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    Itunes alternatives?

    Discussion in 'Apple and Mac OS X' started by rmt5, May 4, 2011.

  1. rmt5

    rmt5 Notebook Enthusiast

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    Hey. I'm coming from a windows machine where I used foobar for my music needs. Does anyone have any recommendations for itunes alternatives with:

    1. good sound quality
    2. light on system resources
    3. can rip and burn cds?

    Thanks!
     
    rmt5, May 4, 2011
    #1
  2. ajreynol

    ajreynol Notebook Virtuoso

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    The best OS X music players (sound quality) are, in no paticular order:

    Audrivana (free)
    Deibel (not free)
    Fidelia (not free)
    Amarra (very not free)

    system resources usage will vary based on if you elect to upsample and to what quality. Otherwise, all of the above are fantatic and highly recommended.

    For ripping, I'd just recommend using iTunes. It's just fine for that. Be sure to configure it to your quality tastes (lossless, 320, whatever).
     
    ajreynol, May 4, 2011
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  3. doh123

    doh123 Without ME its just AWESO

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    Just for the fun of it.. I took and ported Foobar2000 using Wineskin and it seems to run fine. I do not have any CDs to test with, but I assume there is potential problems when it comes to ripping and burning them, as DVD/CD drive issues are common in Wine.

    [​IMG]

    I will add though.. while iTunes isn't very good on Windows, it is MUCH better on Mac OS X.
     
    doh123, May 4, 2011
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  4. rmt5

    rmt5 Notebook Enthusiast

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    Yes, after having played around with itunes a bit more, it does look a lot better than what I had been accustomed to on windows. But I'll also check out audrivana. Thanks!
     
    rmt5, May 4, 2011
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  5. taelrak

    taelrak Lost

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    LOL.

    I'll just echo the other post above that iTunes is actually fairly decent in OSX, as opposed to the Windows side.
     
    taelrak, May 4, 2011
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  6. rmt5

    rmt5 Notebook Enthusiast

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    Why are people willing to pay such a premium for Amarra? Does it have some unique features or is it just sliding by on reputation?
     
    rmt5, May 4, 2011
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  7. rmt5

    rmt5 Notebook Enthusiast

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    Also, does anybody think running foobar2000 through wineskin would result in some deterioration in sound quality? I'm not sure how wineskin really functions in that respect.
     
    rmt5, May 4, 2011
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  8. doh123

    doh123 Without ME its just AWESO

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    it uses the standard Wine CoreAudio driver... which uses CoreAudio directly in Mac OS X.. it *shouldn't* have any loss in quality, but I cannot know for sure until its tested extensively. Wine also links and uses Quicktime libraries for many things too. While access to CD drives is problematic, sound usually is not.

    It seems the app cannot see the optical drive though, so its unlikely to have working CD support very easily.
     
    doh123, May 4, 2011
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  9. taelrak

    taelrak Lost

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    Try the demo, and see if the difference (if any) is worth $700 to you....

    Keep in mind you'd need the appropriate hardware too....which is not cheap...
     
    taelrak, May 4, 2011
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