Introduction The body of this post below the current paragraph was originally posted to r/macapps. I'm a musician and avid listener of CDs, vinyl, and a sizable FLAC collection that encompasses a very wide range of genres. None of the existing music player/librarians for local file collections fully satisfied me so I built my own and now it's my daily driver. It's essentially a cross between Audirvana and Swinsian, but cheaper, simpler, and cleaner. I'd be honored if people tried it out. I haven't heard a peep out of my 8 beta testers in a couple of months so it seems I squashed all of the bugs and the app is stable. Thanks in advance! RTFM Player A few months ago I posted about this project to r/macapps while it was still new and in beta, and some amazing people responded who were willing to test and critique it. They helped me to take the app from a buggy and incomplete state to a polished product and I am grateful beyond words. I implemented about 90% of the features and UI/UX suggestions that were requested. Some of these improvements include optimized library scanning (70% faster than before), manual grouping of multi-disc albums, analog-style meters, floating mini player, duplicate file finder, correct speaker mapping for 5.1 sources, granular editing of included folders in libraries, light mode, increased text size, keyboard shortcuts, advanced metadata filtering, rescan watched libraries on app start, and additional themes. Everyone who helped is now listed in the app’s credits. About me: I'm Edward, a 25-year IT professional, visual artist, musician/singer/songwriter, and audiophile. I like to listen to lossless audio through a high-end, vintage stereo system, and I have a large collection of CDs that I ripped to FLAC. I typically listen to my FLAC collection from a Macbook Pro that is connected to a DAC using a USB-C to TOSLINK optical cable. I also have a USB-C compatible DAC that supports high res audio. Problem I built RTFM Player because I couldn't find another music file player for macOS that met all of the following criteria: most important: support for multiple, discrete libraries with their own artwork grid mental model and interface based on the user's own file and folder structure minimalist, modern design support for lossless FLAC, ALAC, and DSD (and all other significant lossless and lossy audio formats) bit-perfect playback via sample rate and bit depth matching and ability to take exclusive control of the audio device extended metadata editing of single tracks or multiple tracks ability to export and import the database and artwork cache for easy migration or backup lightweight on CPU and RAM, small installer (only 18 MB as of the current version) no feature bloat: the app is simply for quickly organizing, locating, and playing music files in a way that's resembles grabbing your favorite CD or LP and playing it back at the highest quality has a 30-day free trial for evaluation and then a one-time price (not a subscription) for a user license to install on multiple computers official release signed and notarized by Apple (Developer Program Member) Comparison Swinsian: I'm a big fan of Swinsian music player and have been using it for over 5 years because it's great, but it is heavily tied to the iTunes / Apple Music, single-library mental model. RTFM Player allows you to completely segregate your lower quality mp3 collection from your FLAC collection by putting them in their own libraries. That way when you click on your FLAC library the UI/UX completely switches over without the need to filter down. Another scenario that RTFM Player handles better thanks to multiple library support is the ability to separate music collections based around singles from album collections. This is essential if you're a DJ or otherwise have folders filled with singles. Without their own separate library a folder filled with singles will add hundreds or thousands of "albums" to your album view that only contain one or two songs. For listeners who like to browse and listen to whole albums this isn't acceptable. Separating libraries with singles from those with albums is the solution. Audirvana: I love the look of Audirvana but I'm much less a fan of its high price, I don't need to link streaming platforms, and am not especially interested in plugins and signal processing (although I have plans to incorporate a tube emulator eventually). RTFM Player gives you a much simpler, lower cost, but still beautiful looking interface that is designed to be a bit-perfect source, much like dropping a CD into a high-end transport and sending the audio to a fancy DAC. Think of RTFM Player like the high-end transport sending a pure signal to your DAC that's nice to look at, like Audirvana, but not nearly as costly. Pricing There’s a 30-day free trial, after which the current price is $34.95 for a perpetual license that grants a single user rights to install RTFM Player on up to 5 computers that they own. The license is good for all iterations of version 1. If and when there's a 2.0.0 that will be a new license.   submitted by   /u/metaprofessor [link]   [comments]