What is your favourite player under Snakeoil?

[koko6969koki]

Hello!

In the last couple of days I'm switching between MPD and LMS+Squeezelite.

MPD has much better resolution, 3D space and dynamics, it is faster and everything is more impressive and "hifi". 
But, the longer the listening session, more the listener fatigue creeps in.
If I exclusively listen to audiophile samplers (which happens almost never ) everything is OK,
but after one hour of listening to some of my favourite music, of which many is not very well recorded or produced,
I can feel highly irritated with some unpleasant high pressure sensation in my ears.

Squeezelite sounds more fuzzy and blurred in comparison to MPD,
it is slower and less dynamic, with low and high frequency extremes not so prominent, but the midrange is more fuller and feels richer in harmonics.
The sound is more relaxed, so it is much more forgiving when playing poorer recordings.
With certain recordings MPD can sound glassy cold and really unpleasant.

This whole thing reminds me of that old and oversimplified cliché - more precise but "cold" and "sterile" solid state sound (in this case MPD) vs less precise but "warm" and "pleasant" sound of the tubes (LMS+Squeezelite). 

So most of the time I feel frustrated - when I listen to MPD I admire the technical aspects of the reproduction,
but after some time I get the feeling of swollen and irritated ears, so I switch to LMS+Squeezelite to get an instant ear relief,
...but then I start noticing that many details are missing, so I switch back to MPD, and then I get tired again so I switch back to Squeezelite... and it goes round and round!

If I go back to my old MacMini with Audirvana+ and Amarra players, I can have all the audiophile "details" without listener fatigue,
but I prefer the small headless Snakeoil NUC sitting in my hifi rack just like a regular audio component.

I have been playing mostly with MPD v0.21.16 and Squeezelite Ralph.

What are your favourite versions?
In his latest article dedicated to SOtM USB card, I have noticed that @"agent_kith" is using Squeezelite 1.6.4.
Is there some reason why it is preferred to more "modern" Ralph and R2 versions?
Are there big differences between various MPD versions? What are they?

Yes, I know, I can test them all by myself, but my head is already swollen from constant switching between these two players, it will explode If I throw all the other versions into the mix!