Playing FLAC files on a MAC

Sunny

Here ( http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/showpost.php?p=6383396&postcount=3    is an overview of most Mac software capable of playing flac.

most popular appear to be Audirvana+ and Decibel

cheers

Aleg 

Audivana + works well with flac 

Tog

VLC is an unfussy little gem -  gratis and good to have onboard.

jRiver Media Centre does the job eminently - pay after an extendible trial period  of a month or two.

You are about to enter an infinitely flexible, customizable world and the notion of "one ring that rules them all" is about to go out the window, erm, down the fiery abyss.

You will likely settle down with one of the mentions in this thread. They all have their adv and disadv's and they're all getting better. The composition of your set-up will influence what suits you. It maybe best to stop looking when you find something that works for you.

Good idea to understand terms like "library", "transcoding", etc. if not already part of the personal streamer hifi lexicon.

Enjoy/groan if geek/not. 

skipper

Sundance...I am a Mac user and downloaded XLD on Friday. I converted one album (WAV to FLAC) just as a test, but I'm damned if I can work out how to actually play the converted files. Where is the player in  XLD?. 

Today however, I downloaded 'Jriver Media Center 19' for Mac, and it's fantastic! Plays all my Hi Res files perfectly. There's also an option to tag your stuff.

David

I know I sound like a stuck record but plex is your friend here is a quick screen grab of mine:

It will 'scrape' your music, that is to say it will check your meta data and return a wealth of information relating to the artist and the album, I have not found the artist pictures for instance, it does that. There is plenty of methods to access and play that music, and just about every music format is supported including FLAC.

Check it out.

Gary - don't apologise - Plex is a true gem.

Not sure if it is bit perfect though yet.

Tog 

Hi Tog,

I have been A+ with iTunes integrated mode with AIFF or ALAC files.  How do I play FLAC files, I haven't seen it clearly anywhere ? I may be missing the obvious. 

Cheers 

Jude 

This is where the Apple "walled garden" approach gets in the way - there is a workaround that is best described by A+ themselves...

"If your files that are not recognised natively by iTunes (e.g. FLAC, Cue Sheets, DSD, ) you can use the “Add Files to iTunes” command in the Audirvana Plus menu to create small proxy files that’ll be catalogued in iTunes and enable playing of all those files using the iPad/iPhone Remote app."

 Tog

Thanks @Tog.  I will experiment with this.  Do you use this feature and find works well for you?

OP, I hope this not too much a diversion from your original query.

Jude

Jude - Just use XLD to convert the FLAC files to AIFF and then use your normal player. 

Thanks James, this is what I do and works extremely well.  I just thought that a short cut was available to save the conversion. It is good to hear that others consider this the 'norm'.

@ Meerket, XLD, AFAIK, does ripping, metadata, and file conversion comprehensively.  It does not do file management and playback, so you would need a software solution that does playback (I use iTunes and find it works extremely well for me)

J