Highest Possible Sound Quality from iTunes

[Hifi_swlon]

I used iTunes with Audirvana (in iTunes legacy mode) on my Mac Mini in the past. After setup you don't have to interact with Audirvana at all unless something goes awry - it even starts up for you when you launch iTunes. It handles sample rate switching, and can also run AU plugins and has an upsampler, and does some basic OS optimisations. I felt it was better than iTunes standalone. It was the player I used for the longest. It also now has an iOS remote (although Im not sure if you can use this with iTunes mode, but in any case you have the iTunes remote), and Qobuz integration.

I did a quick trial of Amarra and then bought it. I know it does processing of the sound so isn't bit-perfect per-se, but I really liked the sound. Actually, I think it might have been my favourite. But I hated the interface so much and had so many issues with it, and stupid way it dealt with gapless that I wasn't prepared to deal with, that I asked for a refund and returned it a week or so later. In fact, thats just reminded me to try and explore at some point what that was - maybe its a tube-like filter that I can apply elsewhere. Or maybe it was imaginary….