

Whenever you ask iTunes to play a music file, BitPerfect steps in behind the scenes and takes over. It allows you to use iTunes as your primary music management tool. Designed above all else for uncompromising audiophile quality, it is probably the lowest-cost high-end audio product you will ever buy.

For me, BitPerfect does everything a player can to optimize music playback on the Mac, is easy to set up, has no interface to clutter up iTunes, and is the cheapest, so it's the one I use.BitPerfect is that rarest of audio gems. BitPerfect costs $5.00, and Pure Music costs $129.00. Both of these programs improve the sound in a small way, and equally, to my ears. I also own Pure Music, but I wish BitPerfect had been available sooner. If you want to upsample all of your tracks to the same bit rate and sampling frequency, play your music directly from a noisy hard disk, and hear an audible alert for incoming email while listening, then iTunes on its own will work fine. So, even though I don't believe these 3rd party music players actually make better sound, they are able to do things to optimize music playback, which can, in some cases, result in better audio. When you want to change back (from 24/96 to 16/44.1, for example), you'd have to do this all over again. In order to do this while using iTunes only, you would have to shut down iTunes, go into Audio-Midi setup, change your bit rate and sampling frequency for the track you want to play, then reopen iTunes and play the track. Finally, with BitPerfect and other players, it is possible to have bit rates and sampling frequencies change automatically from one track to the next. This can mean quieter, smoother playback, since the hard drive is doing less spinning and grinding.ģ. BitPerfect and similar players can load the upcoming audio track into RAM, and play it back from memory, rather than from a noisy hard disc. The entire audio stream is 'hogged' by the player, and dedicated to iTunes output.Ģ.
#Bitperfect for mac mac os
Players like BitPerfect (which I use) can bypass the Mac OS audio mixer, which means only your iTunes music is audible no other alert sounds, beeps, pings, etc. But there are reasons for using a 3rd party music player with iTunes:ġ. ITunes is capable of bit-perfect playback as long as crossfade, sound check, etc., are turned off, and the volume is maxxed. It's free! Stuff is getting cheaper, and better, all the time. You will need a conversion program like XLD to convert your FLACs to ALAC format. I've already found the 350 dollar USB Musical Fidelity VDac II beats a much more expensive DAC I've had here for years. I think for five bucks, I'm going to wait and see how much better the new MACs with LION sound with products like BP before spending any more. Remember the new LION OS is fairly new, and a lot of people are basing their estimations of iTUnes performance upon the older SL OS and hardware. I have fairly high end gear in my systems here, and I'm having a hard time believing the still buggy Amarra, for instance, could sound any better than this setup. I don't see how you can go wrong at the price, and you might just conclude (as I am leaning strongly in the direction of) that you don't need anything else. I will eventually put this on a new MB Air, as well, but for now it's running very well on the MM. I just bought BitPerfect yesterday, and spent some time last night getting it running on a Mac Mini. As a plus, your keyboard music controls will work, as well as iPhone/iPad remotes.Īlso, PureMusic, and (I think) Amarra will play the FLAC files without conversion to ALAC. IMO - worth trying, and with little overhead.
#Bitperfect for mac free
In summary, I think Bit-Perfect, which is somewhat new compared to the others (Amarra, PureMusic, Audirvana, Fidelia.) and of course cheaper than the paid versions of the others, but a bit more than the free ones.
#Bitperfect for mac software
Most of the "other" music file playing software enables automatic sending of the correct setting for each file, unless you instruct it to resample on purpose for your hardware. If you have some hi-rez files in your mix, then these are not getting sent at their setting, but rather whatever you have set the send rate in the advanced midi settings screen. If you have straight redbook (16/44.1 from ripped CDs) then you have nothing to worry about.

BUT, iTunes does not change setting for hir-ez files. Keep in mind that itunes on the MAC will output bitperfect by itself, as long as you have your advanced midi settings for your SPDIF out set correctly (or appropriate USB interface).

I use Pure Music and Fidelia, but have read on the various boards that Bit Perfect works well.
