 Bitperfect audio players are very popular, but which one is the best? Welcome back to the HB Channel. In this show we look at the Bitperfect audio players for the Mac. There are countless players available, ranging from free to pricey and from utilitarian to super-duper library functionality. I started using software players years ago on a 2006 Mac Mini player and currently use a 2011 Mac Mini as a music player. I have also used a 2010 MacBook Pro and a 2008 iMac. All are equipped with SSD system drives. The newer Mac Mini uses a Western Digital 6TB Thunderbolt drive, the others got their audio files over the network from a Mac Mini or from a beefed up Windows Home Server. In the written review on theHBproject.com you can find all the details. The reason I have not published a review sooner was that the changes in the software came so frequently that by the time I had a proper opinion on the player it was already updated again. So I gave up on reviewing but kept up to date on a number of players. Looking back the evolutionary selection can be regarded as a kind of hands-on review as well. But it's not a review as I normally do. Initially there were two kinds of players, very basic and cheap players with horrible user interfaces and players that used iTunes as a user interface with added status bar offering extra controls. I'll give you my story on the players but keep in mind that the players I have disapproved with a few years ago in the meantime might be improved. These players offer you a trial period so if you want to check it out for yourself please do so. Two years ago BitPerfect by BitPerfect Sounding was the first to leave the competition. This is a very affordable player costing €9.95 and I would have loved it for that reason. But it had a nasty mid-range sound and didn't have memory play. There is no trial version available. Accessible by S-Boot was the second to leave the race. It is a standalone program and doesn't require iTunes. The user interface is simple, some may like it and others may not. But the reason to abandon decibel was the sound quality which was clearly subpar. The third one I dropped might surprise you. A Mara by Sonic Studio. I used two versions, the only difference being the higher sample rates made accessible or not. In the meantime there is a version that does room acoustic compensation and a version that plays Tidal. The versions I used sounded refined and if nothing else had been around I would have still used a Mara. It sounds a little rounded as if there is a slight high end roll-off but I didn't find any evidence of that during measuring. Since I found several other players that sounded a little more sparkling, a Mara was dropped too. Then left me with three players that sounded about equal. Pure Music by Channel D, Media Center by J River and Audivana Plus. Pure Music was disqualified since it fought with a video program that I needed to use from time to time. Like a Mara and others it used iTunes as a user interface and again the sound is excellent. But I can't keep buying updates for all those programs to keep up to date with all. So I kept using the two remaining. Media Center by J River, currently at version 21 and Audivana Plus 2. Two totally different programs, neither needing iTunes which is a plus for me since I have a very large music collection including DSF Ribs of my 500 SSDs. iTunes will not do FLAC or DSD in any shape or form. Some programs, like Pure Music, lets you make aliases that trick iTunes in thinking FLAC and DSF files are AIF files. But it's an extra hassle. Audivana and J River simply work with all the popular audio files. Just copy the files to the directory that holds the music and they are automatically indexed. Audivana 2 Plus can work like a Mara and Pure Music and use iTunes functionality for the user interface. I believe that there was a disagreement with one of the other brands about a technology used, the aliases, if I remember well, that forced Audivana away from using iTunes. Therefore, version 2 has also its own simple user interface. The left column lets you choose between the play queue and the library. The latter shows all albums with cover art or all tracks. Even in track view, you can sort on any field that is displayed. You can play music by clicking on it but if you want to add to the play queue, you need to drag the additional tracks to the play queue map. You can easily search on a given track, artist, album or other field by entering the search string into the search field. Typing Command I brings up a metadata editor that also has fields for composer, conductor, sampler, soloist, instrument, style and period, making it perfect for classical music. You can have Audivana oversampled to the highest sampling rate your DA converter supports, using the Incorporated Isotope 64 bit sampling rate converter. It can be said to do only the power of two conversions, so 44.1 kHz files are converted to 88.2, 176.4 or 352.8 kHz. Whether that's useful depends on your DA converter. Many converters will sound better when upsampling is done in the computer. But not all. Just try and choose the best scheme. If it's not audible either way, then who cares? Audivana is also able to convert DSD to PCM for when your DA converter doesn't do DSD. Furthermore you can use audio plugins, the virtual equivalent of effects and reverb devices. A number of standard plugins are a part of OS X, but all kinds of extra effects can be bought or downloaded for free. My advice, keep away from it if you're serious about sound, unless you're very well educated in the field of filtering and absolutely need to filter out some problems. A very nice feature is the system optimization setup. Here you can tell Audivana what processes to hold during music playback. Spotlight, time machine and USB detection of new devices. Add to that the direct, exclusive and integer modes you can set in the audio preferences and you're almost sure nothing stands between you and the music. It even supports multi-channel audio provided your setup can handle it. When used together with iTunes, control from an iPad or iPhone can be done using Apple's remote app. For the standalone Audivana mode, control from the iPad was initially not supported but recently an app for iOS became available at 995. Here again the simple structural interface and, like on the computer, it all works fast. Minimum requirements are a 64-bit Mac, Core to Duo later, OS X 10.6 later and a minimum of 2 GB of RAM. I would recommend a minimum of 4 GB. You pay 59 euros for a license, an upgrade from version 1 is 31 euros. A beta just became available that support Cobus but there is no mention of title. J River Media Center for Windows is one of the longer existing programs for playing audio, video and photos on a computer. Version 9 was introduced in 2003. Before that the program was called MediaJubox which name now is used for a simplified free version of Media Center. Over time the latter adopted to the demand for bit perfect playback of music too. It's a very versatile program with almost more features and hidden gems than Photoshop. A few years ago the program was ported to the Mac, leading to a program that felt very unnatural for a Mac user. Over time adoptions are made towards the Mac interface but it is still an odd feeling program. But the sound is equal to that of Audivana 2 Plus and Pure Music, provided all settings are done towards quality. It's these settings that show you where it differs from Audivana. About any property of the program can be personalised. Like with Audivana, memory play, integer mode, direct mode, sample rate conversions, DSD conversions or DOP are all available. But there is also provisions to professionally ruin the sound quality. Like song-leveling and many DSB functions like parametric equaliser, tempo and pitch and other advanced techniques. But then again you can also set it up for quality lossless playback, it's up to you. Just as many features are available for managing your music catalogue. Even including a kind of command line for MyS Update. I wanted to add DSD64 in square brackets to the album names of all the DSD64 albums. A not so simple command line instruction did it for me in a jiffy. You can use Media Center right out of the box, with the exception of setting the audio output. Command O instead of the Mac standard command comma brings you to the settings menu. In the left corner, choose Audio and on the audio device select your DA converter. On the settings, choose Exclusive Access and Integer mode. If your DA converter supports DSD over PCM, go to the bit streaming menu and select DSD. Further down, under volume, disable volume. All other options in the audio setting window are self-explanatory. You can check them out later if you like. You can control Media Center from your tablet or smartphone using Jremode for iOS or Android. To do so, you must set the Media Network function in the option menu. It will produce a key that you have to enter in the app. Before a roundup, I would like to reiterate that this video is not a review like I normally do. I have tried to review the aforementioned software players the traditional way, but didn't succeed. Instead, I'll give you my experiences with the players and my personal preferences. I normally try to explain where a product finds its place in the market, rather than what I like. If I had to review a Mercedes C-Class and a BMW 3 Series, I would have only explained that the BMW is a more sporty drive and a merker, more relaxed drive. And not that I prefer a relaxed drive, thus the Mercedes. Not so in this video. I prefer the sound of Audivarna, Pure Music and J-River over that of Amara. But if you think differently, I understand. I don't understand why they sound different, since they all claim bit perfect reproduction and they were all tested on the same hardware. I have also compared them against the 10-labs modified THIAC VR DS10 to find Audivarna J-River and Pure Music to sound about the same. That might lead to the conclusion that Amara doesn't sound correct, but also that the VR DS10 has the same deviation as the other players. Point is that both sounds are free of typical distortion caused by audio equipment. Which cannot be said of bit perfect and decibel of a few years ago. Anyway, there remained two players as my favorites. J-River Media Center 21 and Audivarna 2 Plus. I often like the simplicity of the latter, but not always, apparently, since I keep using J-River from time to time. Especially when maintaining the metadata, J-River offers better options to, for instance, make sure Tchaikovsky is written the same for each and every track. Recently Rune was introduced that again sounds the same as J-River and Audivarna, but has unique navigation and metadata. As soon as I have come to grips with it, I'll report on it in a separate video. So subscribe to this channel, follow my Facebook page or my Twitter account if you want to keep posting it. You'll find the information in the description below. There you also find links to the written version of this report. Questions can be posted below on my Facebook page or on the contact page on theHBproject.com. And if you have enjoyed this video, please give it a thumbs up and tell your friends about it. I am Hans Beekhuyzen for the HB Channel. Thank you for watching and see you the next time or on theHBproject.com.