Perhaps one of the easiest and least expensive (as in free!) things you can do to improve the sound quality of your computer audio playback is to use one of the many audiophile-grade Media Player apps. If you’re attached to iTunes don’t fret – a number of these players let you keep the iTunes interface while they go about the business of better sound more or less in the background. We recommend trying a few (all of the applications listed here offer free trails unless otherwise noted) and also feel that a personal tour is a necessity since everyone will have their own preferences when it comes to what constitutes a friendly user interface. In the coming weeks and months, we’ll be taking a closer look at Media Player software and expanding this list but in the mean time, please feel free to help yourself.

1. Free Music Player For Mac
2. Best High Res Audio Player For Mac

Mac and PC iTunes Apple Price: Free The closest thing to a ubiquitous music player, iTunes on the face of it offers everything you need. Downsides include the inability to play FLAC files in their native format, the interface bogs down once your library exceeds about 10,000 songs and no auto-sample rate conversion which is a game-stopper for people with HD music in their libraries. AudioStream cannot recommend augmenting iTunes strongly enough with one of the players listed below. That said, iTunes as a free Music Browser is hard to beat. Features: Type: PC and Mac compatible player File Formats Supported: MP3, AIFF, WAV, MPEG-4, AAC (.m4a) and Apple Lossless Sample Rate: up to 192kHz DSD playback: No Auto Sample Rate Conversion: No Memory Play: No Gapless Playback: Yes Exclusive/Hog Mode: No Integer Mode: No Upsampling: No Remote: Apple Remote App for iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch Mac Only Amarra Sonic Studios Price: Junior: $99, MINI: $295, Full: $695 Manufacturer’s Description: Junior: Amarra Junior is the 99 dollar Computer Music Player with the million dollar sound. Amarra Junior supports up to 96kHz sample rates, Plays AIFF, WAVE, MP3, AAC and Apple Loseless.

Amarra Junior is also perfect for compressed music and CDs. MINI: Designed for high resolution audio, Amarra MINI supports up to 192 kHz sample rates, automatic sample rate adjustment, double-precision audio processing, RAM-based Cache for disk-free operation, native FLAC playback and conversion. Full: Amarra supports up to 384 kHz sample rates, Automatic Sample Rate Adjustment, RAM-based Cache for Disk-free operation, Native FLAC Playback and Conversion, choice of Dither Algorithms. System Requirements: Intel Macs 4GB RAM (or more) recommended, 10.5.8, 10.6 Snow Leopard, we do not recommend 10.7 as there may be issues with sound quality, iTunes: 10.0, and later. I am concerned that someone new to the idea of computer audio will come away with the false impression that they need a Mac in order to participate.

I realize iPods are popular and that their owners are corralled into using iTunes to sync them. The iPod and iTunes are cross-platform products that work just as well on a PC as they do on a Mac. That Apple represents only 5% of the computer market suggests there are more iPods syncing with iTunes on a PC than any other platform. The Mac-centricity of computer audio has become a real turnoff where yet again the masses are not being represented. Computer audio on a PC should not be an afterthought. Computer audio on a Mac is not a 'higher-end' option; it is simply an option.

Imaja: listen: music ear training program for mac. I am glad to see that there is intent to balance out the above list. I urge you, Michael, to apply that balance to the whole website. I use Pure Music in my serious music system but use J-River on every other PC in the house.

The ability for J-River to do some art easilly, even with WAV files is a big plus for me. I wish Pure Music could do the same. The household also owns two iPODs but.I am increasingly unsatisfied with the sound from an iPOD.I have moved most of my music to my Droid 3 using the Poweramp app and have much better sound.

I have no idea if that app supports anything beyond WAV (lossless) but it sure sounds better through phones. First time reading this website and I would like some help understanding the purpose and meaning on the features below that are used to describe the different Media Player Softwares: DSD playback Auto Sample Rate Conversion Memory Play Gapless Playback Exclusive/Hog Mode Integer Mode Upsampling I'm specially intrigued with the DSD playback, where and how can you get DSD encoded recordings? The only DSD sources I know are SACD (which I believe they're unrippable) and Tascam digital recorders.

Any help will be greatly appreciated. Here's an article titled ' which includes a few sources for Direct Stream Digital downloads as well as a link to one method of ripping SACDs. I’m working on a Glossary of computer audio terms that will include each item on your list.

I hope to have this ready in a few months. In the mean time, here’s a super-condensed version: Auto Sample Rate Conversion – Really should be called 'Auto Sample Rate Switching' which is the ability to automatically play music files in their native format. For example iTunes does not offer this feature so you either play all music files at the same resolution or you have to manually set the bit/sample rate for different resolutions. Memory Play – music file is loaded into memory before being played, i.e.

The media player is not reading from hard drive during playback. Gapless Playback – applies to a media player’s ability to remove the few second space between separate files/tracks during playback where appropriate. One example where this is applicable is a live recording that has separate tracks saved as separate files but in the original recording there is no silence between them.

Exclusive/Hog Mode – media player has exclusive access to the audio interface. Integer Mode – This is a DAC and OS-dependent function where the media player software bypasses processing in Apple’s CoreAudio (here’s a good article, “” by Damien Plisson) Upsampling – converts a music file to a higher sample rate. I have just set up J River on my home network, with my desktop as server and my dedicated HTPC as client. Once I got through the setup process, I was rewarded with a great sounding media player that has an excelent user interface. The setup had a couple of pitfalls to overcome first. I had to spend a day and a half cleaning up the meta data on my music library, and renaming all the coer art to 'folder.jpg' before the library import process would produce satisfactory results.

Next, I had a problem with the HTPC playing hi res 96 KHz files at only 48KHZ. After a lot of fiddling I finally discovered that when playing files over a network, J River automatically downconverts files to prevent network interuption. That is fine when I am streaming to my iPhone, but annoying when I want hi res playback on my audio system. I finally discovered that in the DSP settings, this feature can be disabled, and now all is good. I am still on the free 30 day trial period, but will definitlly spend the $50 for this player.

It is replacing Foobar 2000 as my player, and while Foobar is a great player capable of producing excellent sound, it is not powerful enough in network capability and it's library functions are not a well developed as J River. Recomendations for PC users: J River Media Center for network and multiple device users, for users that want a polished user interface, and for large libraries. Foobar 2000 if you want a great free player, only play music from the computer it is stored on or have a NAS that is always on, and don't require an elaborate library system. I don't think it was biased either way, all they did was run through the various most popular players for both platforms. I didn't see anything in the editorial that suggested one platform over the other. They left out Linux, probably since the list was compiled in 2011 and there wasn't much and it's a platform that's not as widely used by people, but I think it would be nice to see ALL software and a list of the features and be kept up to date as an ongoing list of what's out there.

I would also like to see a similar list of USB DACs, cables, external power supplies, etc. And be kept up to date so we have a one stop for information. I just wish they updated this and maybe had a tips and tricks for each s/w for optimal perfomance.

Audirvana Plus is the music playback software that gives the best possible Sound Quality Audirvana Plus reveals the HiFi potential of your computer and turns it into a high-end music player To significantly improve Sound Quality and transform your computer into a high-end HiFi player, Audirvana Plus: – highly reduces the audio signal path to eliminate all the interferences and other electromagnetic interferences – carries out the necessary digital processing before conversion to analog with very high quality algorithms. I’m very happy now with Audirvana Plus playing real DSD with no problems and with the best SQ I never got from digital audio. The dynamics, dynamic contrast, soundstage, detail and musicality is unlimited. Is like to remove a lot of veils from the recorded music. It’s a completely new world Other player A. Is a joke since it is a converter from DSD to PCM.

Other player B. Is very buggy, and dammaged some of my DSD files, thanks God I have backups. A lot of sh.t had been talking about DSD, in favor to PCM. As I always stated the problem is on DSD software and players.

Free Music Player For Mac

Best High Res Audio Player For Mac

Congratulations again to allow me to get in this incredible experience!