Audio players for digital playback

[Thenop]

Having the new Fiio FT7 headphones of course send me down the rabbithole.

First off: I am on an iMac, approx. 5 years old, and I have a DAC / headphone amp hooked up to that. The Ifi Zen Can and signature DAC HD6XX (for the Sennheiser of course). This means I run a separate software app to bypass the iMac inner workings because I don't want to run the signal to run through the inferior Apple soundcard, I want to hear the Ifi stack.

It's actually a nice sounding combination that stack. It has an analog little bass booster and space enhancer, various in- and outputs and I have a mobile CD player hooked up to it as well. It paired great with the headphones I had (obviously, it was designed to 'better' the sounds signature of the Senns) but find it working quite well with the Fiio as well.

-- interlude: of course I will be looking into upgrading, I say I won't but I know I will, that's just how these things go --

Anyway, in the distant past I used the dreaded iTunes, but ever since that has become an integrated Apple sales machine I ditched it. I bought Swinsian a few years bac, it's a nice app. It has a very good library function, and I like keeping a lot of digital files I own, or ripped form CDs, as local playback files.
I also use Tidal, as my streaming platform of choice.

So.. what happened is that I went looking for more apps, and seeing if there were better sounding ones. And how I never came across of even tried Audirvana is a mystery to me. I knew of Pine Player, VOX and some smaller ones that never really came past the initial development stage. But, in search of something I could not yet put my finger on, I wanted to see if I could 'upgrade' from Swinsian.

Now, the library function is not much to write home about (yet) but to these ears, the sound that the app gives me is unrivaled. What it does, it clears a path. What that means is, it has direct and exclusive access to the DAC. Everything else is bypassed or disabled, it is just direct from the app to the DAC to the headphone amp and my cans. I never knew there could be such a big difference in sound, but it sounds (again, to these ears) so clear. Of course, the cans help. The Fiio is really superclear, crystal, but if I listen to Swinsian and then Audirvana it is a night and day difference.
In this game of music listening it is usually about sound signatures, but this is just as pure as you can get it.

I am on a trial version now, there is the Original and Studio versions I am using the Studio which includes built-in streaming interface for (amongst others) Tidal (!) which means I open 1 app for all music. Lovely!

Now the downside: it is a subscription service at 6,66 EUR / month.

I have a month to think about it..

[Thenop]

Been doing quite some listening and (trying to) compare some programs. So, my question - the premise - Does Audirvana sound better than Swinsian (a Mac only music player with fantastic library skills), all other things being equal? is not easily answered.

Why is that?
Well, Audirvana has this thing about other programs and processes, it shuts them down, or supresses them, in order to kill as many processes that can have an influence on the sound. Admittedly, my iMac can be a noisy machine when it comes to background noise, but you only notice it if you shut it down.

Secondly, Audirvana has all sorts of settings, and even a menu to choose the DAC you use to listen.
Theoretically of course, the signal that comes from the computer and goes into the DAC is the same, therefore the outcome should be the same. But in reality, each music program has its own sound signature, sometimes due to resampling (either up or down) or perhaps through certain default settings. In all honesty, I rarely look at all of those, I do an initial sweep on what is possible, adjust it to my liking and leave it. I hate equalizers for instance, to me they always take something away from the original, and I don't like that.

Having said all that, and having switched back and forth I am still undecided.. to these ears Audirvana sounds cleaner, has a certain open sound that other programs I tried have not. Swinsian sounds flatter if that makes any sense. It lacks depth.

Of course, all of this can be written off as confirmation bias but really I have no preference other than that I like Swinsians library features - and operating speed - and prefer it over the Audirvana library and general GUI.

Right, 2 weeks to go until the trial ends, hopefully I will know by then.

Meanwhile I cancelled another paid app subscription to convince myself I will not be paying more than I already am. Clever move on my part, confirmation bias-ish.

[Slim]

Might be worth doing a blind test. I use Clementine, a Linux music player. For sure it doesn't sent the signal bit perfect to the DAC, it has a volume control for one thing. Would be interesting to find out how much difference that makes.

[pxr5]

For headphones I like to use my phone (Android) for portability. I ended up with a pair of Audio-Technica MSR7s and like them so much I bought a set of MSR7bs. As these use a balanced 4.4mm jack I first got a Ifi Hip DAC, then later a Ifi Hip DAC 3. Software wise there are really 3 choices for Android: Poweramp, Neutron and USB Audio Player Pro (UAPP). I've bought both the latter 2 and were a few quid each. All of these bypass both the Android OS and the phones own DAC, letting the external DAC handle the decoding. In Bit perfect mode both Neutron and UAPP sound the same, but the library handling and extras on UAPP are more extensive and I mainly use that. To access my music server files all my devices sit on a Tailscale net allowing me to access my stuff from anywhere. The Ifi Hip DACS support very high res files including DSF/DFF SACD files which I have a few of. I'm happy with this set up, mainly because it's portable and can access my tunes wherever. I also have a little Cyrus Soundkey DAC which runs like the Ifi DACs, but is much easier to carry about if needed.

[Thenop]

For headphones I like to use my phone (Android) for portability. I ended up with a pair of Audio-Technica MSR7s and like them so much I bought a set of MSR7bs. As these use a balanced 4.4mm jack I first got a Ifi Hip DAC, then later a Ifi Hip DAC 3. Software wise there are really 3 choices for Android: Poweramp, Neutron and USB Audio Player Pro (UAPP). I've bought both the latter 2 and were a few quid each. All of these bypass both the Android OS and the phones own DAC, letting the external DAC handle the decoding. In Bit perfect mode both Neutron and UAPP sound the same, but the library handling and extras on UAPP are more extensive and I mainly use that. To access my music server files all my devices sit on a Tailscale net allowing me to access my stuff from anywhere. The Ifi Hip DACS support very high res files including DSF/DFF SACD files which I have a few of. I'm happy with this set up, mainly because it's portable and can access my tunes wherever. I also have a little Cyrus Soundkey DAC which runs like the Ifi DACs, but is much easier to carry about if needed.

I use my iBasso DX180 when I am on the move and considering I am using a bluetooth headphone I really don't care about bit perfect playback for that. Een with a lossless codec you lose something in the transfer anyway.
Actually, I use Poweramp for that because I like the interface. UAPP I could never get to work normally, it always messes up my library, and Neutron I didn't even bother.
there are more decent players though, mostly from DAP builders themselves. iBasso has the dreaded Mango player (avoid at all cost), Hiby has their app which is not bad at all, Fiio has their own aoo, so does Shanling. Most of which can be used as free alternatives, they are sort of a by-product for the hardware they sell and freely downloadable.

But that's mobile devices, I am now going on about my home setup, which is very different. And being on a iMac, I limited myself somewhat as well.

Oh well I'll get there.

As to the blind testing: that's very difficult to do by my own mainly because Audirvana needs to be disabled in full in order to get something else working.

In all honesty, as audiophile as I'd like to be I can hear no difference between hi-res and regular 44.1 kHz, 16 bit. I am what you might call, a practical audiophile: music first, gear second. I have browsed forums that were so snobistic they'd exclude music because it could not meet their audiophile playback standard.

All of this does brings back an itch on the iBasso, let's try and see if I can get UAPP to work properly. Thanks for mentioning that.

[Slim]

In all honesty, as audiophile as I'd like to be I can hear no difference between hi-res and regular 44.1 kHz, 16 bit.

There isn't one, except that so-called "hi-res" is bandwidth and storage inefficient.

[Thenop]

Just paid for a years' subscription - let's see how they develop over the coming year. For now I am happy enough, it just needs tweaking in library skills.