![]() In case you missed it above, here's the link (head-fi won't let me make attachments ). I'll probably get around to fixing that this weekend. BetterSound does not mute iTunes, so if you play through the default device, you might hear a short blip from iTunes before BetterSound takes control. I'd suggest turning the volume way way down and then slowly turning it up that way you don't risk your ears or your equipment. If this doesn't hiding doesn't work, the audio output can be totally garbled. BetterSound should hide ineligible devices from the list on the preferences screen. Furthermore, the output device has to be a "simple" stereo device. BetterSound only supports stereo tracks (I think!) and stereo output devices (for sure!). This works just fine when playing from the hard disk, but I'd imagine it would be problematic over wireless networks. That said, that also means BetterSound has only 1 second to buffer enough of the next track to ensure gapless playback. Gapless playback is possible, there is a 1 second delay between iTunes playing a file and BetterSound responding. The sound device is configured to use its maximum buffer size. 128M is good for about 3 minutes of 32/96. It uses two 128M buffers for smooth playback. ![]() In a future version I'll probably get rid of this option and be more clever about choosing bit depth, unless you guys report improved SQ. For instance, the Classé CP-800 only support 24-bit, so all 16-bit files need to be output in 24-bit. Use max bit depth is a bit of a hack, it is there to support DACs that only have limited output bit depths. Any upsampling/downsampling is done via CoreAudio with the best possible settings and 2x/4x ratios (no 44.1 to 96, instead 44.1 to 88.2). BetterSound will *only* open the device in exclusive access mode. I'm guessing Audirvana probably has the edge, it certainly has many more features and options, but I think I've distilled out the most important ones, like exclusive mode, and made them the default in my app. I can clearly hear differences between BetterSound/Audirvana and iTunes, but not between BetterSound and Audirvana. I'm pretty sure I need a DAC or amp to hear any difference between the two (I'm using the line out on my Macbook Pro). Quality-wise I think it is comparable to Audirvana. There is no UI, except for a preferences dialog where you can choose the output device. Since this is a beta, most of the settings are defaulted to what seems to sound best, so there isn't much to play with. ![]() When you run the app, it launches iTunes, you then play a track in iTunes and it plays through BetterSound, kind of like Pure Music does. I also have Audirvana 3.5 so I guess that is going back to being the main music playback on this particular Mac. Something has gone pear-shaped with OSX 13 Ventura update last week. I'm hoping to add flac support this weekend. BitPerfect was working (for me) with the renamed Music app up until OSX 12 Monterey without issue. So far no flac support so you'll have to transcode to Apple lossless (m4a) to try it. Here's the "beta" of my music player, BetterSound.
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