Best software to playback HIRES FLAC files

Posted by: pz on 21 January 2012

On PC ?

On Mac ?

Posted on: 21 January 2012 by Aleg

On PC: JPlay (from jplay.eu) by miles the best one

Mac: I stay away from those

aleg

Posted on: 21 January 2012 by likesmusic

J RIver Media Center would be my choice. Plenty audiophile options such as memory playback, event driven WASAPI, even a nice little indicator that goes on (in version 17) to verify you haven't done any unwanted signal processing by accident.

Posted on: 21 January 2012 by pcstockton

+1 for J River. Amazing database control. great sound. 10' interface. Great iOS app.

-Patrick

Posted on: 21 January 2012 by HuwJ

So far I would agree with JRiver too. There are good UPNP apps for ipad and iPhone too. They are much faster than nServe in operation too.

If you are using a streamer you don't need to worry about memory play etc as the information is sent via the network, rather than via spdif. You do have to make sure the software is not down sampling though - as JRiver does when you install it.

Likesmusic. Where is the indicator and does it function with data sent via the network?

Regards
Huw

Posted on: 22 January 2012 by Guido Fawkes

Originally Posted by pz:

On Mac ?

Either convert to AIFF/ALAC with XLD and use iTunes or use Decibel to play FLAC directly.

There are multitude of options that sounds as good as each other, there is nothing particularly special about rendering hi-resolution files.

The few 24-bit ones sound great through a Naim DAC.

I'm less convinced about higher number sampling rates, but Decibel will play these perfectly.

It just works.