Media player for Mac

[Zek]

For

Honestly though I’m not impressed with Tidal, Roon or JRiver.

For playing local files I use Audirvana or Colibri. I don't use streaming apps.

 

[Ron Texas]

So far I tried the following:
VLC: maybe I missed something, but it doesn't appear to have gapless playback which is too annoying for me. There is really no library either. It's still useful for playing videos.
Iina: This one seems to be lacking in features. Various things are mentioned in reviews. It does look pretty.
foobar2000 for Mac: I'm surprised nobody mentioned this one. Compared to the Windows version it is minimal, but it does have a built in parametric EQ, something the Windows version lacks. It also has an exclusive mode to bypass the Midi setup. The main negative is there are a few annoying bugs. The app exits when clicking on the red button and the app window reverts to the default size each time it is started. For the time being this is the one.

 

[Jazz]

iTunes is pretty much not the same anymore (good or bad). It is now more referenced in regard to it being your collection of purchased or ripped music. Apple Music has taken on the role of playing back that library now. Although, iTunes Remote app on iOS will do same for home network only playback up to 16/44 ALAC. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/itunes-remote/id284417350
One not oft mentioned and much less complex option is to either get Apple Music (much better now), which will sync your Music library - more here: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204926
If you do not want Apple Music streaming but are OK with Apple Music app, you can also subscribe to Apple's matching service for $25 a year. https://support.apple.com/en-us/108935
You can turn off the streaming stuff in Music in settings so, it just looks like your own library, if you like. Here it is explained. HTML at end here was not behaving nicely here so, click on this to view Macmost Apple Music library or search same terms to find.

 

[JCM800]

I agree that Apple Music is a really solid streaming service, but there's a reason I use Roon & Qobuz now after a decade+ of iTunes and then Apple Music and that reason is bugs. I had a large collection of local files and while I never had any of the common "it ate my files" complaints, it often would do things like overwrite album art I'd pasted in there, and most commonly, split an album into 2 albums with the first track in one album and the rest in the other. I eventually got fed up and bailed.