[MHOE]

Hi everyone,

I would like to share experiences in a competition between music players and managers - mainly in a question of sound, functionality and appearance.

I've tried many of them... But I am still trying to find the best one. My current results are these:



SOUND:

The best sounding one: HELIUM MUSIC MANAGER 7 (not distorted or polluted like Media monkey or Foobar - only an opinion of my ears and some other folks on the internet )

Quite good alternatives: Jriver Media Center (also distorted in comparison with Helium 7 but not so badly), Zune (without .flac or ape support and also not better than Helium 7)

Sample (with my tuning): http://oi52.tinypic.com/ifu6tv.jpg



MANAGING FUNCTIONALITY:

The best manager: MEDIA MONKEY (really really really good)

Quite good alternatives: Foobar, Jriver media center, Helium music manager 7

Sample (with a skin and some plugins): http://oi53.tinypic.com/2isv910.jpg



APPEARANCE:

The best appearance: ZUNE (cool look) / MEDIA MONKEY (complex)

Quite close: Jriver, Helium 7

Sample: See google for Zune


I use Helium 7 as a player + Media monkey for library-managing functions
---------------------------------------

Are there any better possibilities? I've tried some more player but these are the best currently...

 

[Zuglufttier]

I like mpd the most: http://www.musicpd.org/
 
No UI to get in the way, useable with a wide range of devices and sounds like any other media player that doesn't do anything wrong to the material.

 

[Nitrius]

Hmm foobar2000 distorts or pollutes the music you say? Been using it for quiet some time now, and can't say that about it really, been very happy with that player. But ears are different i guess, hehe.

Never heard of this HELIUM player though, maybe i should check it out.

 

[Puranti]

I've foobar 2000 was very effective concerning the distortion like it was the best music player for sound and I agree with that !

I gived a try didn't see much difference exept that helium push you to buy stuff and that with foobar i can play stereo tracks in 5.1

 

[MHOE]

Maybe it is only a problem with my sound card but I am not the only one who noticed some distortion or clipping in Foobar (I've read a discussion or two)...
 
Helium 7 is great because of the balanced sound or how to call it (don't have problems like small headache and so on after long listening sessions...). Jriver is great player (and also useful for photos and videos...) with interesting sound but it is not so nice to listen to it after an hour... And Media monkey has quite flat sound, not good at all. But I understand it's a question of personal taste.
 
The differences are rather small between these players but it matters to me Any other opinions? Anyone?
 
 

 

[MHOE]

Playing stereo in 5.1? Is it any good? I've heard that classic 2.0 is the best possibility for listening to music... But I have no experiences with 5.1...

 

[Mewp]

What do you guys think about Winamp?

 

[MHOE]

Quote:

What do you guys think about Winamp?

Media monkey uses same codecs as Winamp (I don't know exactly the technical details but media monkey was made with some associations to Winamp - to give more functions...) and it definitely has a lot better managing functionality and looks good (see URL example from my first post here)... But according to several posts on the net it has quite crappy sound in comparison with the other players (foobar, Jriver etc.) so maybe Winamp is not ideal as well...
 
Today I discovered a player called Songbird... Quite nice but not better than Helium 7 or Jriver.

 

[rroseperry]

I used to use winamp all the time for my music player. Nice functionality (especially back when you could rip streams from online radio), but I don't think it's really improved significantly since it was bought by aol (?) ages ago. It was never very good as a library manager.

foobar is, imo, a better player than j media, but j media is a more user-friendly library manager.

 

[Roller]

Quote:

Media monkey uses same codecs as Winamp (I don't know exactly the technical details but media monkey was made with some associations to Winamp - to give more functions...) and it definitely has a lot better managing functionality and looks good (see URL example from my first post here)... But according to several posts on the net it has quite crappy sound in comparison with the other players (foobar, Jriver etc.) so maybe Winamp is not ideal as well...
 
Today I discovered a player called Songbird... Quite nice but not better than Helium 7 or Jriver.

 
Considering that Winamp has all popular output methods available through plugins, I'd say it's a bit of a stretch to say that Winamp has crappy sound.
 
And I've yet to see how foobar2000 has "distorted or polluted" audio, unless you're using (dubious) sound shaping components, as WASAPI goes as clear as it can be.

 

[MHOE]

I don't use any plugins ort sort of equalization... But if I compare foobar with helium 7 or Jriver it sounds more "flat" or how to say it (and media monkey sounds even more in that way) - and WASAPI doesn't change anything for my ears. But it is my opinion only

 

[Mewp]

I've always been a diehard winamp user but I will try foobar and j media. Thanks guys

 

[MHOE]

Quote:

I've always been a diehard winamp user but I will try foobar and j media. Thanks guys

Good choice Foobar is very good also on rather slow machines and has well-working WASAPI (hmmm, I still can't hear any difference, can anyone talk a bit about it with me?).
 
Jriver has really good interface, huge amount of settings possible and is also good for videos and photos...
 
Both of them are sort of the best available currently...

 

[MHOE]

So to be sure - everyone on this forum is using Foobar or Winamp?

 

[kn19h7]

never did i know distortion level between software players are so easily comparable

 
theoretically i believe lilith/ulilith's sound quality bests all these due to its 64-bit float internal processing, the ui was not very friendly when i was trying it though ><
btw, players without perfect cue-sheet support and wasapi/asio output are out of consideration to me
 
...and i always feel that file explorer is the most effective way in managing music files ==|||