Which player for FLAC music on Mac?

[Giuanniello]

Hi everybody,

I just got (again) a crush for music, in the off season (for us living in this part of the country now is the start of a long off season and as such we need to engage into hobbies...) I like to listen to music when am home doing chores or just sitting and enjoying to some good recordings, be it old rock or jazz, 80s disco or classic, whatever fits...

I recently upgraded my vintage stereo setup with a new vintage preamp in the form of an Audio Research SP9 and also got a magnificent turntable, a Michell Gyrodec but still have to find a place for it in the neighbor of my very busy TV/Stereo closet (Sat decoder, PS3, ATV3, Modem/Router, TV screen, Preamp, CD-Player, power amp, Wii...) but I am enjoying listening to digital music; while I thought, reading here and there, that MP3 with a high bitrate is practically barely undistinguishable (does this word exist???) I have to say that after listening to FLAC it sounds totally different and so much better so my iTunes library comes almost worthless after the FLAC experience and am thinking to convert some of my CDs into FLAC to arrange some compilations but I wonder if there is some Mac player which allows to arrange music into compilations other than VOX which i downloaded and using right now, any other player besides VOX?

Thank you

 

[MacUser2525]

undistinguishable (does this word exist???)

indistinguishable is it actually to answer that question. Phonix or clementine play FLAC if you want to check them out. Oh and since you want to convert to FLAC from CD XLD (X Lossless Decoder) will do that for you as well. Though you can go with Apple lossless option in it and have a mac compatible file that will play in any audio program on a Mac.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/phonix-hq-music-player-video-player.1985426/
https://www.clementine-player.org/
https://sourceforge.net/projects/xld/

 

[ChrisA]

What you can do is convert your FLAC to Apple Lossless. You can use iTunes to rip your CD directly to Apple Lossless. All the uncompressed formats CD, FLAC and Apple lossless sound identical because they are bit for bit the same.

Once your files are in Apple Lossless you can use any Mac software or IOS device or iPod to play the files. Apple's Core Audio handles the lossless format so all Mac audio software can access that format

Because all these formats are lossless you can convert between them any number of times with no loss in sound quality.

 

[steve-p]

I use Apple Lossless for 600 or so CDs that I ripped, and I stuck with iTunes to manage it. This is the easy option because you just set iTunes to import into Lossless format and start ripping. But the thing I like most about this setup is I can get iTunes to automatically convert lossless to 256 m4a when pushing to my iPods, iPad or iPhone. So I can keep lossless in my main library for use on the MBP (which I use with an external DAC), but still have great quality mobile use too, and I only have to keep a single lossless copy of each track.

 

[BrianBaughn]

First, you should one of the same songs in Apple Lossless and see if it sounds as good playing through iTunes as the FLAC file does in Vox.

 

[steve-p]

First, you should one of the same songs in Apple Lossless and see if it sounds as good playing through iTunes as the FLAC file does in Vox.

Are you serious? Lossless is lossless. The analog version of any lossless format is identical.

 

[MacUser2525]

Are you serious? Lossless is lossless. The analog version of any lossless format is identical.

File format is different between them but yeah the information about the music contained in them should be the same unless they are doing it wrong and it is not a true lossless format..

 

[BrianBaughn]

Are you serious? Lossless is lossless. The analog version of any lossless format is identical.

and iTunes = Vox?

 

[steve-p]

First, you should one of the same songs in Apple Lossless and see if it sounds as good playing through iTunes as the FLAC file does in Vox.

How could it not sound identical?

and iTunes = Vox?

Both use Core Audio to decode and play files, so in practical terms, yes.

 

[Giuanniello]

I am using VOX on a MacBookAir which is not the one where I have my iTunes library and when comparing the same music in MP3 and in FLAC I can say there is a difference, it depends on the music and its quality, I can discern the difference with good recordings and music whit a good soundstage, of course it's not always that I want to sit on the sofa and enjoy good recordings so it's not worth the pain converting it all in lossless but I can say there is a difference.

I am not happy to have to dedicate a laptop as a music server, maybe in future will either get a Mini or adapt my old one for the purpose.

Thank you all for participating to this thread with your opinions and suggestions

Giovanni

 

[Giuanniello]

Ok, back on this discussion, I got another MacMini from 2006 who which the owner changed the HD for a 250GB SSD and who also added ad upgrade to Lion (damn, I can't make it work to install Lion on the other Mini I upgraded both CPU and EFI!!!) and a DVI to HDMI cable that works like a charm, I connected it to the TV, switched on and as magics the screen lit up and it all runs without any setting required, magics of the OS I guess.

Problem now is that VOX which I was using on a recent MBAir won't work on 10.7 so evaluating to convert all the FLAC to Apple LossLess to have then iTunes to handle it all which would be much more convenient but am wondering if I would then get the same quality sound out of the AAC rather than the FLAC.

Thank you

 

[Kaspin]

but am wondering if I would then get the same quality sound out of the AAC rather than the FLAC.

Apple Lossless = ALAC

AAC is a different, lossy codec.

 

[Daisy Styles]

VOX player is the best, I tried all the FLAC players for Mac in this list https://www.5kplayer.com/video-music-player/top-5-flac-player-for-mac-os-x.htm, which is the top result when I search "Best FLAC Player on Mac", but I like VOX the most. I’m ripping all my CDs in FLAC format and uploading them to my VOX library. It’s so simple. Now, with a little help from an Apple compatible DAC, I listen to music in all of its glory. Don’t let anyone tell you that there’s no difference; there is a big sound quality difference. Vox instantly syncs what I upload from my PC to my iPhone; the app even has an excellent parametric equalizer that helps me adjust my music to the listening environment.

 

[AnonMac50]

Now with High Sierra I usually use QuickTime Player to listen to FLAC files.

 

[Teej guy]

Shout out to Swinsian. Kinda like iTunes used to be with no bloat and FLAC support.

 

[Giuanniello]

The one thing which I like into iTunes and which I can't find into any of the others I have been trying is how to create playlists, even tho lately it has changed it remains the easiest to handle them, dunno why they still haven't added the ability to play FLAC files

 

[artnoi]

There's QuodLibet
There's Clementine

I think if you don't need to have a library like in iTunes, and just play music from folders, then iina is recommended since it also plays flac and has a lot more codec support for audio and video.

 

[Serge Morozov]

Let me introduce QXPlayer. I finished this after 2 years of development and experiments. This player can play DSD and a lot of other formats. DSD can play via PCM (if your DAC don't support DoP) or native DSD play via DoP on USB external DAC.
This file based player. While no playlists (will do this in the next version). Now you can play you audio files as in Finder or you can play all files from folder. This as in Finder.
This player tested on OPPO H1 and H2, Hegel, Yamaha A2000, KEF R700 and head phones H850. Based on custom audio engine on C++.
You can find this: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/qxplayer/id1481703720?ls=1&mt=12
or on web (in dev now but works) www.qxplayer.com
I'm open for critic and new ideas. You can find my email in support section.
Also this player support USB drive.

 

[scruti]

Audirvana. It works great even with large libraries.

 

[jerwin]

I quite like itune's abilities with classical pieces-- displaying pieces with multiple movements, and numbering the movements properly (here, they have roman numerals). However, I also have a large collection of dsf files, which I play on vox. The inability to see what I'm playing bothers me- so a dsf decoder for itunes (well, for whatever Catalina uses, too) would have been ideal.

Are there any non-subscription music apps that do this?

itunes: nice and neat

vox: a confusing mess:

(And while my ears are considerably less than perfect, I own a number of discs that can't be ripped into itunes, but have been ripped into dsf format.)

 

[Giuanniello]

I quite like itune's abilities with classical pieces-- displaying pieces with multiple movements, and numbering the movements properly (here, they have roman numerals). However, I also have a large collection of dsf files, which I play on vox.

Vox started as a nice project it then became that kind of software that even to hit the play button a pop up comes up reminding you to upgrade... whatever.

Does iTunes play FLACs??? If so it could sure be a solution (nope, I won't convert it all into AAC!) even tho the best would be to make of the MacMini a headless music server to be accessed with a mobile phone.

Grazie

 

[Erehy Dobon]

iTunes does not play FLACs.