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Post by yotonic on Dec 28, 2020 0:51:11 GMT -6
I can't stand the "player" GUI for itunes. I can barely see the transport controls, or volume. Are there any plug-ins or alternatives that have more of a "Logic", or "Pro-Tools" kind of transport for playing back MP3s on the Mac? Even an Audacity style transport would be a huge improvement.
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Post by roundbadge on Dec 28, 2020 1:28:10 GMT -6
I really like Tidal.MQA streaming[Master Quality Audio]mainly because it sonically blows away iTunes and shitafy
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Post by ChaseUTB on Dec 28, 2020 1:59:59 GMT -6
I really like Tidal.MQA streaming[Master Quality Audio]mainly because it sonically blows away iTunes and shitafy Is that w/ the same playback files? Meaning comparing 24 bit Wav on each platform? I think some DSP you have to buy the ability to stream HQ Wav. Always heard lots of ppl recommend Tidal! Is there anywhere to buy actual HQ wavs the ME made/ printed/ captured w/o DSP encoding? |
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Post by ChaseUTB on Dec 28, 2020 2:30:04 GMT -6
If the iTunes Player on Mac you can kind of customize the layout window. U can shrink it to a transport player but It’s more of a CD player lthan PT or LPX transport. This is on my MBP running older ITunes 12. Xx on El Cap.
I haven’t found a way on iPad / iPhones other than selecting the file where it takes up the whole phone screen but it the same type of CD player control.
Side note / Slight OT:
I would like the ITunes Store to offer HQ Wav for purchase instead of Apple Digital Masters AAC’s or non ADM AACs. To be an Apple Digital Master the source file has to be 24 bit or 32 bit, 44.1-192kHz file. No up sampled files. No 16 bit files upped to 24 bit. ADM recommends using 24 bit 96 kHz source files w/ 1 dB of headroom for best encoding results. (-1.0 dbfs peak )
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Post by yotonic on Dec 28, 2020 2:35:50 GMT -6
I really like Tidal.MQA streaming[Master Quality Audio]mainly because it sonically blows away iTunes and shitafy Can you drag your own music files, demos, Mp3 clips into Tidal? |
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Post by roundbadge on Dec 28, 2020 5:15:37 GMT -6
I really like Tidal.MQA streaming[Master Quality Audio]mainly because it sonically blows away iTunes and shitafy Can you drag your own music files, demos, Mp3 clips into Tidal? no unfortunately you can't. On my laptop I've been listening to Tidal through a really good DAC [Mytek] and hi end headphones and it is amazing.for my iPhone I'm using an Ifi XDSD portable dac/amp.worlds better than the iPhone output. theres a whole crazy world of high end headphones,streaming amps, etc out there. I auditioned the $5k Abyss 1622 headphones through a custom tube headphone amp and it was an unreal experience. |
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Post by roundbadge on Dec 28, 2020 5:17:54 GMT -6
I really like Tidal.MQA streaming[Master Quality Audio]mainly because it sonically blows away iTunes and shitafy Is there anywhere to buy actual HQ wavs the ME made/ printed/ captured w/o DSP encoding? Not sure.good question! |
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Post by ericn on Dec 28, 2020 10:20:35 GMT -6
Can you drag your own music files, demos, Mp3 clips into Tidal? no unfortunately you can't. On my laptop I've been listening to Tidal through a really good DAC [Mytek] and hi end headphones and it is amazing.for my iPhone I'm using an Ifi XDSD portable dac/amp.worlds better than the iPhone output. theres a whole crazy world of high end headphones,streaming amps, etc out there. I auditioned the $5k Abyss 1622 headphones through a custom tube headphone amp and it was an unreal experience. Crappy Holidays my friend, Tidal Mytek Brooklyn DAC+ through a pair of STAX ESL’s is all you will ever need. Well that a Big Class A amp and a collection of reference quality speakers. Bang for the $ use the project Audio ore box digital. Even in the Tesla the detail between iTunes and Tidal is night and day.. Can you bring your own stuff to the party? No but once you stream some old favorites from pre MP3 days iTunes becomes your back up streamer. Even the kid won’t use iTunes for any of the highly processed K-pop. |
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Post by Dan on Dec 28, 2020 11:08:50 GMT -6
Somebody convinced me to convert to Jriver on Black Friday. I use Jriver with digital volume control disabled, Sox resampling, and a good third party dither. Then Jriver can approach a daw‘s sound quality. Every other media player I’ve tried sucks soundwise even though Jriver is 64-bit float and doesn’t hand off the pcm directly to the interface like a CD player.
The dither is necessary to prevent truncation distortion. Goodhertz Good Dither is the best one I’ve found because it can dither to 32 bit fixed point pcm and most importantly, CANNOT CLIP. It never adds gain. The truly random dither always is below 0 in SPAN, unlike Ozone, PSP X-Dither, and most limiters’ dithers. You’ll want to keep dither on high, auto blanking on, noise shaping off.
The jriver signal path is
1. Flac, alac, or wav file
2. Decoded flac or alac in memory. This is very important because the Flac codec clips worse than standard pcm even if it’s lossless. You don’t want a clipped file to clip the codec too.
3. File to 64 bit float pcm converted by SoX.
4. Dither set to whatever your drivers receive. Usually 24 or 32 fixed bit pcm now. You’ll want to use ASIO on Windows because DirectSound is crap. On Mac you need dither too because CoreAudio is 32-bit float but truncates when it hands it off to the interface drivers. Ideally your interface drivers will let you bypass this float to fixed conversion in MacOS.
The dither prevents distortion and preserves detail. Without it, or with the stock jriver dither, you lose details.
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Post by monkeyxx on Jan 1, 2021 18:10:02 GMT -6
foobar2000 all day, every day
FREE
for everything other than streaming. it will play any local audio file you have. It is also customizable and low footprint. It's the software of dreams.
For clarity, I have only used the Windows version, but they do have a Mac version for download.
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Post by popmann on Jan 8, 2021 12:39:50 GMT -6
I really like Tidal.MQA streaming[Master Quality Audio]mainly because it sonically blows away iTunes and shitafy edit Is there anywhere to buy actual HQ wavs the ME made/ printed/ captured w/o DSP encoding? You've always been able to buy them. I've yet to see ANY Tidal MQA that wasn't for sale at HDTracks our Quobuz or AcousticSOunds(RIP-they stopped selling digital files Jan1). I've never used them but also ProStudioMasters. There ARE places selling some MQA discs, but who has a MQA disc player? Without it--it's a CD--no advantage, so.... That said, the MQA "DSP" as you put it can be a better sound for 24/44 and 24/48 masters. As in delivering a LOT better sound using a standard 192khz DAC. Once you get to double rate content, it changes it and I don't find it as globally "better sounding"....and 192, you can't play it back without a proprietary MQA DAC, where you've been able to do 192khz on consumer audio gear at least since the DVD-Audio push of say 2001--so I've never heard it, but the only 192khz content is 1970s tape transfers anyway. While it's not "better" than actual HD--I think people get hung up on "their changing it...." as a negative. I know there's all kinds of money grab BS involved with MQA, which is wholly a bad idea....BUT....that doesn't mean that the DSP itself is a negative. |
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Post by monkeyxx on Jan 8, 2021 14:05:34 GMT -6
The prize of my digital collection is a 75 disc collection of Blue Note jazz albums in 192/24 lossless. I had an MQA DAC for a while, and it was "neat," but I didn't like the DAC, which kind of broke the deal. I didn't think DSD was "special" either in my listening tests. Now I just run the DAC at 192 at all times, regardless of the file type.
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