foobar? sound quality?

[indikator]

is it true that foobar is better in term of sound quality than other player?

how is it possible? aren't the one 'playing' those mp3 is the codec?
so why not using that codec to all other media player?

I just do not understand......

and also I had this strange problem
before this I'm using foobar on XP and have k-lite codec pack installed
I experience random pop in the playback

then I moved to Vista, and disable audio codec in the k-lite
the random pop disappeared, how can it be? how the audio codec from klite affecting foobar audio codec?

[JamesL]

There was a diagram observing how sound gets processed in XP vs Vista, but I don't know the technicalities of it.. basically, XP does a terrible job... I think that's the main reason most people use ASIO on XP, to bypass all the stuff that XP's default.. something something.. through directSound something something and something else.. and something else.... blah
like I said, I don't know the technical details.