What music player software do you use the most?

[Nikhil]

Roon.  

[Melvin]

BluOS apps (Android, iOS, and MacOS).

[TJHUB]

I’ve used many, but Foobar2000 ASIO output to JPLAY and MonkeyMote (on an iPad) works and sounds the best for me.  I run a highly optimized Windows Server 2016 Core PC with AO and I could not be happier.

[plissken]

JRiver:

 

Good MetaTag support

Good Library Management

I like playing video media also

Zone control is great

J Remote is nice

 

[Musicophile]

Wow, I wouldn´t have expected Roon and JRiver to dominate this survey so much, and I'm surprised to see so little Audirvana (which I've voted for, as I use it pretty much exclusively).

 

@beerandmusic Side note: I know this is an audiophile forum, but shouldn't iTunes at least get its own tick box? And what about people who mainly use streaming apps?

[charlesphoto]

Roon now, but before that the very capable but often overlooked iPeng. 

[Ron Scubadiver]

2 hours ago, botrytis said:

I have used Foobar and threw it out the window. Why? it is software that that is designed by committee, plug ins that may not work together, and basically just sounded like crap.

 

As I said, if it was a problem with Windows, then it would be Universal (example is the Intel CPU flaws). Just because it is widespread does not mean it is a fault of Windows, what is common among all the users having this problem? A great example of this was graphics drivers in Win XP. The drivers were often written very with very sloppy use of memory and could cause major crashes. Win 7 and 8 advanced the specific uses of memory to prevent this issue. Win 10 is even better than the previous ones. Still, the drivers, etc. are dependent on the individual companies to write their own drivers based on the Windows QA system. It is easy to blame the big brother (MS) but it probably isn't their fault at all.

Not sure which plug-ins gave you a problem on Foobar, but complaints about Foobar SQ are close to zero.  The main program is developed by one person.  The most important plug-ins are developed by a close knit group.  You must have tried something weird with DSP.  JRiver is overly featured and would benefit by a features freeze followed by months of concentrating on stability.  That's how great software is developed.  They make the user feel like it is in beta all year long.  The constant modifications cause bugs to pop up.  Lately, many users are having new versions flagged by Windows Defender and rolled back automatically if they have system restore enabled.  The code base is so complex by now likely no one person understands it.  JRiver is very strong in library management and very weak in project management.  The best one can do is find a version which works for the user and turn off automatic updates.

[rruffin]

Audirvana - it just keeps getting better and better...

[botrytis]

1 hour ago, Ron Scubadiver said:

Not sure which plug-ins gave you a problem on Foobar, but complaints about Foobar SQ are close to zero.  The main program is developed by one person.  The most important plug-ins are developed by a close knit group.  You must have tried something weird with DSP.  JRiver is overly featured and would benefit by a features freeze followed by months of concentrating on stability.  That's how great software is developed.  They make the user feel like it is in beta all year long.  The constant modifications cause bugs to pop up.  Lately, many users are having new versions flagged by Windows Defender and rolled back automatically if they have system restore enabled.  The code base is so complex by now likely no one person understands it.  JRiver is very strong in library management and very weak in project management.  The best one can do is find a version which works for the user and turn off automatic updates.

 

My wife works in software development and deployment. Unfortunately that is not how it works.

 

Foobar sounded like crud and it was the only thing I had installed besides drivers for the part installed.. 

[Ron Scubadiver]

36 minutes ago, botrytis said:

 

My wife works in software development and deployment. Unfortunately that is not how it works.

 

Foobar sounded like crud and it was the only thing I had installed besides drivers for the part installed.. 

I just love the internet, where everyone is an expert and facts don't mean anything.

[jcn3]

Thoroughly enjoying Roon -- UI is nice, easy to configure, works with any device providing essentially the same experience.  I do wish the Discover function was a bit more sophisticated (seems I get the same recommendations frequently), though.

 

Still use JRiver for ripping discs and library management.  It is a great piece of software.

 

When using Minimserver and BubbleUPNP server, certainly is tough to beat the Lumin app (need to use iOS device to get Tidal integration when I last used it).  BubbleUPNP app on Android is pretty good, but not as good as Lumin to me.

 

Foobar2000 works fine, but does seem quite cobbled together after you're thrown in the necessary add-ons.  UI is quite dated and doesn't sound as good as JRiver, imo.

[wwaldmanfan]

My library is AIFF, a mix of sample rates. I use Audirvana w/Goodhertz Can Opener Studio AU plug in on my desktop/headphone rig, and Audirvana for critical listening on my main stereo.

But, when I want in-sync multi-room playback throughout the house, I switch to iTunes with Airplay, and the Remote app on my phone.

[Norton]

Other:. XXHighEnd most used so far in 2018,  WTFPlay probably most used in 2017, from time to time I give HQP a try too.

[Rak]

Other - Bugead 5.80, the best for me under Windows.

[jriver]

7 hours ago, Ron Scubadiver said:

JRiver is overly featured

Quote

You can remove some features if you want, for example audio only.

https://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Simplified_Interface

and would benefit by a features freeze followed by months of concentrating on stability. 

Quote

MC22 is frozen.  We're working on MC23.  That's how we work.  I realize you might do it differently.  https://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Updates

That's how great software is developed.  They make the user feel like it is in beta all year long. 

Quote

The build on the download page changes about once a month.  Newer builds are posted on the forum so people with a greater sense of adventure can try them.  These are usually pretty stable.

The constant modifications cause bugs to pop up. 

Quote

You're right.  Bugs happen.  We try to fix them quickly if we can reproduce them.

Lately, many users are having new versions flagged by Windows Defender

Quote

Windows Defender has recently been causing more problems.  One of our users started a helpful thread on how it should be set:  https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,114101.0.html

 

 

[Ron Scubadiver]

@jriver I did not say your software was bad.  I actually praised it for it's library organization features.  Honestly, I think you would be better off freezing features about 3 months after new release.  Foobar is free, it's also a kit.  Then again, some like to build their own gear.

[JoshK]

JRiver for ripping to my NAS.  MediaMonkey for tag consolidation and some organization (I listen to a lot of metal JRiver hasn't a clue about) and Lumin for playback on my iPad.  Lumin works great.   I see a lot of people using Roon, but I am not sure why the added expense, particularly as one who doesn't subscribe to Tidal, doesn't listen to audiophile music.   Tidal has very little overlap with my tastes I do subscribe to Spotify premium cause Spotify has a killer selection of metal for checking out new bands.  I buy if I listen more than a few times.

[adamdea]

LMS

[DavidL]

On 28/01/2018 at 11:04 PM, mansr said:

BubbleUPnP

 

...... as control with MinimServer on NAS serving music library

 

[blownsi]

17 hours ago, JoshK said:

JRiver for ripping to my NAS.  MediaMonkey for tag consolidation and some organization (I listen to a lot of metal JRiver hasn't a clue about) and Lumin for playback on my iPad.  Lumin works great.   I see a lot of people using Roon, but I am not sure why the added expense.

 

I like Roon because I don't want to mess with multiple programs and waste hours tweaking tags.  For whatever reason I've always had problems with tags, even bought programs which are supposed to fix them but they are always screwed up.  Many of my files actually had drive letters in the tags.  So the name of the song was K:\Love Hurts.flac etc.  Roon just plain works and doesn't make me mess with file names or tags.  In addition Roon has alot of artist information sort of like liner notes and such.  So you may search by producer or recording studio, etc.  I've never seen any other software do that.  

 

The problem I had with JRMC, MM and all the others was incorrect tags seem to confuse the software.  You can't just playback an album because it doesn't understand that those 10 tracks are all from the same album.  I end up with multiple artists because one is named Led Zeplin and another is Lead Zeppelin.  I want to be able to play the whole album in the correct order.  I shouldn't have to create playlists to do that.  Roon seems to query it's own database and just understand these things.  Don't get me wrong it's expensive but so is my time.    

[bobbmd]

tough selection because i tend to use TIDAL Qobuz ROON lifetime and A+3 equally but really like A+3 because i have Qobuz and TIDAL and all my playlists from both in one spot and A+3's app on iPad/iPhone allow me to use it as a remote

[Archimago]

LMS --> Transporter / piCorePlayer

[Spacehound]

 

JRiver.

It's fine on audio, format conversion, ripping, as a server, DSP, etc, I can't think of anything better for that, and the library handing is excellent, so is the  'zone' feature. But video is a bit of a mess and internet radio is even worse, though I have thought up a neat  workaround for that. But why should I have to? 

 

And the documentation is   hopeless. In some ways it would be better if it  didn't have any at all  as you wouldn't  waste your time looking for stuff you never find.

The official Wiki is fine on 'getting started' but other than that it is very incomplete. The 'Interact ' forum is full of mostly unanswered questions, and why should people answer? It's not as if they are getting paid.

 

It would be nice if they stopped introducing more  'features' for a while, fix the documentation,  and got some of the faulty features to work properly before dreaming up new ones.

 

But overall its fine for what I do (mostly audio downloads and ripped CDs) but I would like to have a 'player central' which it certainly isn't.

[WAM]

I am using Audirvana most of the time. Tried JRiver, Amarra, Clementine, Vox. But keep returning to Audirvana. 

[Jud]

Audirvana (on OSX) most. HQP (on Linux) next. Also looking forward to buying or building a new computer at some point in the coming year, which would allow me to run XXHE (on Windows) again.