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Bitperfect vs audirvana3/5/2023 ![]() In digital audio, jitter and interference can cause imperfect streaming of data to the DAC, which can be perceived as degradation in sound quality. The DAC takes those 0’s an 1’s and converts it into an electrical signal that can be amplified and heard. The audio file is streamed from the hard drive to a DAC (digital to analog converter). Here’s what happens behind the scenes when you press play in iTunes. I needed that remaining minuscule fraction of sound quality, and that’s how I found BitPerfect. I had this strange idea that iTunes was lying to me and delivered only 99.999% of the maximum possible sound quality in my library. A few recent purchases, which included an AudioQuest DragonFly USB DAC and a pair of Shure SE846s, successfully put into another one of those maximum sound quality moods that approximately 0.001% of the world’s population experience at any point in their lives. Yes, I am aware that this sounds incredibly nerdy. Common sense dictates that you should not run too many applications simultaneously if the installed memory is small, in fact there are users dedicate a Mac mini as music server solely for running a media player application.Īccording to what I have head so far, following is my rating of various media player applications:Ģ.I had a rare day off a few weeks ago, and decided the goal for the day would be to figure out how to maximize my Mac’s sound quality. Generally I don't think anything below 8 GB of installed memory is adequate to run latest Mac OS X and other applications properly. Make sure you set this parameter according to size of available memory on your Mac. In Audirvana Plus preference's Audio System window, you can set size of memory buffer for Maximum memory allocated for tracks pre-load. Note to those who complain that Audirvana is crashing your Mac frequently, you must understand that Audirvana pre-loads audio data in memory before playing, thus it needs certain amount of memory to work properly. IMac (2.8 GHz Core i7 / 256 GB SSD / 16 GB DDR3 RAM) > nuForce DDA-100 Direct Digital Amplifier (USB 2.0) > Wharfedale Diamond 122 Bookshelf speaker Since Fidelia still depend on Apple CoreAudio for processing and I do not need FHX processing module for headphone, most likely I will go with Audirvana Plus with following audio hardware setup: To match bundled features of Audirvana Plus, Fidelia must be operated in advanced instead of basic mode (additional USD 50 for plugin). You don't need additional audio effects provided by Apple CoreAudio as far as music appreciation is concerned (unlike online game and movie). ![]() Playlists in iTunes can be imported into these two players easily though new playlists can be created within the applications as well.Īudirvana Plus has direct and integer modes and it bypasses Apple's CoreAudio layer to present audio data in digital format directly to external DAC in purest form. As far as media player independent of iTunes and performance/cost ratio are concerned, I am left with only two options: Fidelia or Audirvana Plus. Sonic Studio studio does offer independent version of Amarra but it costs a lot more than Amarra HiFi. Thus any future upgrades of iTunes will affect their compatibilities. BitPerfect, Pure Music and Amarra HiFi depend on iTunes for song selection/management and other controls to certain extend. I have purchased BitPerfect and basic mode of Fidelia and have performed trials with Pure Music and Amarra HiFi, right now I have been using trial version of Audirvana Plus for a week. I suppose iTunes 11 upgrade make the situation worst then before. iTunes has been rededicated to only synching iPhone 5 / iPad mini and ripping CDs. I want to have a media player independent of iTunes though able to access iTunes's library files. ![]() I never satisfy with sound quality produced by iTunes's decoder, thus has been looking for alternative media player.
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