Which PC based digital player sounds best ?

Music as represented in 1's and 0's. Discuss anything pertaining to D hardware - CD, DVD, SACD, DAC, etc.

Which PC based digital player sounds best ?

Postby qguy » Fri Dec 16, 2011 9:36 am

Ever since the last Nov HIFI show (2011), I was hooked on getting my collection into a music server, Olive Came to mind, but its a little bit out of my budget. I got an Acer Netbook hooked up to a Dayton USB DAC currently using iTunes. "Satisfied" enough with the current setup to allow me eventually ditch the Harman Kardon Player and store all my CD on the hard drive. Now which player to use ? Itunes, foobar2000, winamp ? any other suggestions.
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Re: Which PC based digital player sounds best ?

Postby muypogi » Fri Dec 16, 2011 11:16 am

qguy wrote:Ever since the last Nov HIFI show (2011), I was hooked on getting my collection into a music server, Olive Came to mind, but its a little bit out of my budget. I got an Acer Netbook hooked up to a Dayton USB DAC currently using iTunes. "Satisfied" enough with the current setup to allow me eventually ditch the Harman Kardon Player and store all my CD on the hard drive. Now which player to use ? Itunes, foobar2000, winamp ? any other suggestions.


I used iTunes. IMHO, kung CD quality lang naman, better to concentrate on the hardware (DAC in particular) to get the most out of your system. iTunes by itself is a pretty decent player, coupled with the Airplay capability of apple stuff + Airport express, you have a more than decent playback system.

Free pa . . as opposed to arguably better software players pero you do need to shell out moolah. . .

If you have time and can hazard a trip to Marikina I can show you a simple streaming digital setup. . .
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Re: Which PC based digital player sounds best ?

Postby qguy » Fri Dec 16, 2011 11:30 am

Was going with the Airport Express route, but its out of stock. I just got a 5 meter cable, since the Netbook does not need to mobile, pretty much content right now ]:)

muypogi wrote:
qguy wrote:Ever since the last Nov HIFI show (2011), I was hooked on getting my collection into a music server, Olive Came to mind, but its a little bit out of my budget. I got an Acer Netbook hooked up to a Dayton USB DAC currently using iTunes. "Satisfied" enough with the current setup to allow me eventually ditch the Harman Kardon Player and store all my CD on the hard drive. Now which player to use ? Itunes, foobar2000, winamp ? any other suggestions.


I used iTunes. IMHO, kung CD quality lang naman, better to concentrate on the hardware (DAC in particular) to get the most out of your system. iTunes by itself is a pretty decent player, coupled with the Airplay capability of apple stuff + Airport express, you have a more than decent playback system.

Free pa . . as opposed to arguably better software players pero you do need to shell out moolah. . .

If you have time and can hazard a trip to Marikina I can show you a simple streaming digital setup. . .
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Re: Which PC based digital player sounds best ?

Postby muypogi » Fri Dec 16, 2011 11:31 am

Mag rega dac ka
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Re: Which PC based digital player sounds best ?

Postby qguy » Fri Dec 16, 2011 11:57 am

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

muypogi wrote:Mag rega dac ka
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Re: Which PC based digital player sounds best ?

Postby Gino » Fri Dec 16, 2011 12:11 pm

Mac, iTunes, Amarra sounds really good. A used Mac Mini or MacBook will do. I use a MacBook Air 11".
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Re: Which PC based digital player sounds best ?

Postby Stealth » Fri Dec 16, 2011 7:57 pm

In my experience, J. River is better than iTunes.
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Re: Which PC based digital player sounds best ?

Postby Billabong » Fri Dec 16, 2011 11:38 pm

Foobar. :D
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Re: Which PC based digital player sounds best ?

Postby carbondated » Sat Dec 17, 2011 1:33 am

There's an open-source player called Audirvana. It doesn't have the functionality of iTunes and doesn't have the sheen of Amarra, but it's quite 'purist' as far as digital audio is concerned. Very lightweight at 9.7MB and not a memory hog -- but limited in terms of building a music library.
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Re: Which PC based digital player sounds best ?

Postby bashi » Sat Dec 17, 2011 7:37 am

vlc player, plays almost any format available, audio or video, pwede pa sya in any gadget...pc, mac, android....
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Re: Which PC based digital player sounds best ?

Postby mr8382004 » Fri Dec 30, 2011 5:46 pm

For me I used J. Rivers music jukebox, it's free and can play Hi res audio files up to 24bit 192khz and you can control it
with smartphone or itouch wirelessly.
If you want to have more features and use external DAC get J. Rivers Media Center, it can play both videos and audio.
It's not free though, but I think there's a hack version just search thru googles. :D
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Re: Which PC based digital player sounds best ?

Postby [L]es » Mon Feb 13, 2012 6:28 pm

i use either j river media center.. bought and paid for or foobar 0.8.3. foobar has better separation.. at least to my ears.
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Re: Which PC based digital player sounds best ?

Postby JackD201 » Mon Feb 13, 2012 7:27 pm

As a long time Macuser having been ripping CDs since the iPod first came out, I wanted to have a player that could work as seemlessly off the iTunes database. I eventually went with PureMusic for that reason. It does sound better than stock iTunes but I really can't compare it with any other player as I haven't tried any other. Still, my serious listening in done with Vinyl and dedicated CD and SACD players so I am not so picky when it comes to my computer audio, for now anyway. One thing for sure is that coming from players with very good transport and clocking systems, from what I've experienced the quality of the DACs are still the bigger factor when it comes to ultimate sound quality.
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Re: Which PC based digital player sounds best ?

Postby [L]es » Mon Feb 13, 2012 7:43 pm

thanks. i use my pc for serious listening. was about to try ubuntu like i did several years ago when i still had my dac1.. the guys at audio asylum and computer audiophile seem to have forgotten about ubuntu so i guess there's nothing new there.
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Re: Which PC based digital player sounds best ?

Postby egay » Sun May 13, 2012 9:37 am

[L]es wrote:thanks. i use my pc for serious listening. was about to try ubuntu like i did several years ago when i still had my dac1.. the guys at audio asylum and computer audiophile seem to have forgotten about ubuntu so i guess there's nothing new there.


L'es, i tried ubuntu's default player and it sounded better than WMP, BUT it's playback capability is very limited - can't play WAVs ripped in higher resolution.

so in a way, it was 'promising'. :?:

.e.
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Re: Which PC based digital player sounds best ?

Postby Hyperion » Sun May 13, 2012 12:54 pm

IME, J River MC17 is tops for PC especially in combination with high end external asynchronous dacs with ASIO drivers on high resolution systems.
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Re: Which PC based digital player sounds best ?

Postby the porcupine » Sun May 27, 2012 7:14 pm

^ MC17 also sounds best for me. Its the only player that works well with my Async DAC in WASAPI mode.
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Re: Which PC based digital player sounds best ?

Postby magnus » Sun May 27, 2012 7:30 pm

Presently happy with my setup: pc laptop running JRiver MC17 playing WAV files ripped from my CDs, connected to my dac via halide cable. For wireless control/access of Jriver in my laptop, I use an ipad running PocketCloud
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Re: Which PC based digital player sounds best ?

Postby alfa » Sun May 27, 2012 10:54 pm

I'm using an streamer Pro media player. I moved some of my music there as it reads FLAC and wav. Next project is a nice DAC which might improve the sound via to toslink or coax
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Re: Which PC based digital player sounds best ?

Postby mr8382004 » Mon Jul 09, 2012 10:57 pm

I used Jrivers it can play 24/192 file, and foobar to play SACD iso files but unfortunately my pc can handle the 2 channels only.
Any suggestion what pc hardware can handle the multi channels? should it be a quad core processor?
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