FWIW IMHO The Dharma 2 Beta of XBMC is a big deal...5.1 flac, 5.1 DTSWAV, AIFF, WAV, Remote Support

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This has always been my favorite go to media player for just about anything. However sound quality in the past and file support were problems preventing me from making it my only media player. Thankfully, I was delighted when I downloaded the Dharma 2 beta from the web site. It now plays all of my non apple files just great and with 5.1 support, or 5 channel in my case. I also noticed some changes in the preferences that let you define your speaker system, and of course whether your receiver decodes dts and ac3. Acoustically I personally notice a change but it could be my excitement at not having to switch to windows to play certain files (finally) in 5.1. I do not know about about its transparency, though if it is picking up my dts audio files I am assuming it is passing it off to the receiver. Perhaps someone with a DAC capable of figuring out bit perfectness will oblige others in determining this. I can't say how pleased I am. They seem to have gone out of their way with format support for the mac crowd, which behaved erratically in the past for me, especially for file formats long neglected on the mac, particularly 5.1 flac and 5.1 DTSWav. The other thing some readers might find of interest is it doesn't seem to muck up your library as some players like to do. It just reads the library as you have it set up. The disadvantage is I don't seem to find tag support so you need to do that kind of thing in another program which is a pretty small thing to overlook. The remote support is very nice. Navigation of huge libraries is effortless. There are a few bugs in the software. Audio sometimes hangs on DTS files for a few seconds. I have noticed it does not seem to support ac3 audio files. I have a few but that is certainly not a deal breaker. So far this is now hands down my favorite audio AND video player on the mac. I am really glad they sorted out the few remaining codec issues and at least to my ears I have noticed a much clearer sound than the current release version. I may be imagining that as I have never heard DTS audio on a mac before. I thought a few people especially newbies and people like me who like to use a remote to browse the entirety of their collection and like the simplicity of one program that plays friendly with all your files, apple approved or not might enjoy this as an alternative. It seems to play high resolution files just fine. I cannot tell any way except audibly that they are playing at the proper bit depth and sample rate but they definitely seem to be. Would love someone to put this assumption to the test. Hope you all enjoy! Have a great weekend.

 

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that it appears this app supports automatic sampling rate switching. My high res files definitely sound the same though someone with a DAC that shows that kind of thing would have to help others in determining this for a certainty. Good luck with those of you who try it. I am enjoying the remote support immensely!