What's your go to hi res music player for Mac?

I'v had Audirvana for a while now but for some reason it doesn't play DSD files. There is either no sound or just static noise. I don't know if it's the update or what. What's your go to player or app what work well with DSD files?

 

My mac is hooked up to a Sony UDA-1 by the way.

 

I had some issues with Audirvana on my mac mini...
I use Amarra for critical listening. for many years, been used on many different mac os's.
Amarra is the Absolute BEST Sounding App for Mac or PC there is. Best "Sounding"
Amarra - Amarra High Resolution Mobile Music Players & Audio Processors

However my go to and choice is Roon! Roon is just amazing and has changed the way I consume music.
Music Player & Music Server Software - 14 Day Free Trial | Roon Labs

What kind of Mac? Sometimes the USB ports are shared in pairs. Try not to use the USB audio and lets say a hard drive on the same shared pair. Especially with older computers.

 

A subscription service and streaming don't interest me as I own all the files I need. Is there an interface player that does what BitPerfect previously did? Something better than iTunes, but not loaded with stuff I'd never use.

 

I tried out Audirvana and Amarra for my Mac Mini about 5 years ago and went with Amarra. I am now using Amarra Luxe and love it for my library. However, you should be warned, although it is the best sounding (at least to me) it still can be pretty buggy. I cant even use Qobuz with Amarra any longer as it just crashes after 15 minutes or so.

I also have BitPerfect on the same machine and I still use it every now and then when Amarra drives me crazy.

 

Colibri works great for me when I just want to play music.

 

I settled on Roon. Its not cheap but its so damn good to use. Never a problem and the database they have it unlike anyone elses.
In terms of fidelity, its VERY close to Amarra. So much so I dont use Amarra much anymore which is buggy and uses lots of system resources (likely why its buggy).

 

That's funny, because BitPerfect is buggy and I still use iTunes sometimes without it. Maybe I should check out Amarra.

 

Thanks. I'm going to take a look. Im about 90% analog these days because of the Amarra headaches so if the SQ is close I would for sure make the switch.

 

In my experience, its nowhere near as buggy as Amarra BUT Amarra sounds significantly better to me.

 

VOX.

 

JRiver for local files from MAC. For Qobuz I either go directly from the iPad to the DAC or I use USB Audio Player Pro on Samsung phone.

 

How hard would it be for Apple to add automatic native resolution output, upsampling options, and a "hog mode" to iTunes/Music?

I use the BitPerfect applet myself within iTunes, but it can be buggy at times.

Bill

 

VOX has a cloud service for $50 per year with unlimited storage. They have apps for Mac and iOS.

 

I’m in the same boat. Don’t need another subscription. Just want a good reliable player.

 

For grins, I emailed Apple today and asked for 3 added features to iTunes/Music playback:

1) Automatic native digital output (aka a bit perfect digital stream) that doesn't require reconfiguring one's MIDI outputs manually.

2) Integrating easy to use but sophisticated upsampling (and no upsampling) options into their player.

3) Giving users the ability to go into a "hog mode" that blocks all extraneous audio, such as alerts or web audio from the audio signal path and makes the digital audio out exclusively from the Apple music player.

Couldn't hurt to get similar feedback from other users.

Seems like basic functionality in this day and age.

Bill

 

Good luck getting Apple to re-write their native software for you
In the meantime, Audirvana does all those things, and can piggyback onto your existing iTunes database.
Macs cannot stream native DSD files. I don't have a DSD-capable DAC, so I'm not an authority on this, but Audirvana will play DSD by converting it to a PCM stream.
I've tried other Mac audio players inc. Amarra, HQPlayer, BitPerfect, and, of course, iTunes, but I've settled on Audirvana. One of its nicer features is compatiblity with AU effects plug-ins, many of which are freeware. I add on Goodhertz CanOpener Studio, which is not free, but has many useful features, inc. bass/treble/gain controls, channel balance, peak limiting, soundstage crossfeed, stereo-to-mono fold-down, etc.

 

Believe it or not, I've had Apple take direct input from me when developing their video editing software programs over the decades, and (far less directly) I've seen them add requested features I've asked for in other software upgrades (whether they came from my suggestions, or not).

It isn't useless for users to make feature requests. When they get hit with enough feature requests for the same thing it can have an impact.

And Audirvana is absurdly expensive. The BitPerfect applet that works within iTunes does the three things I asked for (with some bugginess) for $10 or so.

Bill

 

Audirvana for me in my Mac. I haven’t noticed any issues with it once I got it set up. Have tidal running through it as well

 

I usually play my music via Audirvana. But now that iTunes has HD Audio capabilities I'm not sure Audirvana is going to bring that much more to the listening experience.. Certainly not as a subscription as it is now (I have a full license from the previous version).

 

Odd, Audirvana works for me in playing DSD files. I’m on Mojave and running an older version of Audirvana so I wonder if the newer OSs break it.

 

The vast majority of my hi-res music is Apple Lossless (I general convert FLAC files with XLD) played via the Apple Music app, and when I play FLAC or DSD I use the Pine Player.

I’ve tried all the fancy audiophile music apps for Mac (some of them more than once), but I always go back to something more basic.

 

SoundSource might be able to accomplish number three.
SoundSource - A Superior Sound Control

 

My 2010 MacMini's CD player. Sounds perfect in high rez 16bit/41000Hz. No fuss Apple OS Core Audio API. Hit the space bar and it plays the selected music. I really don't like complexity when all I want to do is hear music at the best quality possible which is CD rez. I don't even launch iTunes because of its loaded GUI full of nested options and settings just to play music. I do use iTunes to burn my playlists to CDR so I can play them on my home and car's system.

I've auditioned so many app players that claim "sound better" and I can never hear a difference on my MacMini or home system CD player.

I long for the simple GUI design of Sound App, a free app for Mac OS Classic circa late '90's (OS 8). I could create playlists of drag and dropped CD files into the Sound App window and set to auto play like it was a regular CD player on my home audio system. See that's what's weird about computer audio players is that some don't even let you make your computer equipped with a CD player function like an actual CD player. I still can't find a way to do it in iTunes but then I hate the app so much I wouldn't go to the trouble if I did know how.