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What's your favorite Apple-based music program?

The J.River Media Center comes highly recommended and was at or near the top of most of TAS's sonic evaluations in their 4-part series about computer-based audio (Dec'11-Mar'12). However, looking over their website and some supporting forums, it appears that it's really a PC-based program. According to what I read on a JRM user forum, JRMC works on a Macintosh if you use Bootstrap to install Windows 7 and run it from there. That runs into a bunch more money and I'm not all that enamored of running the music software in a non-native mode.

OTOH, there's ChannelD's PureMusic. It's $129 vs. JRM's $50, but it's very Mac-friendly.

Any other insights, recommendations, or warnings? I just got an AQ Dragonfly asynchronous USB DAC and want to feed it the best data stream without spending several more hundreds of dollars. I also want to be able to download some 24/96 and 24/88.2 files from HDTracks, so the music-handling s/w has to be comfortable handling FLAC files on a MacBook Pro (OSX Mountain Lion).
johnnyb53

Showing 4 responses by clio09

clio09
3,343 posts
 
I just made the switch from Audirvana to Jriver. There were some bugs to work through but overall both of these programs sound very good to me, better than Pure Music. I prefer the Jriver UI and like the fact I do not have to rely on iTunes any longer. However, in the future I see myself going with a solution like the Sonore Rendu and being Linux based will probably mean switching to another software program.

Just for reference I am currently using an Oyen Digital 1TB HD connected via FW800 to a MacMini with a WyWires USB cable going to an Audiophilleo AP1 with Pure Power and then using a BNC to RCA adapter to connect directly to my Lessloss DAC bypassing the SPDIF digital cable. I did some upgrades to the MacMini as well.
clio09
3,343 posts
 
Albert, that is quite a bit of space. For me digital has never been my primary media, vinyl and now reel tape are. I know that you have both of those at your disposal as well. I don't think I have come close yet to maxing out my 1TB drive. Probably never will as I am not buying any new CDs. Might download some stuff, but will be judicious about it.

Sorry to hear about the issues with the leading edge. I was listening a bit last night and couldn't hear that in my setup. I am awaiting MC 19 for Mac so we will see how that goes. Will do another round of testing with Audirvana and see if I still prefer MC.
clio09
3,343 posts
 
Albert, I have uncompressed files and HD hirez files as well. I never had more than a few hundred CDs to begin with so 1TB should last a while. I feel fortunate I have not had to rip CDs from a huge library. I find cleaning records tedious enough as it is.

In general I am happy with Jriver bugs and all. Being in the software business most of my life I am used to bugs and bad UIs. At least Jriver has a nice UI. I suspect the Mac version will never be as good as the PC version though. As I said previously I will move over to a Linux based system eventually and that will require a new software package, although I hear Jriver is working on a Linux solution.
clio09
3,343 posts
 
Funny the Jremote app is where I encounter many issues I have had with Jriver. Sometimes the album art is screwed up and sometimes I can't switch songs. A quick Jriver reboot fixes that. I will need to look into the functions you mentioned. Haven't found those yet.
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