Amarra or Pure Music

I tried PM and couldn't hear any difference. It was also clunky and unstable. BitPerfect has been, well, perfect. Hard to go past it IMHO. Cheap, too.

I convert downloaded FLACS in XLD for use in iTunes. Just a few seconds and painless.

I've been mostly very happy with PM. It occasionally shuts down just as I fire it up, but then works fine. Using "hog mode" and "less is more" via my hiface BNC-BNC, it sounds noticeably better than iTunes. It'll also cope with192/24. Unfortunately, like a fool, I "upgraded" from Snow Leopard to Lion before I'd even heard about "integer mode" (in PM) and I don't know if the ndac can cope with this anyway. I believe that the hiface can't but that the new  hiface2 (not expensive) can! Sorry to ramble (Pinot Grigio) I'm sure others have wider experience. Good luck with your quest, there's a lot to commend computer audio as a (relatively) inexpensive front end.

Hi Rob,

Been using Pure Music with Snow Leopard for over a year and am quite happy with it. It integrates very smoothly with iTunes, at least when using AIFF. Importing of FLAC files also works but is a manual process where you have to verify results and sometimes need to make manual corrections to the data.

My Mac Pro does a pretty good transport job when using PM "memory play" and an optical connection to a Benchmark DAC1.

Fedor

Hi Rob, I've never heard a huge difference between PM, Audivarna and BitPerfect, they all sounded good.  However, Amarra HiFi has been a revelation.  I hear a greater depth, clarity & timing to my music than I've ever heard before and I love it!

Amarra HiFi won't play FLAC's directly but it will convert them to AIFF's for playback in iTunes (alternatively you can do this yourself and convert them to ALAC's if you prefer).

Audivarna, PM & Amarra HiFi all have demo versions so I'd recommend you give each one a try.  Whichever one you choose, be sure to add as much RAM to your MacMini as it can take.  This will help greatly with 'memory playback' in these programs.

Enjoy!

Regards,

Matthew

Rob

I'm an Amarra HiFi and Fidelia Advanced user here. Both use the itunes library and are excellent sounding but each have their own very minor pro's and con's.

Fidelia plays and converts all file formats (except Monkey/APE?).

I recently went to Mountain Lion. I believe there is an improvment with ML in SQ over Snow Leopard.

I also believe WAV is the best sounding file so if you can live without album art work, WAV is the way to go.

I cannot tell any difference between the same PCM being transferred along the optical cable to my Naim DAC ... unless the software player provides non-bit perfect PCM such as by equalising or up-sampling it then it should sound the same. Bit Perfect is excellent because it makes sure the sample rate is correct otherwise iTunes do things to the files if you don't ensure you have it set up correctly for the files you wish to play. 

Decibel will play FLAC files if that is the format you have them in otherwise iTunes set for bit perfect playback is fine. 

Assuming the software extracts the PCM from the file and doesn't change it then the hardware will have the most effect. A new Mac Mini has a very low jitter S/PDIF optical output so is pretty good in this respect. The Naim DAC buffers so is reasonable immune to jitter. In combination they work well without the need for expensive software. 

Rob H unless you want to use FLAC then I would use XLD to convert them to ALAC to play in iTunes/BP. If you want to play the FLAC use Decibel or similar, as they are all basically the same. 

GF

Surley you'd only suggest conversions to ALAC if there is a storage space issue(?).

Assuming Rob's original FLAC files are Hi-Def releases, going to ALAC is a downward conversion.

To my ears, lossless isn't lossless.

Yes James if they are 24/192 FLAC then it is best to keep them as AIFF, but I think (not 100% sure) you'll find that  the mini Toslink imposes a limitation and can only handle 24/96 - it'll downsample and I doubt you'll hear a difference (though I've not checked this on Mountain Lion).

However, I agree with you if you have the space then keep them as AIFF in any case.

It is a shame iTunes doesn't play FLAC or we could just play the stuff we download without worrying about formats ... no idea why Apple doesn't support FLAC - after all it supports WAV for those who like it. An ideal player should play everything as best it can IMHO. Though I still like iTunes. 

All the best, Guy. 

Well the is lossless really lossless (in terms of playback quality) is one issue - I've given up arguing it just try and decide for yourself...

However ALAC will support 24/192 (and beyond I believe) perfectly.

Eloise