Another downside, depending on how you look at it, is that new versions of foobar are constantly being released. That means a lot of time poking around forums and support pages, which luckily, there are a lot of. You may have to do some digging and experimentation to get things setup the way you want. In short, you can totally geek out with foobar and customize nearly everything, including the GUI and backend.Īt the same time, all that customization and community support comes with a downside. Some of the available components are ASIO and WASAPI support, a really cool ABX comparator that “Performs a double-blind listening test between two tracks”, and a DSDIFF decoder. By opening up development to the online community, the possibilities are basically endless. Second, they offer up an SDK (software development kit), which allows others to build components to expand the functionality of foobar. First off, it’s free, which is hard to beat. Overall, great file management!įoobar2000 is my ( Cliff here, not Ryan) favorite audiophile playback software. ASIO and WASAPI, plus other plugins available.įile Management: Built-in, easy to organize and personalize. I can't hear the difference between these apps, with the possible exception of Amarra, which makes some recordings sound better than the others (maybe it's euphonic, and therefore not bit-perfect?).Īll this said, I'm really enjoying a return to playing CDs on vintage Sony carousel players from the 1990s.Audio Capabilities: FLAC, Vorbis, AIFF, + more with additional components. I have not figured out how to do this with other software. One Jriver thing I found indispensable: You can create playlists that remove duplicates (the inevitable result of ripping 100s of CDs with iTunes). It does a million things, many that I have not tried. It has exclusive access and streams locally on my local network with a decent (though minimalist) browser interface. It has an ugly duckling interface that some people hate, but I find it charming for some reason. It sounds great but it's not bit-perfect AFAIK.īut the one I settled on is Jriver. I do still use Plex since it works so well on many systems. I tried all of these because each had flaws that were aggravating, or Mac OS eventually broke something. Neutron is amazing, kinda wish it ran on Mac OS. I have not tried Roon.Įach of these has had nice features. I have Plex, Fidelia, and Bitperfect too. My question is, is the inferior sound quality I'm getting from the MacBook/VOX/DAC3 chain, as compared to the universal player/DAC3 chain, due to the Mac OS X Core Audio driver? And if so, is there anything I can do to bypass it? TIA! Files played back off the hard drive did sound better this way, but at some point, according to Audirvana, OS X no longer supported Direct Mode. I know I'm not getting the best possible SQ this way.Īt one point I had the Audirvana player, which had Direct Mode, bypassing the OS X Core Audio driver. That's unfortunate, as I've also purchased and dowloaded hi res PCM files over the years (mostly of classical music), and streaming them from the hard drive is the only way I'm able to play them. I've also tried ripping them and playing them back off the hard drive of my MacBook Pro using the VOX player, also into the DAC3, but they don't sound as good this way. I play them on a universal disc player, running the digital signal into a Benchmark DAC3 via Toslink or coax. I have a large collection of Redbook CDs (also SACDs, but that's another matter).
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