Media player for Mac

[Timcognito]

Never heard about Roon
Price: $14.99 /month or lifetime billing for $829.99
Most anti-bargain app ever

Try it for free and say that. DSP room correction, EQ and magazine style browsing and organization of NAS and streamed music on one page. But since you are new to the game and have not heard about Roon you should not condemn it without a look. A bargain for music fanatics with broad tastes and large collections.

 

[recycle]

Try it for free and say that. DSP room correction, EQ and magazine style browsing and organization of NAS and streamed music on one page. But since you are new to the game and have not heard about Roon you should not condemn it without a look. A bargain for music fanatics with broad tastes and large collections.

You're right: I haven't tried it. That said, thinking about spending $15 a month on a media player seems like a bit much to me, no matter what. With such an amount I prefer to pay for the subscription to tidal HiFi

 

[Timcognito]

You're right: I haven't tried it. That said, thinking about spending $15 a month on a media player seems like a bit much to me, no matter what. With such an amount I prefer to pay for the subscription to tidal HiFi

Had Tidal and Qobuz. Kept Qobuz $10/mo (annually) and better sound than Tidal plus no MQA. As you read more at ASR you will find that once you have quality playback, then dailing in your speakers with EQ and DSP is the ultimate in sonic reproduction. But nothing is better than great and favorite music even on a boombox.

 

[ZolaIII]

Just stick to JRiver and learn to use it (like loudness normalisation in internal volume mode wired and DSP chain on DLNA streaming ond WDM driver on Windows).

 

[DVDdoug]

• Its all organized on the server by:
  • Genre
    • Artist
      • Album
        • Songs

I basically have the same thing except probably 80% of my music is in a "Rock and Popular" folder with separate folders for Christmas, Halloween, Soundtracks and a few other special-unusual genres.

The physical organization isn't that important because your player software doesn't care... You can sort by genre, artist, title, year*, or whatever.

I'm on Windows and I'm (still) using Winamp for music. I use VLC or Power DVD for DVDs, and Power DVD for Blu-Ray.


* I went through my library to make sure the year matches original release of the song (except in rare cases when I couldn't find it). With Greatest Hits or Various Artist CDs, the songs are usually tagged with same year by default. Usually the year the CD was released. And sometimes you'll get the CD release year when the music was originally on vinyl. That was a BIG project but now I keep it up-to-date whenever I add music.

 

[estuardo4]

I am looking for a media player, for my Mac(s)

My setup is as follows:

• My server is a 2012 Mac Pro, with RAID 1 drives that holds all my media
• Networked to my other Macs around the house, mostly wired
• I ripped my entire collect to FLAC and put it on the server, ~300 Gb.
• Its all organized on the server by:
  • Genre
    • Artist
      • Album
        • Songs

When I ripped my collection, I was using MonkeyMedia, on Windohs.

Its great software, for playback and even auto organized the songs into that above structure.
Really love that program.

Occasionally my network has hickups. Which recover. But even a small hickup distrupts the music.
So the player needs to cache a bit. Ideally it allows me adjust the amount of caching.

So I have tried

1. iTunes - HATED it. There was litterly nothing I liked about it
2. MediaMonkey - there are instructure for how to run it on Wine, but I've never been able to get it running.
3. Swinian - decent. I like the UI flexibility. But, has no caching adjustment. Play pauses a lot
4. Vox - decent little player,
   1. a bit limited on how to select what I want to listen to. Typically I pick a genre, then the artist
   2. I have no interest in uploading my files
   3. or syncing model etc.
   4. so most of their business model does not appeal to me
   5. their app maps my network and all the connected devices - WAY too intrusive for me
5. Audirvana - decent, expensive, no caching options - same problems as Swinian

So I still have not yet found a player which meets my needs.
And I am very open to suggestions.

Thanks

Olaf

Hello. I read that you are using Jplayer now, so my advise could be used for other members.

I used Audirvana and paid for a License. But I didn't liked the interface. Then I switched to Swinsian V2.0, but I didn't like that it didn't have a dark interface. But then I discovered that now there's a beta V3.0 (now on their 6th update) that has caching and dark interface, among many new features. For $25 it is a steal.

If you want to try the V3.0 beta (not publicly accessibly) you can download V2.0 and on the File menu, on the "Check For Updates" press the Option key and there will be an option to download the beta.

Hope it helps. I enjoy using it more than Audirvana.

 

[recycle]

Had Tidal and Qobuz. Kept Qobuz $10/mo (annually) and better sound than Tidal plus no MQA. As you read more at ASR you will find that once you have quality playback, then dailing in your speakers with EQ and DSP is the ultimate in sonic reproduction. But nothing is better than great and favorite music even on a boombox.

You are a good salesman, but Roon's price always seems too high to me

 

[Timcognito]

You are a good salesman, but Roon's price always seems too high to me

I have lifetime ($500 3yrs ago) and also BluOS and there was a time that $15/mo was a lot to me too. But you can try it for free and it's the benchmark for the other system you will ultimately get. Good Luck and keep hanging at ASR.

 

[subframe]

What I like about Roon is that it works. Stability is great, performance is great, functionality is great, UI is great. I haven’t found anything else that checks those boxes.

I understand not wanting to pay the premium for it though. After years of dealing with bad player software, I find it worth it, but not everyone will.

 

[anotherhobby]

You are a good salesman, but Roon's price always seems too high to me

I've always thought the same. However, I finally downloaded it yesterday and set it up under the 2 week trial, and after just 24 hours, I'm pretty sure I'm sold. Not trying to sell you, but I don't think it's something you can really accurately judge without trying it out.

 

[amper42]

Hello. I read that you are using Jplayer now, so my advise could be used for other members.

I used Audirvana and paid for a License. But I didn't liked the interface. Then I switched to Swinsian V2.0, but I didn't like that it didn't have a dark interface. But then I discovered that now there's a beta V3.0 (now on their 6th update) that has caching and dark interface, among many new features. For $25 it is a steal.

If you want to try the V3.0 beta (not publicly accessibly) you can download V2.0 and on the File menu, on the "Check For Updates" press the Option key and there will be an option to download the beta.

Hope it helps. I enjoy using it more than Audirvana.

Is there a manual for Swinsian? I couldn't find one. I managed to crash it by just pushing a few buttons. It looks promising but I don't see a dark mode even with v3. Any ideas?

 

[khensu]

Never heard about Roon
Price: $14.99 /month or lifetime billing for $829.99
Most anti-bargain app ever

Well… Roon is a bit more than a media player, but if that’s all you really want, then it is definitely overkill. It’d be like buying an iPhone because you need a calculator.

 

[estuardo4]

Is there a manual for Swinsian? I couldn't find one. I managed to crash it by just pushing a few buttons. It looks promising but I don't see a dark mode even with v3. Any ideas?

I dont know about a manual, but dark mode is available only when you use dark mode on your mac

 

[shandit66]

The problem ultimately solved itself.

JRiver Media Center - Download

JRiver Media Center

www.jriver.com

Media Monkey is now Mac native.
and its only $70 for one time purchase
This is awesome!

 

[jcris]

Interesting thread,
Enough so that my insomnia has me reading it at 2:30 in the morning. The most important thing to me is sound quality. To that end I’ve used many players , Tidal and JRiver most recently, unfortunately I still come away unimpressed. In the past I used to think paying $15 or $20 a month was ludicrous but not so much anymore.
I’ve begun putting together a modest digital system which at this point is a pair of active bookshelf speakers and a MacMini (late 2012) running an Intel i5 SSD with 8 mgb of RAM. The operating system is High Sierra and it seems Roon requires 10.15 (Catalina) as a minimum to operate properly. I could upgrade but this is such an old system now that I’m looking at other options. One of which is https://www.smallgreencomputer.com/products/sonictransporter-i5
Which I believe runs a linux based operating system that I’m not at all familiar with. All that said I must apologize for rambling off topic a bit. So I’m leaning toward the transporter which requires an Ethernet connection and I’m working to add that. Then Roon becomes an option to explore. The question is, does Roon excel at sound quality or is there something better?
Thanks for the early morning diversion as I continue my quest.
My best to the group,
Jcris

 

[ZolaIII]

@jcris why would a player have a better sound quality (if we exclude possible bad implementations regarding either OS or it self)? Processing comprehensive DSP chain yes and you need to put it together (DSP, effect plugins, decoders, normalisation, equal loudness and such) but not the digital signal output to analog converter (DAC). If you want to improve sound quality you do it by baying better analog reproduction devices (headphones and speakers or speakers systems) and making sure you are receiving the signal as good as possible (placement, room treatment, EQ and other stuff regarding speakers or EQ and comfort when it comes to headphones/earphones). I am not much of a Apple guy but for me JRiver with intermediate WDM driver on Windows pretty much serves the purpose (including for video all do I don't use it for that). And I am sure you ment 8 GB of RAM. Regarding transparent transport WiFi media streamer even WiiM Mini with Toslink out will do (but not exactly for Apple Music and only preliminary Roon support). When you plug it in like that into external DSP procesor like MiniDSP Flex you pretty much have a standalone system which can do most you may need for stereo music system (including sub's) for base four chenel models, there are other models with more chenels and other brands with many chenel model's.
Still not entirely sure what you are actually looking for so you should clearly state that part.

 

[Zek]

a MacMini (late 2012) running an Intel i5 SSD with 8 mgb of RAM. The operating system is High Sierra and it seems Roon requires 10.15 (Catalina) as a minimum to operate properly.

You can install OS Catalina 10.15.7 on your MacMini without any problems (I did it a long time ago).

 

[Old Listener]

Thanks for the feedback

I have tried Audirvana, its ok, expensive and no caching, so it didnt solve my problem
I dont run an EQ

That is an excellent recommendation! thanks,

1. UI - nothing special. Not flashy, more 2005 plain vanilla (I run an UI/UX design group... so maybe I'm an excessively harsh critic...
2. OS X native release - albeit seems a bit old. But I appreciate not having to jump through hoops to run this on my Mac
3. Pre-buffering adjustments - excellent. Haven't had enough listening time to see how well it handles network hickups. But I could set it for 10 sec, which should handle the worst.
4. Functionality 9/10 - very similar to MediaMonkey. Might be a 10/10 - need more time to play with it
5. A "workflow" thats just to my needs: pick a genre - based on my mood, then artist
6. Abilty to handle a stupidly large collection
7. It has tools for video etc, which I have not looked at - and really dont care.
8. Cost: $60 to buy, no annual/monthly fee. very nice.

Might have tools for "sharing" across platforms. Thats likely important to a lot of people.
Personally, I dont care: my network, my collection, my house. Dont put it online.

Overall, this is a great recommendation. thank you!

I've used jRiver since spring 2006 on Windows until ~2 years ago and on Mac m1s since then. And some time using a jRiver ID (packaged h/w, Linux and JRiver on an Intel NUC.). My music collection is mostly classical music and other genres where both composer and performer are important for finding the music you want to listen to. I've never found anything better for my needs and not many choices that are even chose. Here's the view I use for most classical music:

With this view, I can see what's in my library. I don't have to remember what's in my library, jRiver shows me.

jRiver does have lots of functionality that isn't well explained in the Wiki. You probably won't have a use for much of the functionality but you can just find what you need and not worry about the rest. Search the jRiver forum (and the Wiki) for ways to meet your current need. If that doesn't work, post a adequately detailed description of what you need question on the jRiver forum. You will usually get more than one useful reply.

I use the DSP studio features for room correction and I've used a variety of networking features.

There are several types of negative comments about jRiver here and elsewhere:

- I hate it because it's not free.
- I hate it because the jRiver developers don't cater to the "fairy dust" audiophile crowd.
- I hate it because it doesn't work exactly like the player I use now.
- I hate it because I spent 15 minutes and I still don't understand it.
- I hate it because it isn't fully Mac-like or Linux-like.

Such comments say more about the reviewer than they do about jRiver.

If your music collection is small or the way you select and play music is simple, most any player will do.

 

[anarchist]

I am looking for a media player, for my Mac(s)

My setup is as follows:

• My server is a 2012 Mac Pro, with RAID 1 drives that holds all my media
• Networked to my other Macs around the house, mostly wired
• I ripped my entire collect to FLAC and put it on the server, ~300 Gb.
• Its all organized on the server by:
  • Genre
    • Artist
      • Album
        • Songs

When I ripped my collection, I was using MonkeyMedia, on Windohs.

Its great software, for playback and even auto organized the songs into that above structure.
Really love that program.

Occasionally my network has hickups. Which recover. But even a small hickup distrupts the music.
So the player needs to cache a bit. Ideally it allows me adjust the amount of caching.


So I still have not yet found a player which meets my needs.
And I am very open to suggestions.

Thanks

Olaf

VLC is a good player. Just setup as simple free UPNP/DLNA server on your Mac and VLC and most other front end players with discover your music. I use minimServer, 1.x version, it just works, even for DSD files.

 

[jcris]

You can install OS Catalina 10.15.7 on your MacMini without any problems (I did it a long time ago).

I just did that this morning and only because Roon required that as a minimum.
Honestly though I’m not impressed with Tidal, Roon or JRiver. Qobuz is next.
Thanks for your help
Jcris