iTunes Apps: Bit Perfect V Pure Music V Audivana

[ngibbs]

Hi everyone

I'm currently using Bit Perfect, which does great things to iTunes at a very modest price (8 Euros), but does anyone have any feedback on two other apps for Macs: Pure Music and Audivana? I know you can try them for a 15 day period, which is what I'm going to do at some point, but any feedback from those who already use them would be really useful.

Thanks

 

[domenn]

any ideas what is the best solution . Can BIt Perfect play FLACs ? :quest:

 

[MajorFubar]

BitPerfect will play FLACs if you're already using such as Fluke.

 

[MajorFubar]

Thought I'd give Pure Music a go.

Very interesting indeed. Much sweeter delivery that BitPerfect which sometimes can be a bit 'in your face', especially with my 794s that are sometimes forward to start with. I love how it presents complex musical layers and textures in a rich, deep soundstage, though I don't think the smoothness of its delivery will flatter tonally-dull recordings, DACs, amps or speakers.

The myriad of options are a nightmare if you are a compulsive tweaker, though probably they are an absolute delight if you're a bit of a geek and you know exactly what boxes should be ticked to make it sing at its best with any given DAC.

I also found it crashed-out on me a couple of times as I flicked between albums with my iPhone 'Remote' app, so maybe there are some minor stability-issues the author needs to look at relating to Mountain Lion. That said, my base-spec 2011 Mac Mini with its 2GB of RAM is probably under-specified, so that could have been one reason. I keep meaning to get some more RAM for it but other commitments somehow sap my money.

None the less, I'd highly recommend anyone using a Mac + iTunes to give it a go. The 15 day trial is free to download and it's fully-functional. I'm now trying hard not to get used to it, as realistically the £88 it would cost me to buy it would be better spent elsewhere at the moment. Like on a memory upgrade, for starters.

 

[domenn]

Hi MajorFoobar , Thank You for info , I am just using demo version of Pure music , but I cant fast forward what is weird . and its pricey I think , Just found X Lossless Decoder[/b] (XLD) it has a very good reviews http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/23430/x-lossless-decoder

 

[MajorFubar]

Hmmm that sounds like it's designed more as a transcoding tool rather than a HiFi audio player

...I am just using demo version of Pure music , but I cant fast forward what is weird

No it disables 'live' fast-forward, but if you pause the track you can then drag the slider to wherever you want, then unpause it and it will carry of from where the slider is. This doesn't work in 'less is more' mode of course.

What I can't understand (probably because I lack the technical knowledge) is how all these so-called 'bit perfect' audio players sound different to each other. There's a ton of them and some of them have quite eye-watering prices too.

 

[domenn]

I thought its disabled because of demo version just testing SQ of iTunes(ALAC) vs iTunes+Pure Music vs Spotify premium .

with same track and same album .

Beegie Adair's You make me feel so young there is no vocal but .... it is very hard to tell what sounds better it sounds same to me :roll: I'll have to try it with more songs and different genres , but so far £80 for Pure Music is :? 8 months of Spotofy premium ?

maybe I have a problem with my ears or my HiFi is not good enough :shifty:

 

[eternaloptimist]

Given that the OP is a person of taste, given the Cyrus gear ....

I use a "headless" Macmini 2011 into W4S DAC2 then Cyrus... all the way to Audiovector S3 Signatures. I nearly got the VA Baby Grands - price issue in Australia....

I have tried just about every MacOS and Win7 software player (Macmini has Win 7 bootcamped), including..... Puremusic, Amarra, Audirvana Free (now broken on Mountain lion), Audirvana Plus, Bitperfect as well as J River MC and JPLAY.

I have tried to blind test as much as possible with my long suffering wife (who has no interest in the software players at all!) switching.

I consistently come back to Audirvana Plus. Lovely clarity but still smooth and sounds lovely across multiple genres. In my system, never crashes. Pure music was close and line-ball - tended to freeze at times. Amarra was too "mellow" and dark. Bitperfect is OK for rock but a bit "sharp" for vocal / choral music. J River MC has the absolute best database management with JRemote an excellent controller - but just don't like the sound as much. JPLAY is on par with Audirvana Plus but is a ******... also doesn't "get out of the way" when switching to digital radio etc. (like AV Plus does).

With Cyrus gear and Audiovector speakers, Audirvana Plus wins in my book. On other systems, your mileage may vary!!

 

[MajorFubar]

Very interesting review that!

I've been trying Amarra over the weekend. Overall on my system I prefer its sound to both BitPerfect and Pure Music, but the biggest problem I have with it is it's absolutely bugged to death and is barely usable. If you're playing a complete album you can just about get away with bypassing most of its bugs by dragging the album from iTunes into an Amarra playlist, but even then things like gapless playback are still not consistently glitchless. I pitty the people who bought into it three years ago at its original $1,400 price. Going by comments on the Head-Fi forum its bugs are long-standing, right from day one, and while it's officially upto version 2.4.1, imo it's still not stable enough to be better than a beta version. I expected more from such a long-standing prestige brand. It's not even like they have worry about making it work on millions of different PCs: it only works on Intel Macs. As someone on the Head-Fi forum said, I don't think its many problems will truly go away until Sonic Studio recruit different programmers, because the current ones don't seem to know how to debug it. Shame because its sound to my ears is the most 'vinyl like' I've ever heard, and as that's the sound I crave without all the inherrent problems that vinyl brings, I'd probably have bought it (at its current heavily-discounted price).

 

[Overdose]

Just so I understand the thread so far, all of these music players or software tweaks are designed to eliminate the influence of the OS or additional software EQ, to provide a pure audio signal?

How is it then, that some people are detecting differences (seemingly substantial) between such solutions, to a problem that I have never seen manifest myself?

Surely these programs either work and give you more clarity, or they don't and if they are only designed to give clear audio, where does the tonal difference/colouration come from, given that this software is the only variable?

Sounds like they really don't work at all in some cases.

What actually is the problem with iTunes anyway, seems fine to me.

 

[MajorFubar]

'fraid I don't understand all the technicalities OD, but to my ears, and to the ears of many people who have tried them (feel free to Google for some reviews and opinions, better still download the trial-versions and have a listen yourself) they do make a difference. Equally, some people hear absolutely no difference at all, or they hear a difference but still prefer native iTunes, and that's obviously fine as well.

The three things they apparently do better than iTunes are:

1) Take full control of your audio interface ('hog mode'), bypassing 'Core Audio';

2) Assuming you have enough onboard RAM they will load the music into it prior to playing, to reduce or eliminate playback from HDD;

3) Supervise any sample-rate switching which may be required, if you are using a mixture of 16/44 and HD audio.

They also offer things like upsampling and switchable dithering-patterns, but much of that is way beyond my understanding.

 

[MajorFubar]

Indeed, in fact I'd value your opinion, even if that turns out to be 'makes naff all difference'

 

[Overdose]

I'll have a try when I get the chance, nothing ventured and all that.

And is the change that you hear (subtle or otherwise) what you would consider an improvement, or just a change in presentation?

 

[Overdose]

It will be worth checking out, as Bit Perfect is not too expensive.

 

[MajorFubar]

Maybe try Pure Music or Amarra: the 15 day trials on both of them are fully-functioning and free.

 

[stevebrock]

Sorry to hijack this post!

MajorFubar you seem pretty clued up on this!

What does bit perfect do to iTunes?

I have an iMac running Lion, I want to download some hi res files from Linn Records then stream wirelessly to a squeezbox touch, then into a Rega DAC. How do I go about this, obviously I know I need to convert flac into lossless or do I?

What does songbird do that iTunes doesn't?

Thanks

 

[Overdose]

Sorry to hijack this post!

MajorFubar you seem pretty clued up on this!

What does bit perfect do to iTunes?

I have an iMac running Lion, I want to download some hi res files from Linn Records then stream wirelessly to a squeezbox touch, then into a Rega DAC. How do I go about this, obviously I know I need to convert flac into lossless or do I?

What does songbird do that iTunes doesn't?

Thanks

It might be moe effective and practical to use an Airport Express to stream music to, rather than your iPod. The Touch could then be independently used as either a source or remote, or both.

You can use a free program called XLD to convert FLAC to ALAC, both lossless formats, but ALAC is 'Apple Lossless Audio Codec'. Simply install XLD set it up in preferences and drag and drop files for conversion.

At this point, you might like to convert one of the lossless high resolution files to 16/44.1 (CD quality) to compare both file types. Not worth spending extra if you cannot hear the difference. 'Audacity' is another free program that will help you to do this.

 

[stevebrock]

iPod???? I didn't mention an iPod.

I want to stream to a squeezebox then into a rega DAC

 

[MajorFubar]

MajorFubar you seem pretty clued up on this!

Thanks but unfortunately I'm not!
If you haven't already done so, it might be worth starting a thread with your query to give it some visibility and hopefully you'll get a response from someone who can help

 

[stevebrock]

Ok will do

 

[Overdose]

iPod???? I didn't mention an iPod.

I want to stream to a squeezebox then into a rega DAC

No, you didn't. That's me not reading properly again. :doh: