Foobar for Mac: Best macOS Audio/Music Player(Mojave/Sierra/El Capitan Included)

Overview

Foobar2000 is a freeware audio player for Windows 8/7/Vista/XP. It supports a large number of audio file formats including MP3, MP4, AAC, CD Audio, WMA, Vorbis, Opus, FLAC, WavPack, WAV, AIFF, Musepack, Speex, AU, SND and more with additional components. With it, you can custimize user-interface, organise metadata, files, and folders. In addition, foobar2000 supports for ripping Audio CDs as well as transcoding all supported audio formats using the converter component.

If you just switched to Mac from Windows system, you may also want to run Foobar2000 on your Mac to take care of music playing on Mac, but only disappointed to find that there is actually no Foobar2000 for Mac. In fact, you are only one of those who search for Foobar2000 for Mac or at least a Foobar similar for Mac, or Foobar replacement for Mac or Foobar alterntaive for Mac. TechiSky will introduce several Foobar for Mac alternatives and their shortcomings in the following.

• Free Foobar for Mac alternatives/replacements/similars
• Commercial Foobar for Mac alternatives/replacements/similars
• TechiSky’s Favor: iTunes is the best free Foobar for Mac on Mac OS X
• Software to use for convert audio to iTunes supported formats

Free Foobar for Mac Sierra/El Capitan/Yosemite/Mavericks Alternatives

• Cog: Cog is a free OS X music player with lots of audio formats supported such as Ogg, Musepack, Monkeys Audio, Shorten, Musepack. Cog cannot convert CD or audio formats. Though the latest version developed in February, 2009, many OS X Lion users reported it works well in OS X Mountain lion. Some people may find Cog crash on Mountain lion.
• Play: Play from Sbooth is an application for playing and managing audio files. It supports playback of FLAC, Ogg Vorbis, Musepack, WavPack, Monkey’s Audio, AAC, Apple Lossless, MP3 and various other audio file formats. Sbooth may crash on some Macs running OS X Mountain lion. Play is unable to convert CD or audios. Play processes all audio using 32-bit floating point precision, providing the highest possible playback quality for files sampled at all bit depths.
• Songbird: Songbird is an open sorce audio player for Mac. With it, you can play and manage your music and videos, build playlists, browse, and sort. Then sync your music to your portable music player or phone. Songbird does not support converting audio and CD. It was also reported that it crashes in Mountain Lion. Some people found that Songbird is too slow and too buggy.
• Vox: Vox 0.3 Beta is a FLAC player for Mac OS X which can only play FLAC files.

Commercial Foobar for Mac El Capitan/Yosemite/Mavericks Alternatives

• Decibel: Decibel from Sbooth (costs $33) is an audio player tailored to the particular needs of audiophiles. Decibel supports all popular lossless and lossy audio formats including FLAC, Ogg Vorbis, Musepack, WavPack, Monkey’s Audio, Speex, True Audio, Apple Lossless, AAC, MP3, WAVE and AIFF. Decibel processes all audio using 64-bit floating-point precision, providing the highest possible playback quality for files sampled at all bit depths. Play is unable to convert CD or audios.
• Amarra: Amarra by Sonic Studio integrates with iTunes, or can be used stand-alone importing tracks into a playlist with one click from the Finder or iTunes. It supports for sample rates up to 384 kHz. Amarra costs $189 or more and the licence either requires an iLok USB key or the software is locked to a single computer which can’t be transferred.
• BitPerfect: BitPerfect is an Mac OS X app available on Mac App Store at the price of $9.99. BitPerfect is a simple, easy to use, audiophile grade music player that works with iTunes to deliver the highest possible sound quality.
• Amarra: Amarra by Audiophile Engineering has a main window that looks like a piece of high-end hi-fi gear, but far more classy than that of audirvana, it has the ability to play music directly from iTunes playlists without needing to have iTunes running. Also included are a selection of on-the-fly resampling methods, including iZotope and remote control software for the iPhone and iPod Touch available in the App Store. Amarra costs $19.99.
• Pure Music: Pure Music ($7.99 to buy) by Channel D integrates with iTunes, running in a window alongside and can re-sample music on the fly. Pure Music requires iTunes to be running to select tracks, but offers a considerable slew of other options.
• Swinsian: Swinsian ($19.99 to buy) is designed to entirely replace iTunes, including iDevice sync support. It has, among other features Last.fm integration, watch folders, device sync transcoding rules, a duplicate finder and Airplay support.

TechiSky’s Favor: iTunes is the best free Foobar for Mac (macOS Mojave, Sierra, El Capitan, Yosemite, Mavericks included)

TechiSky has tried many music players for Mac till he wrote this article and found there is always something missing in the players. Some free audio players crash on Mountain Lion and do not support OS X 10.9 Mavericks or OS X Yosemite 10.10, El Capitan 10.11, macOS 10.12 Sierra or Mojave. The price of commercial audio players for OS X is so high but do not work as expected. So after trying so many OS X audio players, TechiSky found iTunes is still TechiSky’s favor. iTunes may be crap on Windows but is really great on Mac. It’s true iTunes can only play Apple friendly audio formats like MP3, AAC, Apple Lossless ALAC, AIFF, but we can free convert FLAC, APE, CAF, etc to iTunes supported audio. Considering other audio players may mass your music, costs higher than their price lists, unbearable crashes, etc., it’s deserve to convert to use iTunes to manage your music library, especially you have a large music library.

Software to use for convert audio to iTunes supported formats on Mac OS X (Mojave/Sierra/El Capitan/Yosemite/Mavericks/Mountain Lion included)

To convert CD Audio, WMA, Vorbis, Opus, FLAC, WavPack, WAV, AIFF, Musepack, Speex, AU, SND, APE, CAF, etc to iTunes supported MP3, AAC, M4A, AIFF and Apple Lossless ALAC, you can hire the free OS X audio converter MAX or X Lossless Decoder. You can also use professional audio converter like Xilisoft Audio Converter Pro to convert your audio files to iTunes supported formats. Visit TechiSky’s article dBpoweramp for Mac to learn more about best free and professional audio converter for Mac (Mojave/Sierra/El Capitan/Yosemite/Mavericks/Mountain Lion included).