foobar vs winamp
Mar 27, 2006 at 8:02 PM Thread Starter Post #1 of 19
iliketuna

iliketuna

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hey guys... i've been using winamp for as long as i can remember and have never had any qualms about it, but the few weeks i've been here i noticed a great number of you use foobar as your mp3 player of choice. so i just want to ask you guys, why do you prefer foobar? mainly, is there a significant sound quality difference between the applications?
 
Mar 27, 2006 at 9:47 PM Post #3 of 19
duh me.

thx man
 
Mar 27, 2006 at 10:42 PM Post #4 of 19
Zoom WMV Pro player should also be considered as a legitimate contender to Foobar (which I love) just on the sound quality basis.

http://www.inmatrix.com/files/zoomplayer_download.shtml

Zoom WMV Pro (ASIO4All) and Foobar (ASIO4All and/or ASIO dll) have almost opposite sound personalities that I can imagine some people absolutely preferring one over the other.

I have some ergonomic problems with Zoom, however, b/c it doesn't seem to support ID tagging b/c my tagged Flac files are showing up as 01_have a nice day.flac instead of ID tagged columns.

The other problem is Zoom seems to lose digital audio connection moving from one song to next, resulting in loud "pop" if you use DAC that doesn't have auto-muting...
 
Mar 28, 2006 at 3:21 AM Post #5 of 19
where can one download plugins for foobar? mine only shows wave out and direct sound
 
Mar 28, 2006 at 4:16 AM Post #6 of 19
Quote:

Originally Posted by BrianS
where can one download plugins for foobar? mine only shows wave out and direct sound


Right now is an awkward time for foobar. A new version just came out (0.9) and it doesn't have backwards compatibility with the old version (0.8.3) which 95% of plugins are for. New plugins are slowly becoming available. I read that AISO is impossible with 0.9 at the moment and I don't know the status of kernel streaming.

I got into an argument over at hydrogenaudio (they host the foobar forums) about why I wanted to use ASIO. I agreed in the end that you should use DirectSound unless you're paranoid about having bit perfect output to some external dac. You won't be able to tell (ABX) any real difference.
 
Mar 28, 2006 at 4:46 AM Post #7 of 19
Mar 28, 2006 at 5:28 AM Post #8 of 19
Quote:

Originally Posted by jiiteepee
Iirc, KS for 0.8.x comes with the installation.
KS for 0.9 - http://www.foobar2000.com/components/index.html
ASIO - http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/...=29879&hl=asio

Various plugins - http://pelit.koillismaa.fi/plugins/
Some 3rd party plugins - http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/...p?showforum=33

jiitee


thank you
icon10.gif
 
Mar 28, 2006 at 9:48 AM Post #9 of 19
i tried the asio plugin for winamp and i gotta disagree with those guys... asio makes a HUUUUGE difference. (and i use a pretty modest setup... audigy value -> pa2v2 -> hd555)

even with this setup everything sounds so much better!! pianos and acoustic guitars sound especially good d^-^bv

a big problem tho is that asio doesnt seem to respond to any volume control except the windows master volume. thats a real shame because i play a lot of games. with asio music playing i cant hear anything else :\

another inconvienice is that it doesnt respond to the eq neither. i love how clear it is, but i would like a little more kick to the bass and it sucks that i cant add it :x

... guess i'll wait a few weeks till i try out foobar
 
Mar 28, 2006 at 2:53 PM Post #10 of 19
Quote:

Originally Posted by iliketuna
i tried the asio plugin for winamp and i gotta disagree with those guys... asio makes a HUUUUGE difference. (and i use a pretty modest setup... audigy value -> pa2v2 -> hd555)

even with this setup everything sounds so much better!! pianos and acoustic guitars sound especially good d^-^bv

a big problem tho is that asio doesnt seem to respond to any volume control except the windows master volume. thats a real shame because i play a lot of games. with asio music playing i cant hear anything else :\


The whole point of ASIO is exclusive (and fast) access to the sound hardware. (BTW, you should enable resampling to 48 kHz in the ASIO plugin, with quality as good as you can do without slowing down the comp too much.)

Quote:

another inconvienice is that it doesnt respond to the eq neither. i love how clear it is, but i would like a little more kick to the bass and it sucks that i cant add it :x


Use an EQ plugin for Winamp then, like Shibatch Super Equalizer. (If you already have another DSP running, use MuchFX to include both.)

Quote:

... guess i'll wait a few weeks till i try out foobar


Foobar2k is fairly nice, you can tweak a lot of things and the whole signal chain works with high precision throughout (many Winamp DSP plugins are limited to 16 bit samples, unfortunately). Unfortunately I need a line-in plugin (for EQ'd playback of external sources), which is only available for Winamp.
 
Mar 28, 2006 at 4:23 PM Post #11 of 19
Quote:

Originally Posted by iliketuna
i tried the asio plugin for winamp and i gotta disagree with those guys... asio makes a HUUUUGE difference. (and i use a pretty modest setup... audigy value -> pa2v2 -> hd555)

even with this setup everything sounds so much better!! pianos and acoustic guitars sound especially good d^-^bv

a big problem tho is that asio doesnt seem to respond to any volume control except the windows master volume. thats a real shame because i play a lot of games. with asio music playing i cant hear anything else :\

another inconvienice is that it doesnt respond to the eq neither. i love how clear it is, but i would like a little more kick to the bass and it sucks that i cant add it :x

... guess i'll wait a few weeks till i try out foobar


W/ VST/DX plugins you can adjust everything you can imagine w/ or w/o ASIO, and also there are many much better freeware EQ's avail to use with Winamp / Foobar --> you can start your VST/DX journey from --> http://www4.head-fi.org/forums/showp...52&postcount=1


jiitee
 
Apr 17, 2006 at 9:26 PM Post #12 of 19
Quote:

Originally Posted by sgrossklass
Use an EQ plugin for Winamp then, like Shibatch Super Equalizer...


This is what has me using WinAmp at the moment. The parametric EQ is so simple and subtle. It does wonders for flattening out the bass and treble hump of the K701.

When will someone do this for foobar2000?
 
Apr 17, 2006 at 10:36 PM Post #13 of 19
foobar2000 for me. Very light, simple, and customizable -- just like a power user's software. Mold it the way you see fit.
 
Apr 17, 2006 at 11:29 PM Post #14 of 19
I currently use both foobars. I use fb 9 for KS through kmixer, and fb 8 for ASIO without kmixer. The biggest difference for me with my philips soundcard is that i can only use aiso with 32bit playback, where ks with kmixer can only playback in 16bit mode. So the 32bit setup is just more expansive than the 16bit. But the 16bit have more impact, similar to cd-audio playback. Never really compared foobar asio vs winamp asio, but i used the winamp mad plugin for a while which was ok. Overall i like foobar's columns ui best, the biggest reason why i'm still using it.

Can Zoom also use Real and QT Alternative?
 
Apr 18, 2006 at 4:51 AM Post #15 of 19
One reason I'm still using Winamp is that I can control it even if the Winamp window is buried under a dozen other windiws (global hotkeys). I can pause, skip ahead, adjust volume, etc. I never found the ability to do this in foobar2000, but I admit I haven't looked too hard.

Is this function available in foobar2000?
 
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