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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
johnnyb53 OP
3,510 posts
 
What does "integer mode capable" mean? I've seen it mentioned on some of the music software websites, but not explained.
doggiehowser
672 posts
 
PCM is integer data

But the OS normally processes data in floating point (FP).

Integer mode allows the software to bypass the conversion to FP.

Doing this also bypasses upsampling and volume control
mateored
258 posts
 
I use Audivarna on my MacBook and Pure Music on my Mac Mini. I like Audivarna better in terms of ease of use, but it doesn't run on my Mini for some weird reason. They both sound excellent. I doubt I could tell them apart, although I've never done an A/B comparison on the same system.
johnnyb53 OP
3,510 posts
 
Thanks for the info and recommendations. Given the enthusiasm for Audirvana here, around the Web, and at TAS, I downloaded the 15-day trial and it looks like I'll buy the license.

Audirvana has several features I was looking for, including adjusting the sampling rate to a multiple of the original (44.1 goes to 88.2, etc.), designating RAM to buffer music files (especially since my music files are on a portable USB drive), the ability to use as a plug-in with iTunes so I can stay with a familiar user interface, and all for $50.

It's an excellent match-up with my new Dragonfly. iTunes' native mode is 24/96. Before Audirvana, the Dragonfly always lit up magenta, signifying a 96KHz stream. After configuring Audirvana and playing ALAC files (under control of Audirvana), the Dragonfly light changed to amber, signifying 88.2 Khz. It's an exact 2x upsample of rebook and I immediately noticed a more relaxed treble. It could also be the RAM buffering, but who knows and who cares? Audirvana offers both and something made the music sound better.

Unanticipated is stronger bass--deeper, fuller, and more articulated. I now look forward to downloading and trying out a few 24/96 and 24/88.2 HDTracks.

Thanks again, everybody.
doggiehowser
672 posts
 
Glad we could help.

ps also try disabling up sampling and running in Integer/Direct mode if supported by your device and see if you like it.

I did find upsampling tended to make the bass less impactful
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