no error correction that can be done to this squarewave, any resulting wave form IS your music.
Looking at the concept of bit-perfect, it's arguablyimpossible to have bit perfect playback in a real-time system because there areno bits. If the power supply introduces noise or there is jitter on the squarewave this results in a square wave that is not identical to the original.Because the square wave is an analog signal it is still susceptible to noiseand distortion. A square wave, however, reacts a little differently than itssine wave counterpart. Jitter is an alteration of the duty cycle, when thatjitter hits the digital interface chips, a DAC for instance, that jitter isseen as an amplitude error and creates an alteration of the frequency response.Amplitude distortion itself is created by noise voltages that either add orsubtract from the amplitude of the square wave. This introduces harmoniccontent into the square wave that shouldn't exist in the music. The square wavemay still resemble a one or a zero, but it contains additional frequencycontent. So as far that bits are concerned, it's bit perfect, but withadditional harmonic content that shouldn't be there.
So, high-end playback software works to buffer the audio signal and keep as much of the processing in the non-real-time zone (memory playback) as possible. The next step is to create as few duplications of the square wave as possible and get it to the computer's output as quickly as possible so as to avoid the introduction of jitter and amplitude errors. All of the software below is bit perfect, the camp you pitch your tent in shouldn't affect the software you wish to use, just how you choose to integrate it into your system
JRiver Media Center
OS: Mac and Windows
Price: $49
Best Video Player For Mac
Audio Capabilities: Standard audio formats plus FLAC, WAV, DSD
Video Capabilities: Blu-ray (now on both mac and windows) streaming services like Netflix and Hulu, and multichannel A/V formats
File Management: Self contained database with significant automatic organization and custom tailoring. Custom Playlists. Music stored locally, on external HDD, or NAS.
First up is JRMC (as the cool kids call it). It sports a sleek, easy-to-use interface, various GUI adjustments, and a settings menu with more options than a Vegas buffet line. It can play anything and offers access to a very powerful DSP engine.The feature set and sound quality improvements in this software make it a significant leap up over its windows media center alternative. The addition of ASIO, Direct Sound, Wasapi, and Kernel streaming is a big bonus over entry-level playback software. They have also integrated a memory playback feature, which was a big selling point on higher-end software available. For barebones enthusiasts this software may pack too many options, too many settings, and too much freedom. The good news is if you don’t want to mess with settings you don’t have to, it pretty much plays right out of the box. A similar (and free) alternative is Foobar2000, which has several plugins and nearly identical sound quality. The interface isn’t as nice and it’s not quite as easy to use, but many folks dig it. For an audio-only alternative you can check out CPLAY, which is simpler, open source, and sounds a little better too.
Best Audiophile Player For Mac
Ratings:
User Interface: 10
Customer Support: 9
Subjective Sound Quality: 8
Video Quality: 10
Trial Offered: YES
JPLAY
OS: Windows
Price: $129
Audio Capabilities: Standard Audio Formats plus FLAC, WAV, DSD
File Management: Utilizes JRMC Database organization or standalone playlists.
JPLAY is a relatively new introduction to the audiophile playback software market. Piggy-backing off the Jriver or Foobar2000 interfaces, it allows for use of the excellent file management of JRMC, but with improvements to sound quality.
This is an enthusiast level software, is a bit of a process to set up and tedious to use, but represents the most technically intelligent software available. If any software makes a difference, it would be JPLAY, but many people have claimed that it does not offer improvement over JRMC. In my test system I run a very high-end PC-based music server and the differences between JRMC and JPLAY were subtle, but I felt that I could hear them. Many of the optimizations that JPLAY does to the system I had already done manually (giving both JPLAY and JRMC Standalone an edge to begin with). There is a balance between folks claiming it to be revolutionary and other folks claiming it makes no difference (as is so often the case in the high-end marketplace). My recommendation is that the software makes sense, but you might want to try the trial version and see if it meshes well with your system. Of course if you plan to use it with JRMC it will require a JRMC license as well. JPLAY’s strength comes from its ability to isolate itself from the operating system. Setting itself up as a windows service allows it high priority thread access and when running, JPLAY disables background services to eliminate IO operations so that the only thing being worked on during playback is your music.
They have a slew of standard features including memory playback and direct sound, but integrating the software as a system activity is something unique to JPLAY. For more advanced users, you may choose to go the dual PC route, which involves using a processing PC and a Music PC separately to play back audio. In this setup the processing PC does all the heavy lifting and the music PC is designed to be ultra low power, low noise, and simple to output a streamed audio signal. To me this seems counter-intuitive to want to add a second computer to the signal path, but it is evidently a critical improvement to be made when using the JPLAY system.
Ratings:
User Interface: 6
Customer Support: 8
Subjective Sound Quality: 10
Trial Offered: YES
XXHighEnd
Price: $96 Wolf run slot machine play.
Audio Capabilities: Primary audio formats plus FLAC, WAV
File Management: Standalone database, managed and organized manually by file folder.
XXHighEnd is a good-sounding software if you can get it to work. It requires a fairly powerful computer to get the most out of it and requires a fairly lengthy setup that may extend past your trial period. If you have the muscle, there’s a lot of potential here.
With that said, this is one of the more tweaky playback software programs. Flregkey 20. Being able to adjust page size, latency, and utilize memory playback make it a software that has a lot of potential. The software can also do some fairly sophisticated digital filtering algorithms. This is paramount when using the software with the Phasure DAC, which relies on the XXHighEnd software to operate.
The GUI is purposefully minimal and high-contrast. The volume is a lossless DSP-based volume, and there are some cool unknown features like phase alignment that claim to greatly improve the sound. The phase alignment is a unique feature to XXHighEnd and one that sets this apart, as long as your amps aren’t DC-coupled. To learn more, check out the Phasure website.
Personally it wasn’t my cup of tea, but I prefer a little more versatility in my playback software, like DSD support. But this software and JPLAY are top contenders for the best playback software and sound very similar. XXHE also plays standalone, which gives it a bonus point in my book. Simpler is better.
Ratings:
User Interface: 5
Customer Support: 8 (tons of resources on the forum)
Subjective Sound Quality: 9
Trial Offered: YES
The third one I dropped might surprise you: Amarra by Sonic Studio. I used two versions, the only difference being the higher sample rates made accessible or not. In the mean time there is a version that does room acoustics compensation and a version that plays Tidal. The versions I used sounded refined and if nothing else had been around, I would still use Amarra. It sounds a little rounded, as if there was a slight high end roll off. But I didn’t find evidence of that during measuring. Since I found several other players that sounded that little more sparkling,Amarra was dropped too.
Left over
That left me with three players that sounded about equal: Pure Music by Channel D, Media Center by JRiver and Audirvana+. Pure Music was disqualified since it fought with a video program that I need to use from time to time. Like Amarra and others it uses iTunes as user interface and, again, the sound is excellent. But I can’t keep buying updates of all programs only to keep up to date with all. So I kept using the two remaining: Media Center by JRiver, currently at version 21 and Audirvana 2+. Two totally different programs, neither needing iTunes, with is a plus for me since I have a very large music collection, including DSF rips of my 500 SACD’s. iTunes will not do FLAC or DSD in any shape or form. Some programs, like Pure Music, lets you make aliases that trick iTunes in thinking FLAC and DSF files are AIF files. But it’s an extra hassle. Audirvana and JRiver simply work with all popular audio files. Just copy the files to the directory that hold the music and they are automatically indexed.
Audirvana 2+
Audirvana 2+ can work like Amarra and Pure Music and use the iTunes functionality for user interface. I believe that there was a disagreement with one of the other brands about a technology used (the aliases, if I remember well) that forced Audirvana away from using iTunes. Therefore version 2 also has its own, simple user interface. The left column lets you choose between the play queue and the library. The latter shows either all albums with cover art or all tracks. When in track view you can sort on any field that’s displayed. You can play music by clicking on it but if you want to add to the play queue, you need to drag the additional tracks to the play queue map. You can easily search on a given track, artist, album or other field by entering the search string into the search field. More criteria can be entered using boolean logic. Typing Command-I brings up a metadata editor that also has fields for composer, conductor, ensemble, soloist, instrument, style and period, making it perfect for classical music. You can have Audirvana oversample to the highest sampling rate your d/a-converter supports, using the incorporated Isotope 64 bit sampling rate converter. It can be set to do only power of two conversions, so 44.1 kHz files are converted tot 88.2, 176.4 or 352.8 kHz. Whether that’s useful depends on your d/a-converter. Many converters will sound better when upsampling is done in the computer, but not all. Just try it and choose the best scheme. If it’s not audible either way, then who cares. Audirvana is also able to convert DSD to PCM for when your d/a-converter doesn’t do DSD. Further more you can use Audio Units plug-ins, the virtual equivalent of effects and reverb devices. A number of standard plug-ins are a part of OS X but all kinds of extra effects can be bought or downloaded for free. My advise: keep away from it if you’re serious about sound, unless you are very well educated in the field of filtering and absolutely need to filter out some problem frequencies. A very nice feature is the system optimization set up. Here you tell Audirvana what processes to halt during music playback: Spotlight, Time Machine and USB detection of new devices. Add that to the direct, exclusive and integer modes you can set in the audio preferences and you’re almost sure nothing stands between you and the music. It even supports multichannel audio, provided your setup can handle it.
When used together with iTunes, control from an iPad or iPhone can be done using Apple’s Remote app. For the stand alone Audirvana mode, control from the iPad was initially not supported but recently an app for iOS became available at € 9,95. Here again the simple structural interface and like on the computer it all works fast! Minimum requirements are a 64 bit Mac (Core 2 Duo or later), OS X 10.6 or later and a minimum of 2GB of RAM (I would recommend a minimum of 4 GB), You pay € 59 for a license, an upgrade from version 1 is € 31. A beta just became available that support Qobus, but there is no mention of Tidal.
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