2. digital
  3. 1348442004

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 2 responses by rdavwhitaker

rdavwhitaker
173 posts
 
I tried PureMusic but ended up using Amarra (which is now available at a reasonable price). Amarra is simpler to use and, IMHO, more stable. It also has a great built-in process for converting FLAC files to AIFF files that can be managed in iTunes and accessed by Apple's Remote app. YMMV.
rdavwhitaker
173 posts
 
To attempt to respond to the questions asked about Amarra. I am using the full version of the software, not Amarra HiFi. I can't speak to how good or bad HiFi is.

I have converted a number of files from Flac to Aiff using Amarra. They can be converted at their native resolution (e.g. 24/88) and can then be managed through ITunes and the Apple Remote app, and played through a USB 2.0 connection, using the Amarra plug-in, to a network streamer capable of accepting the USB connection (like the Cambridge Audio Stream Magic 6). The file is transmitted and received at the native resolution, according to the front display on the Cambridge unit, and not down sampled.

I believe it is true that in order for the file to play through iTunes without Amarra, it must be down-converted to 16/44. But I am not certain.
More to discover