[muad]

Ive been using foobar for awhile now and no matter which media player I tried, they all sounded like garbage compared to foobar with wasapi. Well, the alpha for Mediamonkey 4 seems rock solid stable to me and it includes native wasapi support. It still seems that foobar sounds better but it may be all in my head. I was just curious, should there be any difference in audio quality? Theoretically they should be exactly the same with wasapi out? 
 
Anyone else wanna try it out. curious to hear other peoples opinions...

 

[DaveBSC]

Quote:

Ive been using foobar for awhile now and no matter which media player I tried, they all sounded like garbage compared to foobar with wasapi. Well, the alpha for Mediamonkey 4 seems rock solid stable to me and it includes native wasapi support. It still seems that foobar sounds better but it may be all in my head. I was just curious, should there be any difference in audio quality? Theoretically they should be exactly the same with wasapi out? 
 
Anyone else wanna try it out. curious to hear other peoples opinions...

I did fairly extensive head to head testing with Foobar vs. JRiver, both with wasapi, and I ultimately preferred Foobar. JRiver with memory playback to my ears sounded roughly equal with Foobar. Without it, it was definitely worse. Foobar works, it's skin and customization support is unmatched, and it's free. I don't see any reason at this point to leave.
 

 

[sk3383]

Quote:

I did fairly extensive head to head testing with Foobar vs. JRiver, both with wasapi, and I ultimately preferred Foobar. JRiver with memory playback to my ears sounded roughly equal with Foobar. Without it, it was definitely worse. Foobar works, it's skin and customization support is unmatched, and it's free. I don't see any reason at this point to leave.
 

I also did extensive testing with Foobar vs JRiver vs Media Monkey. I enjoy the sound from Foobar the best!! To my ears Foobar sounded the most natural, least uncolored and most realistic.
 
The differences are small but are clearly audible with a transparent system, even more so when using a two channel stereo setup.
 
I rather enjoy the JRiver and Media Monkey's GUI much better but I could never live with the sonics they produce.
 

 

[AnAnalogSpirit]

Hi Folks,
 
I ran Foobar2000 v.1.1.5 and the alpha of MediaMonkey4, both with the WASAPI backends, and also compared to the MediaMonkey3 with ASIO4ALL backend.
 
Far and away the smoother tonality, beefier bass rendition, and more articulate resolution was easily apparent with Foobar2000+WASAPI. The alpha of MediaMonkey4+WASAPI sounded WAY too "HOT" and generally distorted. The sound signature of MediaMonkey3+ASIO4ALL was good, but after hearing Foobar2000+WASAPI ended up sounding "nasal" and annoyingly "bright".
 
Another component added to my listening pleasure for Foobar2000 is the George Yohng's VST Wrapper, which I use to "drive" the Electri-Q posihofpit (freeware) multiband parametric EQ to spice up my listening experience.
 
However even with a flat EQ, Foobar2000+WASAPI is the clear winner in Windows 7 audio playback software in my book. YMMV, but you owe it to yourself to give it a whirl!

 

[muad]

Yeah, that's pretty much where I stand... Foobar always sounds the most clear and realistic from all the players I've tried. It's very noticeable to me, it's as if the curtain has been lifted and the artists are playing on the other side of my desk. The music just has more texture and micro details, it's the flaws in the music that make it real for me and give it the emotion. I'm thinking it can't be placebo, since I really want to like Mediamonkey, the foobar interface sucks... and panels ui isn't compatible with the newer versions of Foobar. So I guess it's foobar for life then...

 

[DaveBSC]

Quote:

Yeah, that's pretty much where I stand... Foobar always sounds the most clear and realistic from all the players I've tried. It's very noticeable to me, it's as if the curtain has been lifted and the artists are playing on the other side of my desk. The music just has more texture and micro details, it's the flaws in the music that make it real for me and give it the emotion. I'm thinking it can't be placebo, since I really want to like Mediamonkey, the foobar interface sucks... and panels ui isn't compatible with the newer versions of Foobar. So I guess it's foobar for life then...

 
There's absolutely no need to put up with a sucky interface in Foobar. Granted, installing and using most Foobar full UI conversions can be daunting, but there are a few that offer installable .exe files that do 98% of the work for you. Personally, I like a simple and attractive interface because I use folders to browse my music rather than a database based on tags, so I use FooPlacebo: http://foo-nation.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d2ngroi
 
The setup for that isn't automatic, but all of the necessary component .dll files are included, you just chuck em in the folder, switch to ColumnsUI, import the FCL and you're pretty much all set. If you want something more like the JRiver interface or iTunes, Foobar can do that too, just keep in mind that it may be more difficult and you may have to google some required .dll components. The most complete place to look for Foobar skins and interfaces is the "Foo-Nation" section on Deviant Art. Just make sure that the one you want is capable of working with Columns rather than Panels, and supports Foobar 1.0+
 
http://foo-nation.deviantart.com/gallery/
 
 

 

[muad]

Awesome! Thanks... every time Ive searched for skins and such all i can find are components that don't work with foobar1.X etc.

 

[muad]

hahaahhhahaha screw media monkey!    Seriously, this just made foobar the end all player! Thanks again!

 

[kalston]

foobar is so light on the CPU/HDD/Ram anyway (and can be portable) that there's no way any other player can do better than that. Even when you add you custom UI the memory footprint is still ridiculously low.

 

[Justin Uthadude]

Here is a quote from the official Foobar2000 website:
 

Does Foobar2000 sound better than other players?

No. Most of “sound quality differences” people “hear” are placebo effect..............
.
 

 

[Roller]

Quote:

Here is a quote from the official Foobar2000 website:
 

Does Foobar2000 sound better than other players?

No. Most of “sound quality differences” people “hear” are placebo effect..............
.
 

 
I formatted to bold an also relevant part of the sentence.

 

[Justin Uthadude]

Quote:

Here is a quote from the official Foobar2000 website:
 

Does Foobar2000 sound better than other players?

No. Most of “sound quality differences” people “hear” are placebo effect..............
.
 

 
Quote:

 
I formatted to bold an also relevant part of the sentence.

I thought this bold part was the most relevant . . . . lol
.
I have foobar, mediamonkey and xmplay and can't blindly tell them apart. But then, I don't hear radical differences in cables either.
 

 

[Roller]

Quote:

 

I thought this bold part was the most relevant . . . . lol
.
I have foobar, mediamonkey and xmplay and can't blindly tell them apart. But then, I don't hear radical differences in cables either.
 

More power to you.

 

[muad]

i cant hear a difference in cables.... but i can between foobar and other players

 

[Justin Uthadude]

@maud
I have and use foobar. It's a great player. I was merely quoting the foobar people to help the new Head-Fiers. I don't think it's fair to lead them to believe that they're going to hear big radical differences. Look at the first word of foobar's answer. If you hear a difference, well that's great, because it really is all about what sounds best to you. I got on this kick when I started to blind test my friends when they came over. Next thing you know it was, "you try it". I made 3 playlists of the same songs. (They both had a couple different mp3's hidden inside with the flacs.) I loaded the playlists into foobar, mediamonkey and xmplay. No one could get it consistently right. Certain mp3's got picked most of the time. Some not. But nobody could tell which software was playing.  At first I was bummed ('cuz I'm Superman you know =^)  Now I'm enjoying my music more because I'm not trying to hear things I can't. Try telling the difference when you don't know what's playing. You might be surprised; I was.