JRiver Windows is nice, the Linux port sucks balls though- I use MPD and Cantata on my Linux desktop. I assume the Mac port suffered similar halfassery. I shall try Audvana beta too, been interested to see it- cheers @jexby
I'll admit something: from the time I started lurking up to now I still sometimes get @bixby and @jexby mixed up. They sound so frigging similar! I just knew one was into nice liquor :P
I'm pretty nicely settled into foobar, but the Audirvana beta looks cool! Thanks for the link :)
@Elnrik Foobar is not bad per se especially when you have it setup right. I can make Jriver sound pretty irritating if I leave one of the default settings where it is. Once you change it it becomes much more enjoyable. And A+ might be a non-starter, sound is not great and no drag and drop for playlists.
A+ might become interesting if the windows version also incorporates that new leedh digital volume control. Otherwise Jriver it is for me, maybe they will implement it too. The standard one doesn't do it for me, need too much attenuation.
I mostly use JRiver in bit perfect and WASAPI mode anyway, so there are no questions of sound quality, any more than when I used Foobar.
However, it's very useful for browsing/tagging/syncing/transcoding to lossy formats on demand etc.. too. At least, the Windows version is. The Linux one fails at all sorts of things semi-randomly.
Dead Wrong- Foobar and Jriver do not sound the same, has to do with all sorts of code in each. Both can sound great with the right settings. And both can be mucked up.
No clue how leedh might be implemented since there is no volume control in the software with my dac.
If you're correctly set up for bit perfect output, the player needs to output the same bitstream. If it isn't, your software does not work properly and you need to get something less broken.
@Kattefjaes I'm something of a high-res and DSD skeptic, but I'm less likely to dismiss claims of software players sounding different since I've managed to verify it in an assisted blind test (hardly a super clean experiment, but enough to sate my curiosity).
I bit the bullet and installed a trial version of Audirvana+ at @bixby's recommendation, still gonna ask for assistance testing differences between it and f2K (bit perfect settings) cuz I don't trust my listening skills that much, but I really hope what I'm hearing is placebo or a good,subtle DSP implementation because holy shit A+ costs $74.
Possibly because you don't quite understand how it works. A correct decoder and player, operating in bit perfect mode, will not sound any different unless it is broken. The bitstream should be bit-for-bit identical, verifiably so via capture, or it's failing to do its job. It's that simple.
This is not one of the areas which admits subjectivity- it's not like using different AES/SPDIF-out hardware or something.
That's fair, I readily admit ignorance apart from a crude understanding of audio processing, requantisation, etc. all derived from online articles, since this is far outside my field of expertise. In most cases I've relied on "blur" and treble extension/balance to tell differences; would you say differences here may be the result of filters baked into the players?
@Kattefjaes I got that, haha. I was just wondering whether I might have missed some switches back then, or if the players I was running had processing that couldn't be disabled. Sorry if my wording was confusing!
But yeah, waiting on a second opinion and for help blind-testing the two. FWIW, I rather doubt the nicer UX on A+ is worth $74 to me. Still way too early for me to not be under the influence of placebo.
Don't underestimate nice UI, though. That's basically what attracted me to JRiver - plus all the automation stuff it has for syncing devices, auto-transcoding and so forth.
Lots of people wouldn't hesitate to spend $70 on a more comfy headphone cable, after all. A nicer-feeling player with better browse and search UI? Not so minor.
Part of why I've been using F2k for years is the fact that I could load the screen with all sorts of visualisations to help me learn how to listen and what to listen for, haha. Incidentally, I used to work in marketing, so I know how much a pretty package influences perception of quality :P
But yeah, reserving a hard call until I get to spend more time with A+ and the fancy box loses its influence.
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