PC Equivalent of iTunes Plus Audirvana?

I use Windows Media Player into a wirelss USB DAC without any problems at all. Excellent and simple user interface and it just works. WMP is to a PC what iTunes is to a MAC.

Peter 

Thanks Peter, that seems nice & simple.

You can run ITunes on a PC so it will look just the same as on your Mac. There is no equivalent of Audrivana though as I don't think Izotope runs on anything other than a Mac. However, Patrick might drop by to talk about J River. ideally you want to bypass all the Windows stuff in the same way Audrivana does this fot Apple Core Audio on your Mac ... I think J River does this.

Best sound quality on Windows you get by using JPlay in combination with an ASIO compatible player. JPlay's engines are vastly superior to anything else.

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Aleg

When I tried to run iTunes on our PC it took so long to open that I almost had time to make a cup of tea! All the commands were sluggish. I do like iTunes layout etc. but I think it is best avoided on PC's unless you are very patient.

Peter

JRiver Media Center is replete with audiophile features such as memory playback, WASAPI event mode, is really easy to set up and has browsing, searching and organising features second to none. Extremely quick and very well supported. You can download it free and play. Excellent remote control options with JRemote and others.

I have never done it .. Just seen pictures .. Doesn't surprise me that it is slow on Windows

. J River seems to get great feedback, no idea what it will sound like on the Mac ... But will try it, i hope it uses izotope which is the best renderer i have ever found. I'll leave to Likes to advise Tony as i've no idea what a waspi is i don't want anybody to get stung

I confess I've no idea what WASPI or ASIO do. I've been happily living in my little Apple world and I guess these are PC-related...things.

I've just fired up iTunes on the PC laptop & it seems to work just fine. It would be nice if I could use it with the equivalent of Bitperfect or Audiorvana, if only to automatically change the sample rate. It appears there's no actual equivalents to these in the PC world then. I'll certainly try J River, but then I've always got on well with iTunes.

Thanks for the help and advice folks. 

JPlay is reported to be better than both Audirvana and Bitperfect.

WASAPI and ASIO are worldwide standards for audio drivers that bypass the windows audio mixer (like the integer mode on Apple).

ASIO has been developed by Steinberg and is much used in the pro-audio world and 'loved' for its low latencies.

WASAPI is a Microsoft 'product' that offers a bypass of the Windows mixer, but given the choice I prefer Kernel Streaming (KS) over WASAPI.

In the world of computer-based audio there are quite of lot of standards and technical terms you will encounter. Wikipedia will usually explain them sufficiently for easy understanding.

All these things do matter significantly, so if you want to actively use these and look for improvement of sound quality in computer audio, you will have to invest a little effort in understanding these parameters of computer-based audio

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Aleg

Dear Aleg, 

I'm sure these things are very important if you're using PC-based computer audio. I'm very content with my Apple for streaming in my main system and it was really only for the purpose of having a mobile music source for use in a second home that I was thinking about using the PC laptop. I really don't want to venture too far into the PC realm, but thank you for your kind advice.

Whichever player you use (and indeed whichever o/s you use) you'll probably want to avoid having the operating system mess with your sound, upsample it, downsample it, or mix system sounds into it, and you'll probably want to make sure that you have bit-perfect playback. One of the many nice things about JRiver Media Center on a pc is that it makes such things very easy (ie one click), and continuously confirms your playback is bit-perfect. It's like having Audirvana built-in rather than stuck on the side. It's much tricker to ensure bit-perfect unmolested playback with other players like WIndows Media Player. So if you want the "PC Equivalent of iTunes Plus Audirvana" as in the title of this thread, then I'd say JRiver Media Center, unequivocally.