Some have been around since SSDs were a fantasy, and others are so new that they’re still in constant beta use. It’s no surprise that there are many music management systems from which to choose. These format shifts mean steady, strong and growing demand for new vehicles to deliver our music to our ears. We’re also accumulating fewer offline archives of our own, with digital downloads down 27% from first half 2017 and CD sales off 41%. Per the 2018 RIAA midyear revenue report, streaming now generates 75% of all music industry revenue – and 75% of that comes from paid subscription services. The computer audiophile, a geeky anomaly only a decade ago, is now a mainstream player in the market. We can choose from many media and delivery platforms to get our music wherever we are, whenever we want it, at whatever level of quality we’re willing to store &/or fund. The 21st century is a great time for audiophiles. Jriver MC is still in development so is not ready for primetime, but that aside it already plays audio quite well on my systems with a sound card (Xonar D2X) or with a DAC (in my case Meridian Explorer).“ And in the black trunks, weighing in at 6.7 gigabits.

So, now I have a media center on linux that can manage to play hi-res files FLAC, APE and most importantly for me DSD audio formats like DST, DFF and SACD-R isos.

Now a great program I use in Win, Jriver Media Center 19, is now being ported to Linux, though it only supports audio in this platform (I only care about the audio features of Jriver MC anyway). That said, it seems that the availability of steam for linux pulled the attention of other companies to linux as a viable platform. I know that linux is all about freedom and open-source, but I see colaborative path between the development of a open-source OS (Linux) and some proprietary programs. This are exciting times to be a linux user.

Jriver linux