It sounds like iTunes takes a lot of extensions and mucking about to optimize the sound, a good option if you know how and have done your research. For everyone else there is FooBar and for those who want a slick inerface and have the cash, J River. Those last two stand out as the standard for PC hifi sound and I am just offering my somewhat experienced opinion.
The question regarding how much a DAC will give an improvement onver the built in soundcard is relative. If you listen to lossless 16/44, 24/48 or 24/96 through a decent amp and speakers then it wil make a HUGE difference. But that is only if you yourself consider an improvement in those intangible properties of music to be a huge thing, which you should if you are posting here.
I think the OP indicated their current digital collection is ripped in 192 kb/s mp3, not to be confused with 24/192 sample rate. Any mp3 will sound flat and lifeless compared to and lossless format once listened to side by side on a decent system. The OP also indicated an interest is re-ripping and a lossless format, and I pointed out that an unmodded iTunes has no facility for ripping a true lossless format.
Seriously though if you are ripping your CD's just do it right the first time, buy a larger hard drive if you have to but rip lossless and stop mucking about with compression. MP3 was created to save HDD space when drives were gigabytes in size, now it is common to have terabytes een in entry level PC's. It might be controversial but there is an audible difference between a 192kb/s, 320kb/s and FLAC if you have the system to reveal it.
The question regarding how much a DAC will give an improvement onver the built in soundcard is relative. If you listen to lossless 16/44, 24/48 or 24/96 through a decent amp and speakers then it wil make a HUGE difference. But that is only if you yourself consider an improvement in those intangible properties of music to be a huge thing, which you should if you are posting here.
I think the OP indicated their current digital collection is ripped in 192 kb/s mp3, not to be confused with 24/192 sample rate. Any mp3 will sound flat and lifeless compared to and lossless format once listened to side by side on a decent system. The OP also indicated an interest is re-ripping and a lossless format, and I pointed out that an unmodded iTunes has no facility for ripping a true lossless format.
Seriously though if you are ripping your CD's just do it right the first time, buy a larger hard drive if you have to but rip lossless and stop mucking about with compression. MP3 was created to save HDD space when drives were gigabytes in size, now it is common to have terabytes een in entry level PC's. It might be controversial but there is an audible difference between a 192kb/s, 320kb/s and FLAC if you have the system to reveal it.
Rob.S.Esquire said:
no offence rob, but if you've done your research you should be aware of this https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/bitperfect/id455545700?mt=12
Rob.S.Esquire said:
you are correct it's relative, but only relative to what you actually have. Given soundcards have dacs in them, I think you need to differentiate betweeen saying standalone dac and integrated, or something similar. Given that if you plug an external dac in to a pc, it sees it as a soundcard... It totally depends on the soundcard you have in your pc as to if you will notice any difference from adding a standalone dac. You cannot say for a fact that *it will* make a difference, as there's a lot of nice lovely expensive sound cards out there that will sound better (or worse) than standalone hifi dacs.
Rob.S.Esquire said:
ALAC? You are aware it's almost identical to FLAC don't you? the only major difference is the filesize is slighty bigger.
jjbomber
Well-known member
Rob.S.Esquire said:
More to do with download speeds than file sizes. A lot of people were still on dial up when mp3 came out.
daveh75
Well-known member
pauln said:
No it isn't, and never has been.
Its closed source freeware, thats modular design and comprehensive SDK lends itself to customisation.
But most of all...Out the box its an ugly, clunky unintuitive POS, that only a masochist would waste time making usable
To be fair though they're all bloody awful (iTunes and JRiver included) and what ultimately lead me to Sonus.
daveh75 said:
I stand corrected.
They call it open component on the website. I don't know what the difference is, I'm not a programmer.
Anyhow, it works for me, it's easy enough to use.
jjbomber said:
That's true, although it was created originally to save storage space as part of the MPEG-1 standard for use on Video CD's. But your point about download speeds is true, the popularity of MP3 was cemented by the small download size it's streamability.
TO ANSWER THE OP AND NOT ADDRESS THE FLAMERS
1. Try out the free, or trial, versions of the following:
iTunes + any plugin that is bitperfect / Foobar (WASAPI driver) / JRiver (WASAPI driver)
pick one....
2. Rip you CD's in the most suitable LOSSLESS format, depending on the software you are using.
3. Go to your local HiFi dealer and demo whichever USB DACs they stock on a system similar to your own. Make sure the DragonFly 1.2 is one of them. Pick your favourite.
4. Try out a few interconnects between the DAC and your amp and pick your favourite.
5. Enjoy your digital music
6. Never return to this post and never look back....
1. Try out the free, or trial, versions of the following:
iTunes + any plugin that is bitperfect / Foobar (WASAPI driver) / JRiver (WASAPI driver)
pick one....
2. Rip you CD's in the most suitable LOSSLESS format, depending on the software you are using.
3. Go to your local HiFi dealer and demo whichever USB DACs they stock on a system similar to your own. Make sure the DragonFly 1.2 is one of them. Pick your favourite.
4. Try out a few interconnects between the DAC and your amp and pick your favourite.
5. Enjoy your digital music
6. Never return to this post and never look back....
BitPerfect is a plug-in, so iTunes out of the box is NOT bit perfect. FYI googling 'bitperfect' and coming up with a plugin for iTunes after the fact is not helping the OP. . Does this plug-in address the native problem with switching bit depth and sample rates manually with iTunes? I expect not, and I really cannot be bothered to google it because I do not see the point trying to cobble together a media player out of third party plug-ins and additional software tools. The issues with iTune are well known and scattered across numerous forums all over the net, the fixes are harder to find...
ALAC is a proprietary mac format now branded as 'open source' meaning they cannot be bother to develop it anymore. FLAC is open souce and the de-facto standard. You can use ALAC but it is NOT supported by all media players.
Every sound card has a DAC but not every sound card would be called a DAC by a hi fi enthusiast. Notice I mention 'built in' refering to the motherboard soundcard or built in laptop sound card. I have had a lot of sound cards and a dedicated USB DAC from a hi fi company is just in a different league with maybe the exception of the Asus Xonar Essence STX.
Arguing Windows vs Mac is not going to help the OP. The OP wanted adviced for a HiFi, PC based music collection.
To help the Op what you should have said from the start is FooBar OR iTune + BitPerfect + XLD (on mac) / Xrecode (on PC).
ALAC is a proprietary mac format now branded as 'open source' meaning they cannot be bother to develop it anymore. FLAC is open souce and the de-facto standard. You can use ALAC but it is NOT supported by all media players.
Every sound card has a DAC but not every sound card would be called a DAC by a hi fi enthusiast. Notice I mention 'built in' refering to the motherboard soundcard or built in laptop sound card. I have had a lot of sound cards and a dedicated USB DAC from a hi fi company is just in a different league with maybe the exception of the Asus Xonar Essence STX.
Arguing Windows vs Mac is not going to help the OP. The OP wanted adviced for a HiFi, PC based music collection.
To help the Op what you should have said from the start is FooBar OR iTune + BitPerfect + XLD (on mac) / Xrecode (on PC).
Rob.S.Esquire said:
so you can't be bothered to look up what it is and does so you're quite willing to write it off... :roll: I didn't just google, the link, there are quite a few people on here who use itunes and bitperfect and have nothing but sucess with it.
Rob.S.Esquire said:
eh? You said that itunes couldn't rip losless, you were wrong.
Rob.S.Esquire said:
hang on, so alac being open source means it's not being developed, but flac being open source means it is? I know flac is the standard, but if the op wishes to stick with Itunes there are options - ie using bitperfect and ripping to alac.
Rob.S.Esquire said:
yep, that's because the hifi enthusiast would be wrong. A DAC is just a digital to analogue convertor.
Rob.S.Esquire said:
You should also check out the raft of pro-audio cards as well. Some of them will trample all over the so called hifi dacs from a great height. After all, if it's good enough to record the stuff you want to listen to
Rob.S.Esquire said:
personally, I wasn't arguing windows vs mac. But also what is not going to help the op is giving them incorrect information that itunes cannot do bitperfect, rip to lossess or all hifi dacs are better than anything else that can be bought.
Honestly, based on the screenshots from their website Foobar does not look like a pleasant experience....looks clunky and only (?) text based.
When I'm in play mode I want the best connection between me, the content, & my imagination…which is being entertained by the content. I want the least amount of interaction/distraction…see image (album cover), open, play. That's where iTunes trumps all…and that's the feedback I get from my friends who know and care...many are designers like myself. The OP is already comforatble with iTunes
Cobbled together? Audirvana to punch iTunes to hifi is effortless...they are matched out of the box. Actually it's better than effortless cuz it puts up a cool doohicky (in the image of piece of gear) on the screen if I want it to...and I often do. If it was PC based many PC users would be fans also FYI
As for the inference that needing a converter (XLD) is lame, lame on you and what of it. To begin with if you SHARE content you will OFTEN need to edit-add-embed. I do that with Music Tag Editor which IMHO is by far the best at batch editing, it's easy intuitive & fun to use. Otherwise I find tagging a serious chore. Share vinyl rips and you'll love MTE. Anyway I use it to clean/correct tagging, add notes, and embed artwork, all the while listening to my tunes. When clean, I go lean. I convert all to m4a and dump the chaf. I’m retentive; I want everything in the same format. Can always convert back to whatever. XLD and MTE = good clean fun.
When I'm in play mode I want the best connection between me, the content, & my imagination…which is being entertained by the content. I want the least amount of interaction/distraction…see image (album cover), open, play. That's where iTunes trumps all…and that's the feedback I get from my friends who know and care...many are designers like myself. The OP is already comforatble with iTunes
Cobbled together? Audirvana to punch iTunes to hifi is effortless...they are matched out of the box. Actually it's better than effortless cuz it puts up a cool doohicky (in the image of piece of gear) on the screen if I want it to...and I often do. If it was PC based many PC users would be fans also FYI
As for the inference that needing a converter (XLD) is lame, lame on you and what of it. To begin with if you SHARE content you will OFTEN need to edit-add-embed. I do that with Music Tag Editor which IMHO is by far the best at batch editing, it's easy intuitive & fun to use. Otherwise I find tagging a serious chore. Share vinyl rips and you'll love MTE. Anyway I use it to clean/correct tagging, add notes, and embed artwork, all the while listening to my tunes. When clean, I go lean. I convert all to m4a and dump the chaf. I’m retentive; I want everything in the same format. Can always convert back to whatever. XLD and MTE = good clean fun.
Alec
Well-known member
letsavit2 said:
If you're happy with iTunes I'd stick with it; I use the often maligned Window Media Player (which I would equally put in a word for, but I think your collection is inn a format that isn't natively supported by WMP?) just because I am used to it and there are one or two features I especially like.
Ripping losslessly (which iTunes can do, and many are perfectly happy with iTunes as a ripper) makes sense (though you don't have to...*) as you'll have a lossless backup, though I'm perfectly happy with lower bitrates for playback, and I download a lot sometimes from Amazon (mostly), and am not anal about everything being in the same format, as long as it can all be properly tagged (MP3Tag is what I use, if anything needs tidying. There are other options, at least one of which was mentioned above, though I can't speak for them).
*Do you only have music in 192, and was it all downloaded from iTunes or similar, or was it ripped to that format?
A slightly more involved, and expensive, method of ripping would be to use DbPoweramp (which you pay for) to rip to as many formats as you like. As long as you have the storage space, you're then covered for any eventuality. However, it's easy, and can be free, to transcode to other formats when you need to.
Rob.S.Esquire said:
And this is where you leave me in absolutely no doubt that you have no idea what you're talking about. Would you like me to demonstrate that you are completely and utterly wrong using a null test or would you still look for some way of discrediting that too? People spouting all this ridiculous mumbo jumbo is just not helpful to newbies who are trying to pick fact from fiction.
Infiniteloop
Well-known member
Using iTunes in combination with something like Audirvana Plus gives you excellent sound quality with all the convenience of using your iPhone or iPad as an upmarket remote.
Nothing works as seamlessly, as easily or with as much polish as the Apple ecosystem.
Such a pity then that you have such an irrational Anti-Apple bias.
Nothing works as seamlessly, as easily or with as much polish as the Apple ecosystem.
Such a pity then that you have such an irrational Anti-Apple bias.
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