For os9 compatibility with hires 24bit audio look for downloads of old editions of pro audio apps like LogicPro (version 7 is very fast stable for g5s also called Logic, or LogicAudio), or Peak(versions 3, 4) once a very popular stereo editing platform who’s golden age embraced G3G45/G5 PPC Macs.; I have G4 powerbook that I use via an RME-multiface ADC/DAC to create original 24 bit audio tracks. There are issues for different apps in OS9 being able to access audio drivers. Logic and peak have not trouble with my RME or a French DAC from Digigram.
Of course this solution does not provide the JUKEBox functionality of iTunes.
You basically play files you open by hand one at a time. But you will be able to try out your new DAC on various hires tracks. NB 24 bits are more useful in recording composing and editing. Audio tracks of most music mastered for distribution in 16 bits are difficult to distinguish from 24bit versions. Extra bits of quiet material are hard to discover unless you are deep in high end gear and have access to very unusual recordings. There are exceptional kinds of audio material (e.g. nature phonography where an obsession with low noise recording results in some unique listening), but most music is currently too restricted in its dynamics. A lot of attitudes and infrastructure will have to change before we get to listen. You may want to listen to a very quiet passage but where do you set the volume! At home few people expect or even enjoy the dramatic dynamics that we (a few ) experience in live music and music
theater.
Higher sampling rates is possibly more interesting, but so far few have had much chance to listen. Though it seems the difference is subtile, not anywhere as radical a difference as going to higher video frame rates. Comparing 30fps sec video vs the go pro 60fps or higher the latter is clearly hires for any viewer.
In Japan and Korea there is a lot more hires audio available and Sony for example has committed to this via a new (probably proprietary) bitstream audio codec already on some of their best gear, like their ipod competitor and portable head phone amp/dac etc.
jRain Amsterdam
