Mac users: What program do you use for music playback?

For ripping or transcoding in this order:

1. dBPoweramp
2. XLD
3. iTunes

For library management in this order:

1. iTunes
2. JRiver Media Center
3. Sonos

For playback in this order:

1. JRiver Media Center
2. Sonos
3. iTunes

In the past I have used or tried Pure Music, Audirvana and Amarra

 

It costs nothing to try them both out. Perhaps the others you are considering also offer a demo period.

 

Audirvana+ seems to sound a bit better than iTunes or others I've tried, but surprisingly it won't play OGG files so I stopped at the free trial.

Often I use Swinsian (which offers playback for my one (!!!!!) DSD album, but it's glitchy {makes a harsh noise between tracks} so I don't use it for that) and most often I use this fork of Cog:
Cog »
because it's so simple. (there's another fork floating around web that has slightly more customizable UI but is buggy) For both, I use Airfoil which allows sending audio to my Airplay device (and I guess Airplay converts anything higher down to 16 / 44.1) which is a Marantz Consolette while simultaneously playing through the 2.1 speakers I have coming out the headphone jack. Nothing fancy, cheap indeed- they just bolster the Marantz which is nice but big on the midrange.

I rip CDs using XLD with AccurateRip and I also used XLD to convert my so-far-one-and-only DSD album for convenience to OGG for playback through Cog or Swinsian (without the glitch) or though VLC or any other number of players. I used 32:1 Decimation (to 88.2 khz …this Mac maxes at 96), and for kicks and overkill a second attempt using 16:1 Decimation, each time left the Quantization at 32 bit Floating Point & went right to OGG at quality 10. It was simple and results were indistinguishable to me from playback of the DSD files. This is just a Macbook going over very-not hi-fi equipment anyway.

If Audirvana ever plays OGG again ( I am guessing it used to - there's a buried credit in About Audirvana Plus > Acknowledgements for "OGG (1.3.2) - Xiph.org: Downloads »") I'll try it again, Right now they have a three month free Tidal offer when buying their app. That is a good percentage of the sale price of the program.

I've read my favorite player, which I use in Bootcamp - Foobar2000 - runs great under WiNE or CrossOver, but I have not tried.

 

I use a free player called Nightingale.
It's not the best, but it's free. It has a decent enough interface, and it plays OGGs.
I want free, because the Mac I use is a work computer. I'm not spending money for a program for my work computer.

 

I was using Nightingale for a while - after Songbird died. This probably doesn't matter for your work computer, but you may want to know if you ever end up with a Mac library at home: it was modifying my files when I didn't want it to:
I do not want Nightingale to modify all files - which it does »
I don't think they ever fixed it, & program isn't still under active development I don't think, but changes to MacOS may have by chance stopped the behavior (unlikely).
Cog fork i linked to is also free, but isn't as nice of an interface as Nightingale

 

Yes. I just copied my music to the internal Mac drive. NBD if anything happens to it, but that info is still good to know. Thanks.
I think it messes with file permissions on Mac too. Occasionally, files won't play and cover art won't display. A change of permissions fixes the problem.

 

iTunes, occasionally Kodi

 

If it isn't too much trouble, could you post some how-to info and/or links for fb2k..? Would love to give this a try...

 

Foobar 2000

 

I have tried many for OS X. Audirvana is what I use. Rip with XLD and do the majority of metadata editing with Tag Editor, which I find highly useful. I paid for 1 year of Roon and it was a bitter, bitter disappointment. It looked so good, but was just a total pain in the ass to get working correctly. I gave up. Life is too short.

 

iTunes...I only listen on the computer when I am at work doing tasks. Compared to the FM I grew up with it sounds great. At home I listen to vinyl.

 

Well there are three ways to use Foobar200 on Mac hardware. Only way I've done it is to run it under Windows. I boot out of Sierra on this Macbook and into Windows 10. It runs great on this nearly 7 year old Macbook - but, that's in Windows.

Another way would be, while still while running MacOS, to run Foobar inside Windows inside a virtual machine using a program like VirtualBox or Parallels. Just like the method I use, this means you need a Windows operating system installed, but unlike method I use you install Windows as a "guest" operating system within the MacOS & can launch Foobar while still using your MacOS. Virtual Machines in my usage have really slowed down my computer. It's kinda like running two operating systems at same time…

The method I mentioned in my post, which I assume is what you're interested in, does NOT require a copy of Windows. It requires installing Wine, which I've never used in Mac but I have tried it in Linux. It allows - to varying degrees of reported success - Mac or Linux users to run Windows programs.

It can be a little involved.

Here's main Wine page:
WineHQ - Run Windows applications on Linux, BSD, Solaris and macOS »
their Mac page is here:
macOS - WineHQ Wiki »

here, they list Foobar as one of their programs that runs well under Wine:
WineHQ - foobar2000 »

Never having tried Wine on a Mac, I can't really offer any personal insight into getting Foobar to run. But Wngnt90, above, notes use of Foobar on a Mac and might be able to provide better guidance.

Be advised… CrossOver is a commercial application of Wine that is supposed to be easier to use, and they offer a free trial:
CrossOver runs the Windows software you need on Mac and Linux. »

& as of September they make a claim of quality performance for Foobar:
Search for What Runs in CrossOver | CodeWeavers »
Foobar2000 1.2.9 | What Runs | CodeWeavers »

Sorry I can't provide a step-by-step from experience of my own.

If you try it out, good luck… and if it works well - please report back!!

 

Wow! Many thx. I will take it from here, and will indeed report back...

 

I use Audirvana Plus (Version 2.6.6) on my old Macbook Pro (late-2012 w/Retina Display), driving my amazing new Kef LS50 Wireless Speakers, via a USB cable direct to the speakers. I easily play my collection of SACD ISO files, DSD64, DSD128 and even DSD264 files, along with traditional 16bit and 24bit Flac files. I honestly couldn't be happier with the sound coming out of my "system." I had a Rega/Naim system a decade ago, and this current setup blows that out of the water, minus all the extra equipment/cables and equipment rack taking up space. I'm slowly replacing the vinyl I had with these new formats, and I don't miss my old system at all. Seriously.

 

Jriver is great but the interface really needs to be cleaned up as it's highly non intuitive and difficult to find how to do things which is unfortunate because the program can do practically anything, it's just a matter of finding where it is in a very poor menu system. Audirvana is much simpler and sounds equally good.

 

VOX. Great and free.

 

Swinsian's DSF playback glitch which I mentioned in previous reply has been fixed. It's the Mac player that most suits my needs, so I'm very glad this has been corrected.
Another change in the latest edition that is of great use to me is the newly added ability of playlists to include / exclude each other:
Swinsian Version 1.13.0 - The Swinsian Blog

 

I never quote myself but I will in this instance. I'm finally fed up with not being able to natively play FLAC in iTunes after all these years. I decided to look into an alternative and after looking over a number of programs that just didn't seem to be what I was looking for I finally landed on Swinsian.

Swinsian

If Apple ever decides to finally recognize FLAC in iTunes, I would probably go back. But, until that day...

 

Audirvana +

 

Soon?
Apple reportedly adds support for FLAC lossless audio in iOS 11

 

Yea, saw that. I even read where MacOS High Sierra Beta was supporting FLAC playback in Quicktime. Still no word on iTunes though.

 

If Quicktime supports it then ITunes will. Quicktime is what plays the files that ITunes catalogs.

 

You've got a great point, QT is the engine that drives iTunes.

Crossing fingers that they do a full integration. Would be very awesome to finally have that.

 

It's so trivially easy and fast to convert FLAC files to Apple Lossless that I've never felt it was a point of friction, though I do occasionally play FLAC directly via VLC or Decibel.

 

Audirvana Plus helped me cut the cord with iTunes once and for all. With the seamless Tidal integration, it's been a great-sounding solution,