iTunes and Mac
- Thread starter nbaptista
- Start date
Darth Vader
From the Dark Side
I wouldn't and actually don't use iTunes on a Mac for feeding my DAC. There are many free players out there for macOS but I suggest that you get a free trial copy of Amarra. If that doesn't sound as good as you'd like then you'll have to realise that the problem lies further down the chain starting with your DAC.
Cheers,
DV
Cheers,
DV
Stunsworth
pfm Member
The Mac won’t automatically switch sampling/bit depth if you have anything that’s not 16/44.1. You’ll need to use third party software if you want to do that.
Stunsworth
pfm Member
It will use whatever the Audio/Midi mixer is set to.
chartz
If it’s broke fix it!
Correct.
Stunsworth
pfm Member
Which is why I said it wouldn’t change automatically. As shipped the Mac will play everything as 16/44.1, it needs to be manually set to play anything else - and switched back if playing 16/44.1.
I suggest you try J River Media Center. It is bit perfect, and does a lot of other things that iTunes doesn’t. You can get a 30 day free trial. https://jriver.com/
Strictly Stereo
Trade: Strictly Stereo
iTunes has been replaced by a new Music app in the latest version of macOS. I have not tried it yet, but my guess is that it works like iTunes in that you have to manually adjust the output sample rate in the Audio Midi utility to match whatever you are playing.
Audirvana, Roon and others will take care of this for you.
2ManyBoxes
pfm Member
iTunes still sucks mightily as a library for music. One category for Classical? No provision for sub categories? Tags are no substitute, it takes too long when a simple drag and drop into a folder will do the job.
Stunsworth
pfm Member
I used it until I switched to Roon, but for Roon I’d be using it still.
tuga
Legal Alien
I find iTunes the best music library manager and browser for Mac thanks to its Column Browser.
It provides enough tags for most uses and I prefer to tag everyting manually to make the most of them.
I have my music split into different 6 iTunes libraries: Classical, Rock, Ethnic & Traditional, Opera, Soundtracks, Jazz and Minimal
For Clasical music I use the "Genre" to define the Period – Early, Renaissance, Barroque, Classical, Romantic, Modern, etc. – and "Groupings" to describe the Category – Symphonic Poems, Cantatas, Piano Concertos, Songs, Cello Solo, etc.
I created my own tagging system based on this post: http://brianabbott.net/projects/how-i-organize-classical-music-in-itunes
Tray
pfm Member
J River wins hands down over old and new Audirvana and Amarra
Pretty much every music system is bit perfect nowadays .
Amazon HD streaming music player is about to kill off the competition .
Jay Z and his friends Tidal tax evasion scam will be gone
tuga
Legal Alien
Many music players are also processors which may be able to outperform your DAC's internal sample-rate converter, noise-shaper and filters. One can make the most of this processing capability by using a no-oversampling, filterless DAC.
Some also allow EQ.
They're almost as important as the DAC chip itself.
I upconvert all my music, mostly Redbook (16/44.1) files, to DSD128 which is the highest which my NOS DAC can take.
Some also allow EQ.
They're almost as important as the DAC chip itself.
I upconvert all my music, mostly Redbook (16/44.1) files, to DSD128 which is the highest which my NOS DAC can take.
I still use iTunes on my Mac Mini, with Audrivana Plus mainly used to play DSD & flac files. I did have a free short-term subscription with Tidal but to my utter amazement, found iTunes sounded better most of the time. I no longer buy music but rent it from Apple.
tuga
Legal Alien
The most straightforward and cheapest option is to get BitPerfect:
http://bitperfectsound.blogspot.com/
It runs behind iTunes and amongst other things adjusts the sample rate and bit depth automatically, 64bit digital volume, reduces HDD activity and provides SOX sample rate conversion.
http://bitperfectsound.blogspot.com/
It runs behind iTunes and amongst other things adjusts the sample rate and bit depth automatically, 64bit digital volume, reduces HDD activity and provides SOX sample rate conversion.