[pepemosca]

*** Delete please ***

 

[bigicy]

I use winamp as it comes with native FLAC support.
 
I believe Vox is a good player for Mac OS X, unfortunately I don't have a Mac to test this program.
 
My friend has the SanDisk Sansa Clip+  mp3 player which comes with flac support. He says it is a very good mp3 player.

 

[AN0INTD]

Quote:

I personally use foobar2000. It "free" so you can try it and see how you like it. It also allows a lot of customizations if you like to tweak.
 
http://www.foobar2000.org/

I just downloaded from this site and got Malware (Mystart:Incredibar toolbar)....awesome!

  I think I clicked on an advertisement and not the actual foobar DL link.

 

[chewy4]

^^yeah you gotta be careful with fake download links. An ad blocker usually takes them out. Foobar's site is legitimate though.
 
Quote:

Honestly, apart from plug-ins, there is literally no sonic difference between these players. Looking at how Media Players work, we can conclude that no player "sounds warm" or "sounds natural", unless things are being added.

 
 
You get a bit-perfect stream from Windows, without running ASIO, if two conditions are met:

• Your volume in Windows is set at 100% and you control volume with your amp
• You are only running sound from one application at once. This can be done by muting the other applications you aren't listening to.

 
Everything else is placebo. The only real point of ASIO is to reduce latency, which is really only important to music production, to my knowledge.

So, in short, pick the one that meets your needs best. I love MediaMonkey because it's really easy to use. WinAmp and Songbird are pretty cool too. foobar has a lot of love because it's so versatile.

None of them sound better than any other ones, and all of them (even iTunes) can have a bit-perfect stream by meeting the two qualifications, at least to my knowledge.

 
Kind of an old post, but this is not neccessarily true, there are some other variables.
 
I get aliasing in Winamp if I don't use the wasapi plug-in. I'm not talking about subtle or anything that has any chance of being psychological, there is a high pitch sound when playing both higher and lower frequencies. It's extremely noticable and distracting.
 
I have no idea what the cause of this is though... also happens in Chrome.
 
But problems like this aside, they are pretty much the same yeah.

 

[feds27]

Foobar

 

[RonaldDumsfeld]

Foobar2000 is a very competent media player and for free it's hard to beat. I found it's playlist management a bit quirky at first.
 
Recently I have been using Native Instruments Traktor a lot.
 
It combines the convienience of a standard media player with the involvement and hands on fun of playing vinyl.
 
The browser and playlist sections works just like any other similar tool with the added bonus of crates. This is like flipping through the albums in the rack of an old fashioned bricks and mortar record shop and recognising the tunes you want via a quick glance at the cover artwork. Works surprisingly well.
 
Plus you have the additional optional bonus of being able to change the pitch and/or key, jump in and out more or less on the beat, add EQ or effects, loop etc etc. It's interactive and engaging.
 
Traktor used to be expensive but has now fallen in price to something similar to other paid for audio apps. In fact you get a copy 'free' with any NI harware. £80 gets you an excellent two stereo channel output DAC, the Audio 2 and a full version of Ttraktor.
 
Check out the deno if you think you might be interested.
 
http://www.native-instruments.com/#/en/products/dj/traktor-pro-2/?r=509cfb4056f83&page=1975
 
Don't be put off by the seeming complexity - it's actually easier to use and more intuitive than Foobar.

 

[Happy Camper]

I used Foobar for years but never used for management. I've started trying different players the last year and am currently trying Musicbee. They use either Wasapi or ASIO. I won't say there is a sound difference between JRiver but one is free. It was recommended by Audio Note and I've not found much bad in it. I'm currently introducing more music in my library and will soon start managing so I'll find out how good it is. I'd love to find a program that will take the highest bitrate of duplicates and dump the rest.

 

[Destroysall]

I use foobar2000 for FLAC files, and it plays them wonderfully. The other great thing about foobar2000 is that it is almost entirely customizable in terms of appearance.
 
Destroysall.

 

[Musastic]

+1 for foobar2k, clean media player

 

[PanamaHat]

I use winamp as it comes with native FLAC support.

Me too. It's neat and easy to use without having to modify it a lot. It also has a nice media convertor

 

[ChipnDalebowl]

Two of the best FLAC players I've come across are foobar2000 and xmplay.

 

[recepky]

for FLAC you HAVE TO use cics memory player,
 
I have a mid-fi system in my room: technics suv620 stereo amplifier- bose 401 speakers- and def. tech. prosub 800, I can clearly hear the difference between CPLay and other players.
 
with CPlay I prefer to use SoX resampler, ( you can set it in the settings of the Cplay ) with 96kHz resample.  Sounds like music is coming from a real audio CD Player. CPlay sound better because it has a special jittter correction algorithim in it, so it will use some of your CPU power.

 

[korzena]

Quote:

+1 for foobar2k, clean media player

Exactly, especially the CLEAN playback in comparison to other players.
+1 foobar2k

 

[ru57y]

Quote:

I personally use foobar2000. It "free" so you can try it and see how you like it. It also allows a lot of customizations if you like to tweak.
 
http://www.foobar2000.org/

i swear by it. 
I tried Vox for the Mac, but nothing compares to Foobar2000. Just need a better DAC! 

 

[avm1]

http://vv.uka.ru/aplayer.zip
It's free. Just unpack to any folder and run. It has  readme in English. It has minimalistik interface, but belive me, it's much better than foobar.