J R Media Center 19 for Mac & Windows

Why I finally fell in love with J River Media Center!

J River MC is like iTunes on steroids! Because of that, to learn all its features would take a long time. If you are an iTunes user I think you should definitely consider switching though. The essential features you will need to begin using J River MC are quickly and easily learned. As you get more deeply into J River MC you will certainly appreciate many of its other features as well.

Here are some compelling reasons to switch from iTunes:

1. All formats are supported, such as flac and DSD
2. No need for additional software to improve sound and automatically change sample rate.
3. An excellent remote app for IOS devices in J Remote.
4. The ability to set up different Zones with their own rules for audio, when you have more than one system.
5. Instead of multiple libraries which is possible with iTunes, you can have one large library with different views
6. Both the Zones and the Views can be switched with a tap in J Remote
7. Tools for easily fixing incomplete or incorrectly tagged music files.

I could go on for much longer. I am no stranger to J River MC, since I’ve been using it on Windows for years. Last year a Mac version was released and while it still feels a little like a Windows app, it has now reached maturity.

What finally clinched it for me was the possibility it has added to convert all music to DSD in real time as it plays. You need a DSD capable DAC for that of course. The result, to my ears and others that have tried it is a more natural sound, which flows easily. There is a sense of ease to converted to DSD sound, which reminds me of analogue. It’s like the best of digital and analogue sounds combined.

If you decide to try it, there’s a fully functional 30 days trial, which you can download from here.

J River MC cost $50 to buy.

My advice would be to still keep iTunes around for initial organisation and tagging of an iTunes library, then import the library into J River MC.