iTunes Alternatives
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Neal
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#46
Interesting Steve, I never got around to trying iTunes...should have stuck at it but the lack of Flac support put me off a bit...anyhow the Mini is now performing desktop and backup duties plus the odd iPlayer stream to the Apple TV...
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Cressy Snr
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#47
After having got the EL84 push-pull amp sorted out, I have had quite an interesting day playing around with different music players on my Mac Mini; four to be precise.
The contenders were:
iTunes 11.2
Pure Music
Sonora ( a relatively new open source project for Mac OSX
The latest version of Songbird.
I'm not going to do and ABCD comparison but it is great, how these alternatives have come on since I last tried them.
I am sick of Pure Music crashing on me so it has been booted into the long grass until the developer can come up with something more stable.
iTunes 11.2 is an improvement over iTunes 10 of that there is no doubt and it sounds perfectly acceptable in its new guise but the lack of FLAC support still rankles, although Linn now offer downloads in ALAC format
The other two players are the most interesting for me.
Sonora used to be available on the App Store but has since gone open source and looking at the credits in the "About Sonora" window I see that it uses the Audio engine by SBooth.org ie the same one used in their $33 Decibel software.
Sonora sounds wonderful, stripping away fine layer of fug from the sound picture and cresting a lovely sense of atmosphere. For a free app it is great and IMO beats the sound of the four times more expensive Pure Music.
There are two problems in that there is no sample rate change on-the-fly like there is with Pure Music, Decibel and all the other Audiophile players.
Another is that artwork display is flaky, with some cover art being imported from iTunes correctly and other artwork inexplicably not displaying. TBH I lay the blame fairly and squarely at Apple's door for this farce.
The same problems occur with SqueezeBox server and it is something to do with the fact that iTunes handles artwork unlike any other media server on the planet, so when your alternative player "imports" said artwork, half of it always goes AWOL.
Songbird has improved a lot since I last used it. It is very fast once it has imported your music library and again it sounds lovely. Better again than Pure Music and iTunes. In fact I reckon it beats Sonora too. The top end is gorgeous, and as I am highly sensitive to treble problems, I think I will be keeping it as my player. I'll use iTunes for purchases and Songbird for playback.
Both Songbird and Sonora offer FLAC support so you can drop your FLAC files in the iTunes Folder. Although iTunes wont see them, Songbird and Sonora will identify them on scanning for new music and pick them up for playback.
All this is IME and only an opinion of course, and YMMV and all that.
The new iTunes 11 is nice and does offer an improvement in over the previous version but the two free alternatives have it beaten soundwise on the Mac.
The contenders were:
iTunes 11.2
Pure Music
Sonora ( a relatively new open source project for Mac OSX
The latest version of Songbird.
I'm not going to do and ABCD comparison but it is great, how these alternatives have come on since I last tried them.
I am sick of Pure Music crashing on me so it has been booted into the long grass until the developer can come up with something more stable.
iTunes 11.2 is an improvement over iTunes 10 of that there is no doubt and it sounds perfectly acceptable in its new guise but the lack of FLAC support still rankles, although Linn now offer downloads in ALAC format
The other two players are the most interesting for me.
Sonora used to be available on the App Store but has since gone open source and looking at the credits in the "About Sonora" window I see that it uses the Audio engine by SBooth.org ie the same one used in their $33 Decibel software.
Sonora sounds wonderful, stripping away fine layer of fug from the sound picture and cresting a lovely sense of atmosphere. For a free app it is great and IMO beats the sound of the four times more expensive Pure Music.
There are two problems in that there is no sample rate change on-the-fly like there is with Pure Music, Decibel and all the other Audiophile players.
Another is that artwork display is flaky, with some cover art being imported from iTunes correctly and other artwork inexplicably not displaying. TBH I lay the blame fairly and squarely at Apple's door for this farce.
The same problems occur with SqueezeBox server and it is something to do with the fact that iTunes handles artwork unlike any other media server on the planet, so when your alternative player "imports" said artwork, half of it always goes AWOL.
Songbird has improved a lot since I last used it. It is very fast once it has imported your music library and again it sounds lovely. Better again than Pure Music and iTunes. In fact I reckon it beats Sonora too. The top end is gorgeous, and as I am highly sensitive to treble problems, I think I will be keeping it as my player. I'll use iTunes for purchases and Songbird for playback.
Both Songbird and Sonora offer FLAC support so you can drop your FLAC files in the iTunes Folder. Although iTunes wont see them, Songbird and Sonora will identify them on scanning for new music and pick them up for playback.
All this is IME and only an opinion of course, and YMMV and all that.
The new iTunes 11 is nice and does offer an improvement in over the previous version but the two free alternatives have it beaten soundwise on the Mac.
Sgt. Baker started talkin’ with a Bullhorn in his hand.
#48
Jriver has been tinkering with a Mac version?
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?board=31.0
Best software for PC imo, should be worth a punt on a mac?
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?board=31.0
Best software for PC imo, should be worth a punt on a mac?
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Cressy Snr
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#49
Found another great alternative to iTunes and this one's a belter
Ecoute by Pixiapps, a French software writer.
Simple, clean interface, straightforward and great sounding.
Easily the equal of Songbird in terms of sound quality
and a great deal faster and less bloated.
It is at version 3.0.8 and free for the moment whilst the developer
works on version 4. This will appear on the Mac App Store when finished.
Apple's sandboxing rules scuppered version 3 on the App Store because Apple kept moving the goalposts so the bloke made it free in frustration.
Version 4 will be a rewrite and available for 99p on the App store for a limited time before it goes up to the proper price.
It's bloody good!
Ecoute by Pixiapps, a French software writer.
Simple, clean interface, straightforward and great sounding.
Easily the equal of Songbird in terms of sound quality
and a great deal faster and less bloated.
It is at version 3.0.8 and free for the moment whilst the developer
works on version 4. This will appear on the Mac App Store when finished.
Apple's sandboxing rules scuppered version 3 on the App Store because Apple kept moving the goalposts so the bloke made it free in frustration.
Version 4 will be a rewrite and available for 99p on the App store for a limited time before it goes up to the proper price.
It's bloody good!
Sgt. Baker started talkin’ with a Bullhorn in his hand.
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Cressy Snr
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#50
It's been quite a while since I posted anything on this thread, but plenty has changed in the software music manager/player alternatives to iTunes universe.
I tried two apps, Doubletwist and Tomahawk.
Tomahawk is absoutely superb and shows iTunes up, pretty badly.
It is a completely different concept to most players and takes a bit of getting used to but it sounds wonderful, is open source, available for Mac, Windows and mumerous flavours of Linux.
One can check it out here:
http://www.tomahawk-player.org
Apart from its great music management facilities, it is the resolver facilities that make it such a fantastic piece of kit. click on a track and it will search on spotify, lastfm soundcloud, bandcamp, or any number of streaming services and will come up with similar stuff that might be of interest. if the stuff is available to stream, it will stream straight to your system and out of the speakers, should you so wish.
I like it.
I tried two apps, Doubletwist and Tomahawk.
Tomahawk is absoutely superb and shows iTunes up, pretty badly.
It is a completely different concept to most players and takes a bit of getting used to but it sounds wonderful, is open source, available for Mac, Windows and mumerous flavours of Linux.
One can check it out here:
http://www.tomahawk-player.org
Apart from its great music management facilities, it is the resolver facilities that make it such a fantastic piece of kit. click on a track and it will search on spotify, lastfm soundcloud, bandcamp, or any number of streaming services and will come up with similar stuff that might be of interest. if the stuff is available to stream, it will stream straight to your system and out of the speakers, should you so wish.
I like it.
Sgt. Baker started talkin’ with a Bullhorn in his hand.
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Cressy Snr
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#51
doubleTwist is also a great app.
Easier to get into than Tomahawk but nowhere near as comprehensive at streaming from internet services.
Unlike Tomahawk however, it does import your iTunes playlists so you are not forced to start over making compilations.
Great sound too, but Tomahawk has the edge over it. I don't know what audio backend Tomahawk uses on OSX, but it is certainly good, as is doubletwist, whose developers seem to have reverse engineered the early iTunes store protected codec so that songs designated protected are playable outside of iTunes (naughty boys)
http://www.doubletwist.com/desktop/
Easier to get into than Tomahawk but nowhere near as comprehensive at streaming from internet services.
Unlike Tomahawk however, it does import your iTunes playlists so you are not forced to start over making compilations.
Great sound too, but Tomahawk has the edge over it. I don't know what audio backend Tomahawk uses on OSX, but it is certainly good, as is doubletwist, whose developers seem to have reverse engineered the early iTunes store protected codec so that songs designated protected are playable outside of iTunes (naughty boys)
http://www.doubletwist.com/desktop/
Sgt. Baker started talkin’ with a Bullhorn in his hand.
#52
Did you try JRiver? It's a really rich and very stable piece of software on my Windows 7 platform (sounds good too!) and there's a new Mac version being released. Just interested.
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=83922.0
Ray
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=83922.0
Ray
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Cressy Snr
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#53
I'm downloading the trial version now.Ray P wrote:Did you try JRiver? It's a really rich and very stable piece of software on my Windows 7 platform (sounds good too!) and there's a new Mac version being released. Just interested.
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=83922.0
Ray
I'd forgotten about it.
Thanks for reminding me Ray.
I'll report on its sound once it has imported everything.
Sgt. Baker started talkin’ with a Bullhorn in his hand.
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Cressy Snr
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#54
HALLELUJAH!
Jriver is the first piece of "other than iTunes" software that plays gapless albums such as "Dark Side of the Moon" without glitches.
For that it gets a chance to prove itself.
It does sound very good; very good indeed.
iTunes has a subtle ffffffffffff added to the top end compared to JRiver.
Jriver has a precision and clarity to its sound, that reminds me of OTL amplifiers.
Whether I can live with it remains to be seen, I'll have to use it for a while
Jriver is the first piece of "other than iTunes" software that plays gapless albums such as "Dark Side of the Moon" without glitches.
For that it gets a chance to prove itself.
It does sound very good; very good indeed.
iTunes has a subtle ffffffffffff added to the top end compared to JRiver.
Jriver has a precision and clarity to its sound, that reminds me of OTL amplifiers.
Whether I can live with it remains to be seen, I'll have to use it for a while
Last edited by Cressy Snr on Sat Sep 28, 2013 5:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Sgt. Baker started talkin’ with a Bullhorn in his hand.
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Cressy Snr
- Amstrad Tower of Power
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#55
Nah! This clinical precision was getting on my nerves, so much so that I started tube rolling.
Out came the pair of early 1980s Mullard ECC81 and in went a set of new production long-plate Electro - Harmonix 12AT7EH.
I don't care what people may say about NOS always sounding better than new production, these EH jobbies did the trick, warming up the picture a treat.
As ever, it's the situation in which you use your valves that counts, not the label on the glass, all IMO and all that.
JRiver Media Center now sounds gorgeous, liquid and lovely.
The frankly icy, bleached quality, exhibited by the Mullards with Jriver, is gone and tonal colour is once more what it's all about;
not quite in the class of the GEC A2900 but plenty good enough until Paul sends me some GEC 12AT7.
Out came the pair of early 1980s Mullard ECC81 and in went a set of new production long-plate Electro - Harmonix 12AT7EH.
I don't care what people may say about NOS always sounding better than new production, these EH jobbies did the trick, warming up the picture a treat.
As ever, it's the situation in which you use your valves that counts, not the label on the glass, all IMO and all that.
JRiver Media Center now sounds gorgeous, liquid and lovely.
The frankly icy, bleached quality, exhibited by the Mullards with Jriver, is gone and tonal colour is once more what it's all about;
not quite in the class of the GEC A2900 but plenty good enough until Paul sends me some GEC 12AT7.Sgt. Baker started talkin’ with a Bullhorn in his hand.
#57
BTW, if the Mac version is anything like the Windows version (assume it is), there's a lot of stuff to play around with if that's your bent. Personally I use it without any of that stuff other than the internal volume control, which I'm trying at the moment - so far I've been happy with it (its 64bit so shouldn't be discarding any data). I only use it for audio too.
The JRiver forum and wiki usually have the answers if you find yourself scratching your head.
Ray
The JRiver forum and wiki usually have the answers if you find yourself scratching your head.
Ray
#58
Thats internal, when it gets to the output it will be back in 24 or 16 bits depending on your DAC. For every 6dB of attenuation you will loose one bit of your DAC.(its 64bit so shouldn't be discarding any data)
Whenever an honest man discovers that he's mistaken, he will either cease to be mistaken or he will cease to be honest.
#59
Nick, isn't that the point, it handles everything at 64bit resolution internally so you don't lose resolution once its back as 16 or 24bit for the DAC; essentially the internal volume is performing DSP? Or am I missing something?Nick wrote:Thats internal, when it gets to the output it will be back in 24 or 16 bits depending on your DAC. For every 6dB of attenuation you will loose one bit of your DAC.(its 64bit so shouldn't be discarding any data)
Here are a couple of links;
http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Volume
http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Audio_Bitdepth
I've only just started to try the internal volume control and so far I've not detected anything untoward. Would be glad to understand things better (be gentle).
Ray
#60
Yep, but if you are controlling the volume in the digital domain, the final signal will have to go to your dac. So the numbers that go to you dac will for example (assuming 16 bit), at 0dB attenuation range from +32768 to -32769, thats full scale, If you want 6dB attenuation, then the numbers will range from +16384 to -16385, 12dB attenuation, +8192 to -8193, each 6dB final attenuation will loose you a bit from your dac. The fact that jRiver does its internal work in 64 bit doesn't affect that.
Fair enough, set jRivver to 0dB then adjust your amp so its the loudest it will ever need to be, then you will loose less using jRivver as a attenuator, but if you start with 20dB or so attenuation to match the DAC and amp, thats turned a 24 bit dac with 110dB S/N ratio into a 21bit one with 90dB S/N
Fair enough, set jRivver to 0dB then adjust your amp so its the loudest it will ever need to be, then you will loose less using jRivver as a attenuator, but if you start with 20dB or so attenuation to match the DAC and amp, thats turned a 24 bit dac with 110dB S/N ratio into a 21bit one with 90dB S/N
Whenever an honest man discovers that he's mistaken, he will either cease to be mistaken or he will cease to be honest.