VOX Music Player
| Developer(s) | Coppertino Inc. |
|---|---|
| Initial release | 6 August 2013 |
| Stable release | macOS – 3.0.1
/ 20 November 2017 |
| Written in | Objective-C, Swift, C |
| Engine | |
| Operating system | OS X, iOS |
| Size | 50.16 MB – mac OS, 73.5 MB – iOS |
| Available in | 7 languages |
List of languages Chinese (China), English, Japanese, Russian, French, Korean, Ukrainian | |
| Type | Audio Player |
| License | Proprietary |
| Website | www |
Search VOX Music Player on Amazon.
VOX Music Player (or simply VOX) is a digital audio player for macOS and iOS developed by Coppertino Inc. VOX Music Player is a freemium service; the basic player is available as freeware, while other features such as VOX Music Cloud, Radio, and Advanced Audio Settings are offered via Premium subscription. To get Premium subscription, users must create an account, and choose a payment interval.
VOX Music Player is available worldwide and focuses on Hi-Res formats playback, including FLAC, AIFF, PCM, DSD etc. VOX allows its users to listen to local music and iTunes library as well as log into SoundCloud and Spotify to listen to their music database and combine them with user’s local library. VOX Music Player has 400,000 monthly active users as of November 2017.
History[edit]
Released in 2007 by a student, Alessio Nonni,[1] Vox was designed to be a lightweight media player that supports playing various file types including lossless formats.
In 2011, Nonni sold Vox to Coppertino, a Ukrainian Mac developer company headquartered in Los Angeles, CA, in exchange for minority stock.[2] The new 1.0 version of Vox was released on August 6, 2013,[3] and in less than 6 months,[4] Coppertino released the new 2.0 version of the music player.
Vox 2.0 introduces a minimal interface, reminiscent of the Winamp audio player,[5] and a number of features considered unique in comparison to macOS's built-in iTunes.[6]
Features[edit]
VOX Music Cloud[edit]
To store music, users can upload it to VOX Music Cloud – an online music storage with unlimited storage space. VOX Music Cloud supports most audio formats, including uncompressed, lossy and lossless. Uploaded audio files aren’t compressed or converted, and remain their original format, size etc. VOX Music Cloud serves as a media library which is used to stream music from. Users access VOX Music Cloud in VOX Music Player (Library tab for iOS). To add music to the library, users can use VOX Music Cloud website (requires creating an account), or drop files of VOX Music Player on macOS.
Radio[edit]
Radio includes over 30,000 radio stations. Users can browse stations or view all available stations which are sorted by genre or country. Users are also offered to see World’s Trending stations and Recently Played ones. Any station can be added to the Favorites tab. The list of users’ Favorite radio stations sync across all users’ devices. Radio is available only for Premium subscription holders.
Support for Hi-Res audio formats[edit]
VOX Music Player supports most of the popular audio files. They include uncompressed, lossy and lossless.
- Uncompressed formats: AIF, AIFF, ASF, DSD, PCM, WAV
- The lossy formats are: AAC, M4A, M4B, MP1, MP2, MP3, MP+, MPC, MPP, OGA, OGG, OPUS, RA, RM, WMA
- Lossless: ALAC, APE, DFF, DSF, FLAC, TTA, WMA Lossless, WV
- Playlist formats: CUE, M3U, M3U8, PLS, XSPF
- Specific Audio Formats: IT, MO3, MOD, MTM, S3M, UMX, XM, AY, GBS, GYM, HES, KSS, NSF, NSFE, SAP, SPC, VGM
Advanced Audio Settings[edit]
Gap/Overlap[edit]
When the slider is enabled, it controls the gap between tracks, or how much they are mixed one over another, or overlapped, when track change takes place in a playback queue.
If the point is to the left of 0, the tracks will have 1-2 second gap. If the point is to the left of 0, the next track will start before the previous one finishes, with the previous track smoothly fading out.
If the point stands at 0, it means gapless playback. But there are exceptions to this. VOX will not play gapless or overlap in the following situations:
- Synchronize Sample Rate is enabled and two tracks have different sample rate;
- Tracks have different channel count or other incompatible parameters;
- The file takes too long to load;
- If an MP3 track has a wrong or missing gapless information in tags;
- Playing .cue albums.
When disabled, VOX default setting is at 0 position.
Equalizer[edit]
VOX for macOS has a 10-band graphic EQ that allows adjustments with 1/10 - octave precision in frequency and in range of +/- 12 dB in level. It also includes 38 presets.
Hog Mode[edit]
Hog mode (or exclusive access) allows VOX to obtain private access to the output device (sound card). All other apps will not be able to see the device. System default device cannot be “hogged” because every app in the system should be able to use it by definition.
Track Buffer[edit]
Playback buffer is intermediary memory used to store queued to play portion of audio data. The more the buffer - the more stable is the playback of network sources and files located on slow hard disks. Large buffer, on the other side, has its disadvantage - higher latency of effects. So if the buffer is 5000ms (5 seconds) and the equalizer adjustments will be heard only after 5 seconds. Recommended setting is 200-400 ms.
Integration with other services[edit]
SoundCloud[edit]
VOX features a built-in SoundCloud player. To use it, VOX users must have a SoundCloud account. After logging in, VOX adds user’s songs (providing there are some) to the playlist. The SoundCloud tab is available on the main VOX menu. The tab includes Stream, Likes, and Search. Like on the website, users can Like new tracks to add them to their playback list, or Unlike to remove. Using the SoundCloud player requires VOX account.
Spotify[edit]
Unlike SoundCloud, Spotify doesn’t have an individual tab. If users have Spotify Premium subscription, they can log in, and access their Spotify playlist. Users can’t search, and add songs from the Spotify collection, and neither can they access daily playlists, and other functions available in the Spotify app. Spotify library is available only for VOX iOS.
Last.fm[edit]
To know their listening statistics users are offered to log in to Last.fm to enable Last.fm scrobbling. This will sync user’s listening stats with Last.fm and create recommendation based on this data. Last.fm in VOX works only as a scrobbler and doesn’t allow to see events, discover new music and other Last.fm features.
Youtube[edit]
Youtube player is available for all Mac users. To open it, users must press CMD+U. A small window will appear, and that’s where users can paste a Youtube link to load the audio and add it to the main playlist. If users paste a playlist link, all its units will appear as individual tracks.
Subscriptions[edit]
As of November 2017, VOX offers the following subscription plans:
| Type | Music Sources | VOX Music Cloud | Equalizer | Advanced Audio Settings | Radio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free (without a VOX account) | iTunes
Playlists |
No | No | No | No |
| Free (with a VOX account) | iTunes
Playlists Youtube SoundCloud Spotify |
No | Limited (only presets) | No | No |
| Premium | iTunes
Playlists VOX Music Cloud Youtube SoundCloud Spotify |
Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Reviews[edit]
- Richard Devine, Vox for Mac review: Your lightweight yet powerful iTunes alternative, iMore, Aug 6, 2013
- Thorin Klosowski, Vox Is a Powerful, but Minimal Music Player for Mac, LifeHacker, Aug 6, 2013
- Cody Fink, Vox 2.0, MacStories, Jan 28, 2014
- Alex Arena, Vox: A Minimal Music Player, Mac.AppStorm, Aug 6, 2013
References[edit]
- ↑ ALessio Nonni's Blog: Vox 0.2.7 RC1 released
- ↑ Top 10 most promising Ukrainian startups
- ↑ VOX, The Minimal Mac Music Player
- ↑ VOX 2.0 gets streamlined interface, gapless playback
- ↑ Winamp Shutting Down After 15 Years? Check Out VOX: Music Player Perfection For OS X
- ↑ Vox Music Player Launches on the Mac App Store, Free Upgrade for MacRumors Readers
External links[edit]
This article "VOX Music Player" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.
