VOX Music Player vs. Fidelia – Detailed Comparison

When it comes to a Mac music player, users are often confused. That's because, for some reason, most players look like iTunes but with a broader functionality and the absence of iTunes store. We need an iTunes alternative because we want to listen to audio formats not supported by it. 

Today, I'm comparing to prominent audio players for Mac – VOX Music Player and Fidelia according to their functionality, compatibility, format support, interface and additional features.

Fidelia is a simple audio player for macOS designed to be a lighter iTunes alternative. The first thing that captured my sight was the ability to enable three Apple Audio Units at the same time. It's unnecessary in case you just want to listen to some music. However, if you are more into mixing – that's exactly what you need. The interface isn't convenient, as there's no volume bar as such, only a knob. To add music to Fidelia, you just need to drop the files to Fidelia's library folder. 

VOX is more about the playback. The app puts an accent on simplicity so that users don't get confused with how to use the app. VOX includes only five tabs: Playlist, Library, Queue, Radio, and SoundCloud. Users can log into Spotify, and SoundCloud to listen to their music library using one app. Last.fm scrobbling available to keep the listening stats and get recommendations based on played tracks on VOX. The Radio includes 30,000 stations from 140 countries. 

Fidelia is available only for macOS with no iOS or Android version to control the playback. 

VOX Music Player has a macOS and iOS version. The functionality of desktop and mobile is pretty much the same. According to VOX developers, Window and Android version are due in 2018. 

Both players support uncompressed, lossless, and lossy audio formats. They include AIFF, ALAC, FLAC, WAV, MP3, OGG, APE, playlist formats and more. 

Fidelia offers a basic set of settings for sound adjustment. Crossfeed, Equalizer, and Sample Rate Synchronization are those you are most likely to use unless you're a sound engineer or a music geek. If you upload a file that's not supported (like PCM), Fidelia will automatically convert it to a familiar one. Unfortunately, some audio data will be irreversibly lost. 

I've already mentioned Spotify, Last.fm, and SoundCloud integration. As for audio settings, VOX offers:

The cloud serves as the main place to keep your music and stream from it to your devices. VOX Music Cloud is an unlimited online storage. You can upload there as much music as you want. It also has no restrictions on audio formats or file's size. If your upload thousands of FLACs, it's fine. You can listen to them on your iPhone and Mac. VOX Music Cloud is available only to VOX Premium subscribers.

Now that we've learned about these players, you can try any of them and see how it goes. I prefer VOX Music Player because it's easier to navigate and use in general. Fidelia would suit avid iTunes users, who want to have a similar interface with fewer tabs and a bit more sound adjustment options. But I'm not one of them.