Apple

[freesteve]

Ok it is done... My ventuire into the world of Mac has begun with my purchase of an iMac. I got the ssd and 16 GB of memory. Now where does everyone recommend I take it from here re: software and any system configurations. Thanks... enjoy.

[Musicophile]

Plenty of options.

 

First choice: Itunes with add-on (mainly Audirvana+ and Amarra) or JRiver.

 

I personally like Itunes with Audirvana+ and Amarra, but JRiver has the better Ipad remote. All of them have free trial versions, so just check out which one you are most comfortable with from a usability and sound perspective. There are pros and cons all ways, no clear winner.

 

You'll find a similar Q&A here:

 

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/f8-general-forum/apple-20667/

[freesteve]

Thank you Musicophile...

[Jud]

Plenty of options.

 

First choice: Itunes with add-on (mainly Audirvana+ and Amarra) or JRiver.

 

I personally like Itunes with Audirvana+ and Amarra, but JRiver has the better Ipad remote. All of them have free trial versions, so just check out which one you are most comfortable with from a usability and sound perspective. There are pros and cons all ways, no clear winner.

 

You'll find a similar Q&A here:

 

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/f8-general-forum/apple-20667/

 

Further options, all of which are likely covered at the link above: Audirvana+ by itself (iTunes not necessarily needed; I've always used Audirvana+ on its own, but many folks very much like iTunes as an organizational tool and aid to remote operation); Pure Music and iTunes (PM uses the iTunes interface). Snippets from various threads on these options: Sound quality, A+ and Amarra are the ones most often rated tops, though there are a substantial number liking Pure Music. JRiver was made available on Mac more recently than the others, so not as much discussion of it in terms of sound quality. Coding quality, Amarra is criticized most often for being buggy. It also doesn't play "gapless," i.e., on classical music there will be gaps between tracks and so the orchestra can suffer a momentary pause in its play. Interface, A+ is notably simple (though there are a sizable number of people who don't like the skeuomorphism), while JRiver's remote is generally acknowledged to be best. Pure Music is just that little bit different enough from plain iTunes to be bothersome. Oversampling - If you want your player to oversample the file before it hits the DAC, A+ bundles iZotope SRC, generally considered to be the top of class oversampling software.

[James1776]

Plenty of options.

 

First choice: Itunes with add-on (mainly Audirvana+ and Amarra) or JRiver.

 

I personally like Itunes with Audirvana+ and Amarra, but JRiver has the better Ipad remote. All of them have free trial versions, so just check out which one you are most comfortable with from a usability and sound perspective. There are pros and cons all ways, no clear winner.

 

You'll find a similar Q&A here:

 

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/f8-general-forum/apple-20667/

 

J-River does not use or rely on iTunes so does not need revision every time iTunes gets an update...It always works.

[wwaldmanfan]

J-River does not use or rely on iTunes so does not need revision every time iTunes gets an update...It always works.

 

I demo'ed JRiver 19 for Mac, and I think it has some terrific features. However, the deal-breaker for me was the fact that when importing my AIFF music library, a percentage of the files sorted as "unassigned", even though all the metadata is as correct as I can make it. Both iTunes and Audirvana Plus display all my albums, album artists, song titles, track number, running time, etc. perfectly.

Attempts to edit the metadata in JRiver to correct the issue were tedious and unsuccessful.

[Paul R]

Actually, that is pretty certain to mean that you don't have the metadata embedded into the actually files. This is a problem for anyone who moves from player to player, system to system, etc. iTunes (and by proxy, A+) stores metadata into what amounts to a small database, called a library. This is the data used to display individual files as an album.

 

I spent numerous hours cleaning up metadata in our library to the point that it would import perfectly, into JRMC and iTunes, both on MacOS (much easier) and on Windows.

 

-Paul

 

*P.S. MacOS was much easier because some of our music, especially classical music, had long file name and paths. Though Windows NTFS can support long pathnames for a file, it cuts off at 255 characters. Then you have to play Windows games like sharing and mounting directories and other such nonsense. -PR

 

I demo'ed JRiver 19 for Mac, and I think it has some terrific features. However, the deal-breaker for me was the fact that when importing my AIFF music library, a percentage of the files sorted as "unassigned", even though all the metadata is as correct as I can make it. Both iTunes and Audirvana Plus display all my albums, album artists, song titles, track number, running time, etc. perfectly.

Attempts to edit the metadata in JRiver to correct the issue were tedious and unsuccessful.

[REShaman]

Ok it is done... My ventuire into the world of Mac has begun with my purchase of an iMac. I got the ssd and 16 GB of memory. Now where does everyone recommend I take it from here re: software and any system configurations. Thanks... enjoy.

 

Hello freesteve,

 

Congratulations.

 

Enjoy the music,

Richard

[freesteve]

Thank you Richard for your generosity with time and information

[Paul R]

Dang that spell checker- it completely ate up one post and mangled another. (*sigh*)

 

The post that went the way of the dodo was "Congrats Steve! I think you will be delighted with your new Mac. "

 

-Paul

[REShaman]

Thank you Richard for your generosity with time and information

 

A pleasure! Let us know what your experience is when you are ready to report. You already know my favorite software player. I own them all and keep them updated. All except I have never committed to JRiver. Nothing negative to infer by that decision. Shortly, a new, significant update will be forthcoming for my favorite software player. You may want to install the trial and consider this player. The cost, however, is not insignificant.

 

Looking forward to you report in the future.

 

Enjoy the music,

Richard

[wwaldmanfan]

Actually, that is pretty certain to mean that you don't have the metadata embedded into the actually files. This is a problem for anyone who moves from player to player, system to system, etc. iTunes (and by proxy, A+) stores metadata into what amounts to a small database, called a library. This is the data used to display individual files as an album.

 

I spent numerous hours cleaning up metadata in our library to the point that it would import perfectly, into JRMC and iTunes, both on MacOS (much easier) and on Windows.

 

Thank you for your response, Paul. However, AIFF files, by design, allow for imbedding of metadata and album art, and I have gone to great pains to do this accurately on my 1,500 digital albums.

Although I use iTunes v10.7 (and sometimes, Audacity) on my desktop iMac to organize and edit the metadata in my AIFF library, the files are then copied onto an external HDD, which is wired to my MacBook Pro running Audirvana Plus exclusively in playlist mode. I've never even launched iTunes on the MBP, so that database is empty. I just drag and drop them from the HDD into A+ to play them.

I can open the files on the HDD in Finder, and see the artists, titles, album art, etc. It was correct on 98% of the files I imported into JRiver MC. But the other 2% (~30 albums) are all messed up. I've tried to work with the various JRiver tagging tools to fix them, but it didn't take.

[Paul R]

Thank you for your response, Paul. However, AIFF files, by design, allow for imbedding of metadata and album art, and I have gone to great pains to do this accurately on my 1,500 digital albums.

Although I use iTunes v10.7 (and sometimes, Audacity) on my desktop iMac to organize and edit the metadata in my AIFF library, the files are then copied onto an external HDD, which is wired to my MacBook Pro running Audirvana Plus exclusively in playlist mode. I've never even launched iTunes on the MBP, so that database is empty. I just drag and drop them from the HDD into A+ to play them.

I can open the files on the HDD in Finder, and see the artists, titles, album art, etc. It was correct on 98% of the files I imported into JRiver MC. But the other 2% (~30 albums) are all messed up. I've tried to work with the various JRiver tagging tools to fix them, but it didn't take.

 

I haven't found an instance in my stuff yet where JRMC reading the tags was incorrect. However, you can select the files and tell JRMC to refresh the information in it's database from the tags. That might help or even correct the situation.

 

I do hate editing tags in JRMC, so I usually use XLD to do it. Much happier with that way. My master library is primarily AIFF files as well.

 

-Paul