[datahut]

Am doing a basic set up a Win10 computer for music and have scanned a bunch of threads with comments on software from
2019.  For now going through USB to DAC to monitor speakers and/or system pre-amp.  Just wondering what latest suggestions/experience people have about basic software to try/buy, or comments about:

a) Ripping CD's
b) Fidelizer and similar
c) Players for music files
d) Default players for sources like Tidal, Youtube, SiriusXM and such.
e) Upsampling 
f) Anything else should look into for a basic setup.   

Any help and suggestions welcome.  Thanks!

[mikeeastman]

I’ve tried most of music playback programs out there and didn’t like any of them till I tried roon . I have to state that I’m a computer idiot and found them confusing and hard to use. Also I found roon to have better SQ in my system. Roon will do most of what you want except rip CDs I’d recommend dBpoweramp for that. I upsample everything to 256 DSD in my system and it work great.

To give an idea how much easier roon is to use, I tried to show my wife how to use the other programs, no way. I spent 5 min with her on roon and within a week she had twice as many playlist as me and was showing me how to do things with it. Of course this might not be a selling point to some of you married guys as my wife now feels free to fire the system up anytime she wants. 

[Vincent Kars]

a) Ripping CD's - dbPoweramp
b) Fidelizer and similar - None, I don't believe in magic
c) Players for music files- MusicBee
d) Default players for sources like Tidal, Youtube, SiriusXM and such- my outboard DAC
e) Upsampling   -  never, see f
f) Anything else should look into for a basic setup -  when possible bypass the Win audio using WASAPI in exclusive mode.
If not possible, set the Win audio panel to the max bit depth supported by your audio device and the sample rate to what is common (44.1)

[Dormouse99]

I've been a fan of Roon for a few years now. It pretty much answers all my needs for music playback.

You can play your ripped tracks off a hard disk, connect to Tidal/Qobuz, and distribute the music to different DACs using cheap Raspberry Pi 3b's. It has a decent parametric equalizer, upsampler, DSD conversion (if you go for that sort of thing), and can be used with REW for room correction. And it's got great sound correction features for headphones, including custom adjustments for Audeze. It's changed how I approach audio. Plus, the interface is pretty slick, and the software has been trouble free so far. Unless you're doing serious room correction, it'll run just fine on a 7th generation Intel i5.

What's not so nice? It's pricey, recent updates have been of questionable value (Roon radio is meh), and I wish it could integrate with Amazon HD music and with DIRAC room correction software.

It's worth a look to see if it works for you.

[sebrof]

a) Ripping CD's - dB Power Amp ($40??)
b) Fidelizer and similar - WTH is that??
c) Players for music files - JRiver Music Center ($90??)
d) Default players for sources like Tidal, Youtube, SiriusXM and such.
e) Upsampling
f) Anything else should look into for a basic setup. - I use JRemote along with JRiver MC. I took an old "sitting in a drawer" iPad and installed JRemote ($10) and now I can control playback of JRiver MC with the iPad.