Help a beginner! With PC audio

[letsavit2]

Have a large iTunes collection, mostly at 192, Then put what ever tunes I can fit onto my i things and steam my music to my hifi's via AXP,s, easy and sounds pretty good.

Now looking at possibly using my new windows 8 based laptop as a more serious source, do I start running another iTunes in parallel and ripping lossless then get say the dragon fly USB thingy and connect it to my main hifi directy. Or should I be looking at some other better software and format for this?

 

[Rob.S.Esquire]

For a 'more serious source' from a digital music collection stored on a computer you will want to get some decent software to partner with a decent DAC. iTunes just does not cut it as a serious music player and instead, for a PC based solution, you will probably want to look at J River Media Centre or equivalent.

I have been useing J River for many years and it is both an excellant tool for ripping and managing digital media and does a great job of ensuring bit perfect playback of audio. FLAC is in my opinion the best choice for storing audio and it is easy to get a perfect copy of a CD with good software.

I just recently upgraded my DAC to an AudioQuest Dragonfly 1.2 and I have been extremely pleased with the change compared to the Arcam rPac and Xonar Essence STX. Very worthwhile getting a decent 3.5mm to RCA cable for it to really shine, or if you have good quality stereo RCA leads just get the AudioQuest 'Hard Mini' 3.5mm to RCA adapater.

 

[cheeseboy]

my 2p's worth is Foobar using wasapi/asio drivers is every bit as good as jriver, but free

 

[pauln]

Yes I agree, Foobar will do the job just fine. USB out to an E-DAC (on sale currently at £89.99) then RCA from that to your amp. Easy.

And you don't need to spend more than £5 on the RCA cable either. Fisual Pro Install Series 1m is £4.99.

 

[jjbomber]

Have a large iTunes collection, mostly at 192, Then put what ever tunes I can fit onto my i things and steam my music to my hifi's via AXP,s, easy and sounds pretty good.

Just checking, but you can rip to itunes in ALAC to PC for best quality and then sync at 192 to your ithings for better capacity. The two do not have to be at 192.

 

[MajorFubar]

iTunes just does not cut it as a serious music player

Why? What exactly does a 'serious music player' do that iTunes does not?

 

[Alec]

iTunes just does not cut it as a serious music player

Why? What exactly does a 'serious music player' do that iTunes does not?

Aye. Personally, I'd encourage the OP to use whatever he's mst comfortable with, and to stick with iTunes unless there's a problem with that...

 

[pauln]

iTunes just does not cut it as a serious music player

Why? What exactly does a 'serious music player' do that iTunes does not?

Keeps you away from Apple for one.

It's primarily a store front and wants to sell you stuff. Foobar 2000 does not.

Size on disc - Foobar 2000 is 13MB, itunes is around 200MB

Resources - Foobar 2000 uses around 15MB RAM, itunes requires 500MB RAM.

This hogging of resources can dramatically slow down a PC especially if you're trying to use itunes on a Windows PC.

Foobar 2000 is free open source software with a range of plugins allowing all sorts of extra functionality.

Foobar easily and quickly converts files from virtually any format to any other.

Most important of all - it's not Apple!

 

[MajorFubar]

So disregarding the irrelevant anti-Apple bias*, and the fact that it hogs more system resources, the answer is "nothing".

I thought so.

Thanks. I can rest at ease knowing that my iTunes woks perfectly well, just like I thought it did. As I'm sure so can the OP.

 

[John Duncan]

Works great on a Mac ;-)

 

[MajorFubar]

Bad boy John, I was at least aiming above his belt out of decency.

 

[pauln]

So disregarding the irrelevant anti-Apple bias*, and the fact that it hogs more system resources, the answer is "nothing".

I thought so.

Thanks. I can rest at ease knowing that my iTunes woks perfectly well, just like I thought it did. As I'm sure so can the OP.

Well, you thought wrong. Sure, you can disregard whatever you want. Someone I know disregarded all the letters from the bank telling him he was in arrears with his mortgage payments. Didn't stop the bank repossessing his house.

If all you want to do is play music then itunes is fine but the fact remains that Foobar and probably others have a great deal more functionality than itunes and will suit people who do not buy their music from itunes and do not have Macs; both of which may or may not apply to the OP. Lets let him make his own mind up.

And yes, the anti Apple thing was uneccessary and obviously got you peeved but I saw you had a Mac.

 

[MajorFubar]

Hang on a minute...you're telling me that a PC doesn't have the spare resources to run iTunes. Really??

Oh and teach your friend how to read his mortgage statements.

 

[John Duncan]

If all you want to do is play music then itunes is fine

o/

 

[pauln]

Hang on a minute...you're telling me that a PC doesn't have the spare resources to run iTunes. Really??

Oh and teach your friend how to read his mortgage statements.

No, that isn't what I said.

 

[MajorFubar]

I know it's not directly what you said, but the fact you you brought up the size of the app and the resources it consumes implied that these are issues.

By your own admission iTunes is likely to be fit for what the OP wants to do. Irrelevant anti-Apple whines only serve to confuse people like the OP who self-admittedly is a newby and is left trying to figure out whether the issues you've raised are relevant to his question. Which they weren't.

 

[jjbomber]

a newby and is left trying to figure out whether the issues you've raised are relevant to his question. Which they weren't.

Isn't that what the whole forum about? An Op asks what's best for him and everyone answers what's best for themselves.

 

[Rob.S.Esquire]

iTune use the built in operating system sound driver, which it shares with the rest of the system and every other application that is running. This is what the majority of media players do and not just iTune, however a 'serious' media player takes a different approach.

JRiver and FooBar can take over the sound card in 'exclusive mode' which means that no other application, or the OS can interfere with it. This means the only sound you will hear will be your music, with no OS noises or anything. Sound annoying?

The point is that by bypassing the OS sound driver the music can be played bit perfect with no attenuation, alteration or effects mucking up the original source. iTunes does not do this, WMP does not do this, it's not a mac thing, (p.s. J River is available on mac now too).

iTunes also does not have a lossless ripping format, their 'lossless' format is actually lossy.

.wav or .flac files for the lossless + media player baypassing OS driver + decent DAC + half decent cable = serious computer audio

 

[Rob.S.Esquire]

I did actually use that 5 quid Fisual 3.5mm to RCA cable temporarily with the Dragonfly 1.2 and it worked ok. Switched to the AudioQuest Hard Mini adapter and an Atlas Equator mkIII... huge improvement.

The OP is running a pair of speakers that cost nearly a grand and an 850 quid amp, let's not talk about pinching pennies here.

Just sayin' and just my opinion.

 

[DCC]

I'm all mac but so some of my input may not apply, but....

For a player I use iTunes for audio because it's BY FAR the best interface IMHO. That's in terms of looks, flex, & ease. I ignore any marketing which I find less than minimal in my routine. I've tried a number of the others and they don't measure up on the whole. I'm picky about hi-res graphics and display.

I use Audirvana Plus as a plug-in to allow hi-def play back (I assume there's a comparable out ther for PCs?)

The USB or optical feed out bypasses the mac's internal DAC

I use Plex for vid - HDMI direct to TV w/soundbar

Done & donner on the set-up end for me.

For content - I share with the family

....they have most everything I want in lossless.

I convert with XLD.

I manage my files (correct, label, note, embed artwork) with Music Tag Editor before I load into iTunes

IMPORTANT - because I store my libraries on portable drives I use multiple library mode in iTunes to ensure everything is kept in one location for better back up and ease of moving the library to another drive. At least that's what I'm thinking it allows :?

 

[pauln]

a newby and is left trying to figure out whether the issues you've raised are relevant to his question. Which they weren't.

Isn't that what the whole forum about? An Op asks what's best for him and everyone answers what's best for themselves.

Rubbish. The OP asked specifically whether he should consider using something other than itunes, something more 'serious'. I and others suggested that he should. He's not using Apple OS. He might want one application that does everything, unlike DCC who seems to be using 4 or 5 different applications and the OP may not be as fussy about the shiny user interface. More of an issue is the fact that (as Rob.S.Esquire points out) iplayer does not bypass the OS sound driver - I didn't even know that, I assumed it did because... well it surely ought to if it's a 'serious' audio player.

So, how is that not helping the OP decide? How is not giving him relevant information helpful, just because I and other posters think that something is best? There might actually be valid reasons why we think that way.

To answer the question you have asked, what this forum actually seems to be about is the preponderance of 'advice' based on subjective opinion and fanboyism rather than impartial advice.

Where I was wrong was to make the mistake of knocking Apple and bringing my personal dislike of a massive profiteering global corporation whose business plan is based on selling high priced, trendy, aspirational lifestyle products, made by extremely low paid workers in the Far East, into the equation, thereby bringing into question the impartiality of my thoughts on the matter. Had the OP been talking about listening to music on a set of Beats headphones plugged into a MacBook Air whilst sitting in Starbucks drinking a skinny latte, then I would have said "carry on using itunes mate", it's perfect for your needs. But he/she didn't, they are contemplating re-ripping their music collection to lossless files, using a Windows PC and some expensive electronics to play it and deserve some decent advice that will hopefully encourage them to do further research on the options and indeed to perhaps look for that advice on forums that are much more focussed on computer audio than this one is.

 

[DCC]

That chip-on-shoulder must be putting some real stress on the bones Paul. As for sound quality 24/96 or 192 is better than it will ever need to be so hifi'd iTunes is better than it will ever need to be...and it' looks damn sweet doing it. I'm thinking many of us prefer something that looks better and feels better to fiddle with ( :rofl: )....that's half the EDITED joy mate.

And FYI...Microsoft, HP, Panasonic...are massive profiteering global corporations

 

[Overdose]

Have a large iTunes collection, mostly at 192, Then put what ever tunes I can fit onto my i things and steam my music to my hifi's via AXP,s, easy and sounds pretty good.

Now looking at possibly using my new windows 8 based laptop as a more serious source, do I start running another iTunes in parallel and ripping lossless then get say the dragon fly USB thingy and connect it to my main hifi directy. Or should I be looking at some other better software and format for this?

I would say that increasing the rip size would not give you any noticeable gains, 192 AAC with VBR selected as default is a good level to rip at, use 256 to feel safe if you like, but less compression will not reap any benefits. The only caveat to this is if you want to have a fully transcribable backup and library, if so, use ALAC.

ALAC info

Having the iTunes library on a 'server' will enable you to control and access the music via your iThingies and the AEX, seamlessly and without hassle. The user interface is familiar to you and, in my opinion, very slick and functional.

As for adding a 'better' DAC, you may well find that you waste a lot of money trying, only to come to the conclusion that what you have is plenty good enough for all except the most paranoid.

 

[Alec]

iplayer

And this is where you lost me.

 

[Kamikaze Bitter]

J River and Foobar do seem to be the standard recommendations. I fail to see that the player can affect the sound produced in the end - isn't that down to other choices like the file format, and the dac or the soundcard. I'm not a Windows or a Mac user myself so I don't have a dog in this fight. I suppose prefernces are dictated by the UI and the features. I've never much liked iTunes, but my experiece with it is conditioned by providing tech help for my wife when she gets into difficulties. I keep saying I don't support Apple devices, but it just leads to trouble.

I use an external DAC which is a marked improvement over the laptop sound - but is is an elderly laptop!