Audiophile music player for Windows/Mac and your opinion...

[tuga]

Not sure what’s so appalling about it. The most recent one in the list is Mac OS X Leopard (ancient), but it seems up there with the best.

 

[Berwhale]

Or Ghost Spectre?

I think using a 'player' on a general purpose PC/Mac is quite different from building a single purpose 'player' on a minimal OS. There's a lot more support for doing the later with Linux than Windows.

 

[theREALdotnet]

Hm, -160dB, truly appalling. How do they even measure that?

 

[tuga]

Hm, -160dB, truly appalling. How do they even measure that?

Ever heard of noise-floor modulation (by signal)?

 

[PaperBoat]

I think using a 'player' on a general purpose PC/Mac is quite different from building a single purpose 'player' on a minimal OS. There's a lot more support for doing the later with Linux than Windows.

Do you have any experience with "Audiophile Linux?

 

[theREALdotnet]

Ever heard of noise-floor modulation (by signal)?

I let you worry about that. I hear no difference regardless of what does the upsampling (sox, r8brain or CoreAudio).

 

[Berwhale]

Do you have any experience with "Audiophile Linux?

No, I have no need to build stand-alone music player and I have no issue using MusicBee on 'Full Fat' Windows 11 Pro. My Windows 11 Pro install also happens to be on the Windows Insider Beta channel so who knows what is going on under the audiophile hood

I have played around with Linux based players like Daphile, Moode and Volumio and both PC and RPi platforms. Audiophile Linux appears to be dormant (no release for 4 years)... https://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=audiophile

 

[Jmudrick]

But doesn't the data need protocol-converting before it's transmitted (streamed?) on to the DAC?
Anyway for the trasmission to be 'bit-perfect' the music playing software (renderer?) needs to be set so that there's no tampering with the signal and to ensure that the operating system doesn't interfere with the data stream.
With iTunes you need to disable Crossfade, Sound Enhancer and Sound Check and it's so dumb that it requires that you set the correct output sample rate and bit depth in the Audio MIDI Setup control panel, otherwise iTunes will use MacOS' appalling CoreAudio SRC. Also read about hog mode.
So not really plug-and-play.

I don't use WinOS but I have the impression that it's even worse, that you need to install dedicated drivers, light a candle and stand on your head...

Installing Roon Server on my five year old Lenovo was plug and play, no candles, no headstands. Audirvana as I recall was also straight forward. RME drivers occasionally get an update (none these days essential but that's hardly difficult.

 

[tuga]

Installing Roon Server on my five year old Lenovo was plug and play, no candles, no headstands. Audirvana as I recall was also straight forward. RME drivers occasionally get an update (none these days essential but that's hardly difficult.

You missed my point.
Roon Server is not your free run-of-the-mill Windows Media Player, it is extremely likely that it'll optimise (take control) the output. Same with Audirvana.

 

[Jmudrick]

You missed my point.
Roon Server is not your free run-of-the-mill Windows Media Player, it is extremely likely that it'll optimise (take control) the output. Same with Audirvana.

Yes they do. My point was that Windows is no hindrance.

 

[tuga]

Yes they do. My point was that Windows is no hindrance.

It is if you use Windows Media Player or another basic player. The post I was replying was defending that any player can do 'bit-perfect' but that is not true likely.

 

[sarumbear]

Ofcourse this is a very subjective opinion .
So no evidence in measurements.

No comment.

 

[sarumbear]

But doesn't the data need protocol-converting before it's transmitted (streamed?) on to the DAC?

Protocol is how you transport data. Data is the same irrespective of the protocol used to transmit it.

 

[MrSoul4470]

If Roon was free the others would be obscure niche applications. In my opinion the only reason not to use Roon is cost, and I just quit paying yearly and bought a lifetime license. I deleted Foobar after a out an hour. Too much work to get the UI nit to look like a freshman software project.

Who cares about the UI? I love it's super clean UI and would never change it! Foobar2000 works flawlessly and has options even expensive software doesn't have. I've tried Plex, JRiver, Musicbee, Minim and others. None of them could convince me like foobar2000 does. Some of them don't even follow common standards, like JRiver, which has it's own proprietary Replay gain implementation. Bah! Foobar2000 does 99% right and it's free.

 

[ZolaIII]

Who cares about the UI? I love it's super clean UI and would never change it! Foobar2000 works flawlessly and has options even expensive software doesn't have. I've tried Plex, JRiver, Musicbee, Minim and others. None of them could convince me like foobar2000 does. Some of them don't even follow common standards, like JRiver, which has it's own proprietary Replay gain implementation. Bah! Foobar2000 does 99% right and it's free.

Why on earth would you use anything else that EBU R128 (which is open standard) this day's? And as such implemented with no change in JRiver (-23 LUFS) and available as plugin or integrated in many others.

 

[tuga]

Who cares about the UI?

Isn't UI the reason for Roon's popularity (also Audirvana, JRiver, etc.)? I'd say many people do.

 

[MrSoul4470]

Isn't UI the reason for Roon's popularity (also Audirvana, JRiver, etc.)? I'd say many people do.

It probably is. But not for me. And it seems for others not either. Foobar2000 is quite popular inspite of it's simple UI. And there's a reason why that is. It simply does right what it does. Like when I tried JRiver and found out about the BS it does concerning ReplayGain.... Uninstalled it right away. Who wants to put up with crap like that?

 

[tuga]

It probably is. But not for me. And it seems for others not either. Foobar2000 is quite popular inspite of it's simple UI. And there's a reason why that is. It simply does right what it does. Like when I tried JRiver and found out about the BS it does concerning ReplayGain.... Uninstalled it right away. Who wants to put up with crap like that?

I don't use Roon, but I need a complex, well-designed UI for browsing; that's why I use a laptop instead of a smartphone or tablet.

I don't know about JRiver, or it's issue with ReplayGain but a quick search seems to indicate that it can be disabled. I listen mostly to classical music and for that ReplayGain is a definity deal-breaker, but I wouldn't mind using ReplayGain for rock as there are massive differences in gain/level between '80s / '90s CDs and more recent ones.

 

[MrSoul4470]

Any program that offers ReplayGain should follow it's standards. No matter if the user decides to use it or not. If they already mess up obvious things like that, then what else happens under the surface? I don't trust software like that. Foobar2000 is really transparent about what it does.

 

[MrSoul4470]

How is ReplayGain a deal breaker with classical music if you use it in album mode?