Recommended Components

Channel D Pure Music software: $129 ★
Pure Music (Mac only) can play sampling rates of up to twice the 192kHz limit of Amarra and Decibel. Like those programs, Pure Music (Mac only) offers memory play, automatic sampling-rate changes, and full compatibility with native FLAC files and in its latest version, DSD files. Going from iTunes to Pure Music, the sonic improvement was modest but worthwhile, with cleaner trebles and improved pitch certainty. Compared with the less expensive Decibel, however, Pure Music lacked some openness and clarity, decided AD. Using Pure Music in its Memory Play and "Hog Mode" settings for optimal sound quality resulted in a wider soundstage and greater sense of ease, said JA. A free, 15-day trial version can be downloaded from www.channel-d.com. Included with Channel D's Pure Vinyl Version 3.0. (Vol.33 No.8; Vol.34 Nos.7 & 9 WWW)

Channel D Pure Vinyl LP ripping software: $379 ★
Used with a microphone preamp or non-RIAA phono preamp, Channel D's Pure Vinyl digitizes vinyl LPs at 24-bit/192kHz resolution and applies the RIAA or other EQ curves in the digital domain, where there's no interchannel phase shift, capacitor distortion, additional noise, or component variability. Record mode allows the user to apply over 50 EQ curves or create custom EQ settings; Editor mode allows the user to insert track breaks or remove surface noise. CDs made with Pure Vinyl sounded "much better" than those made with the Alesis Masterlink, said MF. Compared to the original LPs, the digitized versions lacked a touch of body but sounded “very analog-like.” Compatible only with Apple Macintosh computers. Version 3.0 and later includes Channel D’s Pure Music front-end program for iTunes. “Pure Vinyl will change the musical lives of collectors with large collections of pre-1954 discs,” said MF. JA was impressed by Version 5’s RIAA de-emphasis with LPs that had been ripped with the Channel D Seta L phono preamp’s Flat outputs. (Ver.5 was not yet compatible with macOS 15/Catalina in the fall of 2020.) Channel D’s Rob Robinson strongly advises recording at 192kHz—“Pure Vinyl was designed and optimized with that sample rate in mind (back in 2003!)” he told JA—but for monitoring the recording in real time, the playback D/A converter must be sample-synchronous with the A/D converter. (Robinson recommends the Lynx HiLo, an MF fave, for that reason.) “To say that I was impressed with the quality afforded needle drops by Pure Vinyl would be an understatement,” concluded JA. “While the user interface is not as intuitive as I would like, the versatility on offer is extraordinary.” (Vol.32 No.3; Ver.3.0, Vol.33 No.8; Ver.5, Vol.43 No.11 WWW)

JRiver Media Center: $59.98 (single platform) ★
KR wrote in the January 2018 Stereophile: "If your [JRiver Media Center] setup is working to your satisfaction, there's no need for you to download every new build." Really. No need at all. But, having said that . . . the 64- bit Windows version of Music Center became available in September 2017, and KR reported that it's better, stronger, and faster than the 32-bit version: "Since installing the 64-bit version of JRiver Music Center 23, I have heard not a single burp." $79.98 for a "Master" License covering Linux, Windows and MacOS. (Vol.41 No.1 WWW)

Roon: $12.99/month, $119.88/year, $699/lifetime ★
From the people who created Sooloos comes Roon, a cloud-based music-playback application that can be downloaded to the user's desktop or handheld computer, as well as to dedicated file players from such manufacturers as Auralic, dCS, Linn, and others. Described by JI as "a tour de force of programming, design, and metadata mining," Roon offers a graphically sophisticated user interface that, he says, looks good and feels natural. When first installed, Roon scans and incorporates the user's existing music collection, and continues, over time, to "groom" that collection, taking into account new additions to that collection and to Roon Labs' ever-growing library of metadata. JI's conclusion: "If you're thinking of putting together your first computer audio system, start with Roon and don't look back." V.1.3, released in early 2017, supports DSD and multichannel, both to the delight of KR, who wrote that "multichannel worked beautifully for attached and networked sources and outputs." That said, he expressed discomfort (shared by AD) with Roon's horizontal scanning of album art. Now up to v1.8. (Vol.38 No.10, Vol.40 No.7, Vol.41 No.8, Vol.44 No.5 WWW)