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Why is J River better than iTunes on PC?

I'm having a hard time finding reasons, but the general consensus I'm seeing is that J River is "better" than iTunes in every way. Now, I currently have a large amount of my albums ripped in AIFF format running through iTunes on my Dell PC (Vista Ultimate 64-bit). I downloaded JRiver (MJ) version 12 and have been playing around with it. By the looks of it, in order to simplify the tagging issues of trying to import AIFF into JRiver, I'd have to re-rip all the albums again in, what I'm assuming for best quality, FLAC.

In terms of SQ, I really hear no difference whatsoever between iTunes and JRiver...am I missing something here? Yeah, some of the DSP options are cool like the soundstage effect, but when comparing the two with all levels flat, neither sounds better or worse.

Truthfully, I seem to find the simplicity of iTunes much more appealing. Am I setting up myself for future disappointments or problems by using the AIFF codec and iTunes as my audio playback software? What are the big advantages of using FLAC/JRiver?

Thanks.
heywaj10
audioengr
3,282 posts
 
iTunes has no way of bypassing the windows core audio software. Jriver does. You can do WASAPI or Kernel Streaming. iTunes was never optimized for good SQ on PC. It's even deficient on Mac IMO. Needs Pure Music, Amarra or AyreWave to sound good.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio
Ag insider logo xs@2x
nmcc0866
4 posts
 
I've used JRiver, iTunes, FooBar and Media Monkey. They can all deliver bit-perfect digital stream to a DAC, with proper set-up (or in the case of iTunes, an add-on like Pure Music).
So it comes down to ease of use and learning curve, and what you are trying to accomplish with your music management.
For me, JRiver offers excellent flexibility for displaying your music collection in different ways. I use different "View" schemes for classical, jazz and popular music. For classical, the ability to "slice and dice" by composer, artist, soloist, orchestra, conductor, genre, period, style - is absolutely incredible (It does require lots of work to get the tagging correct in the database, but the public databases like AMG make this easier all the time). Anyway, I don't believe you can tag/display/search with that kind of flexibility with iTunes.
OTOH, if you only listen to popular music, and want to keep it simple, stick to iTunes.
dks70
1 posts
 
I am new to J River, and am just starting to use the trial version of JRMC 18. I may not understand things yet, but am I correct that the user has to add internet radio stream links manually to J River? If so, this is a huge contrast with iTunes.
mracoustat
74 posts
 
I don't know if JRIVER is better than ITUNES all my music is in ITUNES aiff 1411kbs quality and that is good enough for me and that's what matters.
cerrot's avatar
cerrot
1,700 posts
 
JRiver is better if you have a revealing system and you care about how good your music sounds and care about retrieving the emotion from it. If you listen to music at home like you do i the car, sure, there isn't a difference.

Lots of guys out there think Sotify sounds awesome. Power to ya.
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