Mplayer OSX Extended – quite a difference in sound quality

[eggers]

Hello Computer Audiophiles

Long time lurker, first time poster.

 

Having read this blog post http://blog.deskportal.net/hideki/2010/12/20/playing-audio-under-mac-os-x/ I downloaded the MPlayer OS X Extended and yowsa! What a difference in sound quality. I agree with the author of the blog post, as I myself have tried many of the other players he lists, and MPlayer OS X Extended is indeed much better than anything else I have heard, including Amarra and Pure Music.

 

I'm on a Mac Pro running Toslink to a Berkeley Alpha DAC direct into a Pass Labs X250 to Snell A/III. I had thought that exclusive mode aka. hog mode was the holy grail, as it had yielded the best results so far, but MPlayer OS X Extended is not in exclusive mode and much better than Amarra, Pure Music, or Decibel in exclusive mode.

 

The sound is markedly crisper, dynamic and chiseled in MPlayer OS X Extended. I hear the same result when using headphones in the headphone-jack in the Mac Pro. I have checked that no special effects in MPlayer OS X Extended is on, so it's not some silly 'effect' setting causing the difference to other players.

 

Playing HDCD encoded material lits up the HDCD indicator on the Berkeley from both iTunes and MPlayer OS X Extended so I'll assume that output from both is bitperfect. The files I have tried it with are all ALAC.

 

So the question is – what is going on? I'm perplexed by this phenomenon, and I would like to hear if other people can replicate my results on other systems.

 

Kind regards,

Eggers

 

[blueheronhollow]

Hi,

 

I followed the link you provided to download and install MPlayer OS X Extended to see if I could hear the same things you did.

 

I tested the software with headphones, using the current generation Apple MBP, with an HRT Music Streamer II+, Little Dot MkIII amplifier, and Audio Technica ATH-AD700 and Denon D2000 headphones.

 

I tried a mixture of ALAC and FLAC high-resolution downloads, and to my ears I slightly prefer the sound of Decibel over MPlayer. For me the soundstage was better using Decibel, although overall the players were very close in nature.

 

Would I be able to tell the difference in a blind test? I'm not so sure!

 

Either way, it's a nice sounding player.

 

Cheers,

Ian