Bitzie. Took the plunge & iTunes alternative
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Topic: Bitzie. Took the plunge & iTunes alternative
Posted By: wolfie01902
Subject: Bitzie. Took the plunge & iTunes alternative
Date Posted: 10 Apr 2013 at 3:24pm
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Hello all, I'm a newbie and this is my first post! Just to say I won't need the loan of the Bitzie - as I've ordered one yesterday! I'm pretty confident from comments and other remarks on here, who know a lot more than I do, that I won't be disappointed. I was looking at the Audiolab M-Dac, too large to fit on my desk and the new Chord TX Chordette. I really liked how the Chord looked but realised I was probably going on looks alone and the cost was really too prohibitive. £990! So I await my Bitzie and rest assured I will post my humble opinions when I've had time with it My system: iMac, (the new 2013 model) with Grado GS1000 headphones, which I will use with the Bitzie One question for people; I use iTunes with almost all of my music lossless and I've recently started downloading from Linn and Bowers & Wilkins 24 bit studio masters, But I keep picking up little snippets of an iTunes alternative as in "Just Add Foobar2000 (or a MAC equivalent)" as in the Bitzie info page, could anyone explain the "equivalents" and indeed the benefits for a mac user? Bear in mind I use Apple AirPlay to a zeppelin air too. Many thanks Jeremy. |
Replies:
Posted By: mitch65
Date Posted: 10 Apr 2013 at 3:29pm
....having tried the M-Dac, I think your choice may well be sound 
------------- Greg Rega Planer 3 Gram Amp 2 Audiolab 8000A Auralic Aries Mini Russell K 50 |
Posted By: morris_minor
Date Posted: 10 Apr 2013 at 7:16pm
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Hi Jeremy, I'm a Mac user, though having a Squeezebox network I don't really use it for playing music. But having said that I do sometimes play the FLACs on the server on the Mac. For this I use a simple player called Cog (from sbooth.org), as iTunes doesn't do FLACs. I think the reference to Mac equivalents to Foobar was for playing formats that iTunes doesn't handle, or for those who have a dislike of iTunes. Edit: the Bitzie sounds great - good choice!
------------- Bob Majestic DAC/pre-amp Accession MC/Enigma, Accession MM, Reflex M, Elevator EXP, Era Gold V Solo ULDE, Novo, Lautus USB and digital, Libran balanced, CuSat50 2 x Proprius + Spatia/Spatia Links |
Posted By: ICL1P
Date Posted: 10 Apr 2013 at 7:27pm
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It seems Stephen Booth didn't develop Cog and it doesn't appear to be hosted on his website any more, unless I'm missing it. He has Play and Decibel. ------------- Ifor ===== Reflex M & ACCESSION M, CuSat50, Majestic DAC, a Proprius pair. |
Posted By: morris_minor
Date Posted: 10 Apr 2013 at 8:49pm
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Sorry! Try here http://cogx.org/%20 - http://cogx.org/ ------------- Bob Majestic DAC/pre-amp Accession MC/Enigma, Accession MM, Reflex M, Elevator EXP, Era Gold V Solo ULDE, Novo, Lautus USB and digital, Libran balanced, CuSat50 2 x Proprius + Spatia/Spatia Links |
Posted By: Fatmangolf
Date Posted: 10 Apr 2013 at 9:18pm
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Hi Jeremy and thanks for joining us here in the friendly and helpful community of GSP owners. Congratulations on your purchase of the Bitzie. ------------- Jon Open mind and ears whilst owning GSP Genera, Accession M, Accession MC, Elevator EXP, Solo ULDE, Proprius amps, Cusat50 cables, Lautus digital cable, Spatia cables and links, and a Majestic DAC. |
Posted By: GoSUV
Date Posted: 11 Apr 2013 at 4:20am
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If you mainly use iTunes for your music, I can suggest something that runs on top of iTunes (instead of in place of), which will improve the sound quality. The application is called BitPerfect. It tries to hog certain resources on the computer to give highest priority to audio output so that jitter is reduced. There is noticeable improvement with iTunes + BitPerfect vs. just iTunes. The app only costs a few bucks so it doesn't hurt to give it a try. There are more sophisticated apps that do similar things, and allegedly sounds even better than BitPerfect, but some of them cost hundreds of bucks. I am not in any way affiliated with BitPerfect, just a customer. With that said, BitPerfect is still improving and there are some annoying bugs which needs addressing, but overall I'm happy with its bang for buck ratio. |
Posted By: mrarroyo
Date Posted: 11 Apr 2013 at 11:06am
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I too have Bitperfect which is fairly cheap at about $10. However the bugs annoy the heck out of me and thus I do not use it anymore. Jeremy, enjoy your new Bitzie. ------------- Miguel |
Posted By: wolfie01902
Date Posted: 11 Apr 2013 at 4:28pm
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Hello again, Interested you are using the squeezebox/slim-server on your Mac. I do too as I have a five year old Logitech Transporter which I love, so long as its connected by Ethernet not wireless. Also I too heard iTunes could not play FLAC but... there's a mac app called, believe it or not, FLAC. This converts FLAC to apple lossless by just dragging the file into the app then it puts it in iTunes as 24 bit ALAC. This is what i did with a wonderful studiomaster version of Tubular Bells purchased from the Bowers & Wilkins site. Seems to work (except on the transformer it does shows as 16 bit?) In iTunes though it does show it 24 bit. On the Linn site I downloaded the Rolling Stones Grrr studio-master - they do ALAC (and this does show up as 24 bit on the transformer) A little confusing as I'm all a bit (pardon the pun) new to this. What I do know however is normal Apple MP3 downloads even at 256kbps are awful The few I have I now avoid playing on the transformer or especially through the Grado GS1000's where they sound an insult , which is what they are, to music. Thanks for the much appreciated advice. I'll have a look at COG but may wait until I get my Bitzie, so looking forward to it especially after the tremendous support its getting here. Thanks to you all so far for your help Regards Jeremy Ps anyone have or heard any Monitor Audio Studio 20's? Bought them secondhand 10 years ago and think they are fantastic. Never met anyone else who's got them though. |
Posted By: morris_minor
Date Posted: 11 Apr 2013 at 5:07pm
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Hi Jeremy, I love my Transporter too - such a shame Slim Devices got bought out by Logitech  . But I suppose they did go on with the Jive platform and bring us the Touch. My SB server runs on a Windows Home Server box in my study, not on the Mac - though I did start with it on the Mac when I bought my first SB3. I now have 6 rooms with players of varying types, plus there are 5 iPhone/Pod/Pad devices running iPeng with the player plug in. (So no-one is ever far from music!)Anyhow, I'm really behind the times with music playback on a Mac because it's not something I do much. When I demo'd the Bitzie though I did listen to a lot of music via Cog. I have to admit I'm not much of an iTunes fan, but if it works ok for you, and you get the quality you want, then that's great! I've not come across the FLAC app for conversion to ALAC. If I ever need to change a music file's format I use a little program called Switch (on both Mac and PC). And, no - I've not come across MA Studio 20s! ------------- Bob Majestic DAC/pre-amp Accession MC/Enigma, Accession MM, Reflex M, Elevator EXP, Era Gold V Solo ULDE, Novo, Lautus USB and digital, Libran balanced, CuSat50 2 x Proprius + Spatia/Spatia Links |
Posted By: ICL1P
Date Posted: 11 Apr 2013 at 5:52pm
To date I've converted FLAC to ALAC using Max, which has good reviews, but I've not done enough to have an opinion. Cheers Ifor ------------- Ifor ===== Reflex M & ACCESSION M, CuSat50, Majestic DAC, a Proprius pair. |
wolfie01902 wrote:Posted By: marshmid
Date Posted: 11 Apr 2013 at 7:09pm
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A 'google' suggests it is MacFlac you might need. http://flac.sourceforge.net/download.html I know nothing about Macs so don't ask me for help!! 
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Posted By: ICL1P
Date Posted: 11 Apr 2013 at 7:46pm
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Yes, I found that, but assumed it wasn't the one since it's so old it doesn't work on Intel Macs. ------------- Ifor ===== Reflex M & ACCESSION M, CuSat50, Majestic DAC, a Proprius pair. |
Posted By: mitch65
Date Posted: 11 Apr 2013 at 7:53pm
Sounds pretty old  ------------- Greg Rega Planer 3 Gram Amp 2 Audiolab 8000A Auralic Aries Mini Russell K 50 |
Posted By: marshmid
Date Posted: 11 Apr 2013 at 8:20pm
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Bigasoft FLAC Converter for Mac ? However costs $20 which sounds a lot for what it does. It allows 5min of conversion free. Hope this helps. |
Posted By: wolfie01902
Date Posted: 11 Apr 2013 at 11:25pm
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Hello again, Sorry its actually called FLACTunes. Its on the App Store for Macs. £1.65 I think (or about thirty bob) Here's what the developer says: FLACTunes is the easiest way to get your FLAC files to play in iTunes and your iPhone or iPod. Drag in your FLAC files and they get imported into iTunes. Simple. $3.99 Lossless conversion — FLACTunes converts your music into Apple Lossless, preserving every bit of sound quality in the original track. Metadata preservation — FLACTunes preserves all your track information, including album art. Multi-threaded — FLACTunes uses all the cores of your processor to import FLAC as efficiently as possible. Whilst talking about iTunes ; Honestly I never knew iTunes was quite so disliked. I have no problems with that just never knew it was regarded as a bit naff in hifi terms. So... When my Bitzie arrives I will try as the gentleman suggested "Bitperfect" but on the WHAT HIFI site today, whilst previewing the Naim DAC-V1 they say this; "you could just use this with the BitPerfect add-on for iTunes, but then I’d go out of my way to avoid using iTunes for anything I can. In fact, aside from downloading subscribed podcasts, I’m not sure when I last actually used it. if you’re going to go much beyond CD quality – and if you want to play FLAC files – you’ll have to look beyond the iTunes, and for my time with the DAC-V1 I obtained copies of both Audirvarna and Amarra players for OSX". Pretty damning for iTunes. I don't take WHIFI says as gospel, but from what I've read on this forum as well, it does seem iTunes can be bettered. Interested in what others think. No idea what Audirvarna and Amarra cost. By the way anyone tried Grado GS1000's? I broke the bank to get them a few years ago, look awful, even look cheap, leak sound like nothing else but when I played the "Pros & Cons of Hitchicking" by Rog Waters through them I was hooked. Regards Jeremy |
Posted By: ICL1P
Date Posted: 11 Apr 2013 at 11:49pm
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33 bob! I have no problem with iTunes, but I have virtually no HiRes files and virtually no downloaded files of any variety. 99% of my iTunes library is ripped as ALAC, using Rip, from CDs. I have been researching a bit in case I download more HiRes files and I think Amarra would probably top my list of choices. ------------- Ifor ===== Reflex M & ACCESSION M, CuSat50, Majestic DAC, a Proprius pair. |
Posted By: Stewboss
Date Posted: 12 Apr 2013 at 12:03am
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The best format conversion tool I have found for OSX is XLD. I like the fact that you can load in cue files and it will output the source file as individual tracks. Audirivana is a great playback solution which can run in iTunes integrated mode or stand alone. It makes a huge improvement to the playback imo. It also features a handy option which allows you to add FLAC files into the iTunes library via associating proxy files. On Win 7 I currently use Foobar 2K although the long term plan is to move to JRiver. All these work great with the Bitzie (which sounds incredible btw).
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Posted By: morris_minor
Date Posted: 12 Apr 2013 at 8:47am
My dislike of iTunes really stems from having to use it to setup and sync all our Apple devices, rather than it's music abilities. I like Apple hardware, and OSX is much nicer to use than Windoze  . YMMV of course! ------------- Bob Majestic DAC/pre-amp Accession MC/Enigma, Accession MM, Reflex M, Elevator EXP, Era Gold V Solo ULDE, Novo, Lautus USB and digital, Libran balanced, CuSat50 2 x Proprius + Spatia/Spatia Links |
Posted By: ICL1P
Date Posted: 12 Apr 2013 at 10:24am
------------- Ifor ===== Reflex M & ACCESSION M, CuSat50, Majestic DAC, a Proprius pair. |
Posted By: c_subich
Date Posted: 12 Apr 2013 at 1:08pm
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O.K. Jeremy I'm a newbie here also. I have been running music on a Mac mini for several years and Pure Music is my app of choice. You still retain all of the iTunes organization (database, playlists etc.) but Pure Music piggybacks on it by way of Apple's CoreAudio technology. It works very well and is less expensive than Amarra. If you search for it you can download a time limited trial so that you can evaluate it for free. |
Posted By: morris_minor
Date Posted: 12 Apr 2013 at 5:36pm
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Have just seen an App on the OSX store - FLAC Convertor Pro (£2.69). Drag a folder with FLACs into it and out pops a folder with ALAC M4A files. All metadata is preserved. But you need OS X 10.7 or later and a 64-bit processor. ------------- Bob Majestic DAC/pre-amp Accession MC/Enigma, Accession MM, Reflex M, Elevator EXP, Era Gold V Solo ULDE, Novo, Lautus USB and digital, Libran balanced, CuSat50 2 x Proprius + Spatia/Spatia Links |
Posted By: Suggs
Date Posted: 12 Apr 2013 at 5:39pm
I use this program too...very nice program and well worth the cost for the sonic improvements over straight iTunes output...all updates are free and after sales is first class ------------- Derek |
Posted By: ICL1P
Date Posted: 12 Apr 2013 at 5:47pm
------------- Ifor ===== Reflex M & ACCESSION M, CuSat50, Majestic DAC, a Proprius pair. |
Posted By: morris_minor
Date Posted: 12 Apr 2013 at 6:29pm
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I think the only way to choose Ifor, is to do a big of Googling for opinions and then download some and see how they work for you. The App store prices are pretty minimal . . . ------------- Bob Majestic DAC/pre-amp Accession MC/Enigma, Accession MM, Reflex M, Elevator EXP, Era Gold V Solo ULDE, Novo, Lautus USB and digital, Libran balanced, CuSat50 2 x Proprius + Spatia/Spatia Links |
Posted By: Stewboss
Date Posted: 12 Apr 2013 at 7:53pm
| XLD is free and converts just about anything to anything. |
Posted By: ICL1P
Date Posted: 12 Apr 2013 at 8:49pm
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As is Max which I already have. ------------- Ifor ===== Reflex M & ACCESSION M, CuSat50, Majestic DAC, a Proprius pair. |