Good player for Mac mini

Posted by: Boj on 08 December 2012

Initially I went for itunes/bit perfect solution to find out my big collection of flac files are useless. Then after reading posts here and there I went for Fidelia/Fidelia Remote to find out I cannot set it to play the format original format, I.e. it resample and outputs the files to a presbit format. So I your advice on a good player, which is compatible with iTunes library, has ipad remote application, plays flac and automatically outputs bit exact. Many thanks for your recommendations.

Posted on: 09 December 2012 by garyi

haha.

 

Probably your best bet will be one of the home entertainment apps such as XBMC or PLEX, however these take over the screen of the mac.

 

But it does have remotes for ipad and will happily scrape data from any part of your network including itunes libraries and FLAC folders.

 

However for total ease you might consider converting them flacs using XLD. Just don't convert to WAV or you will be in a world of hurt.

Posted on: 09 December 2012 by James L

It's true with Fidelia that you set the bit rate for highest that your DAC will handle (which is as it should be) but, and I could be wrong here, Fidelia does not alter the bit rate of the file(?). 

 

The sample rate though can be set to "match song".

Posted on: 09 December 2012 by winkyincanada

If you still wanted to use iTunes, you could use XLD to convert your Flacs to AIFFs. It is pretty painless and takes less than a second per song (on my Mini, anyway)..

Posted on: 09 December 2012 by Boj

Many thanks for your advices.

Posted on: 09 December 2012 by sheffieldgraham
Originally Posted by James L:

It's true with Fidelia that you set the bit rate for highest that your DAC will handle (which is as it should be) but, and I could be wrong here, Fidelia does not alter the bit rate of the file(?). 

 

The sample rate though can be set to "match song".

+1 Fidelia ; user.

If in doubt go to Help within Fidelia followed by , Support, Help Desk and register a query with Audiofile Engineering.

Posted on: 09 December 2012 by Naimbuff
If I were you I'd go for audirvana plus. It supports flac and is an awesome player in combination with I-tunes. I use It in conjunction with a mac mini/naim DAC.
Posted on: 09 December 2012 by naimUnT

Pure Music. They have a free trial period.

Posted on: 10 December 2012 by Guido Fawkes

They should all work and play FLAC as will Decibel, but don't think there is an iPad remote app ... these players sound just as good iTunes playing ALAC or AIFF so there should be no issue ... don't get too hung up just use one that works for you - most are try before you buy. 

Posted on: 11 December 2012 by Boj
Originally Posted by James L:

It's true with Fidelia that you set the bit rate for highest that your DAC will handle (which is as it should be) but, and I could be wrong here, Fidelia does not alter the bit rate of the file(?). 

 

The sample rate though can be set to "match song".

James,

I did ask Fidelia help desk and they confirmed I should check "match song" box and I did. However that did not solve the problem. My NDAC HD indicator did not react to different audio formats. I did further investigate what happens and it seems that Fidelia outputs the files to Apple MIDI, which in turn resamples them in a user predefined format. So conclusion is that every time I play a different format I need to manually reflect it in Apple MIDI as well, which makes the whole process quite boring.

Cheers, Boj

Posted on: 11 December 2012 by Guido Fawkes

 

Hello Boj 

 

Bit Perfect solves this problem and lets you use iTunes and Apple Remote 

 

All the best, Guy