Foobar2000 or....

[SilverEars]

Free is not always better but for my use Roon was worse than useless. For the money I expect it to work. Instead they expected me to spend weeks on my music so they can display it. No thanks, I don't need a broken GUI on top of my music...

I know. So expensive, and I hate that you cannot play off of music files in folders. What the crap?! If you have music devices in zones, and need to control multiple devices from one software integration, probably worth it, but not worth it for all peoples out there. Did I mention the price?

I think Foobar2000 works fine, sounds fine without any issues. Most importantly, it's not expensive, it's free. I do wish they would integrate a nice parametric EQ to Foobar. That's one of the useful things in Roon.

 

[FullBlownEargasam]

Just use your mouse to resize the panels in each screen. There's also a red square at top right to configure the entire layout. The built-in themes (skins) are great. As noted, I used the Dark-Fine Tuned, Rosewood. There are many, many more to pick from. The hamburger button at top left gives you access to Skins (Select Skin ->).

Thank you for such as quick response. Checking it out now.

 

[GREQ]

I just installed Music Bee, and so far everything looks fine to me
I've never used it before and so far it's a very good normal user experience.

It consumes about 20MB less RAM than Foobar, which is quite an achievement considering how much more the Music Bee UI is doing.
One slightly annoying thing is the search function takes a bit longer use since you need to open it manually, but that's minor really.
The Music Bee spectrum analyzer is absolute trash though. Not a deal breaker, I just like the pretty visualization

I guess I'll be using it for a weeks to see if it sticks, I like that I can customize it to a fully-dark UI - that's the biggest plus for me.

 

[castleofargh]

I do wish they would integrate a nice parametric EQ to Foobar.

Add the VST wrapper and then any of the many free(or not) parametric EQ VSTs you'll find online. It's not on by default and you can't use VST3 or anything 64bit(because foobar is 32), but that still leaves a vast range of more or less stable options.

As for a desktop - after much research, I found MusicBee is even better for unadulterated music quality. It allows the very same control over drivers that Foobar has - even more so (I use WASAPI). Ever try to run Foobar in exclusive mode, to ensure no dropouts? You can't. It looks like you can, but it doesn't work, and doesn't stop a single process from starting, running and accessing the sound interface. Run MusicBee in exclusive mode and you won't even be able to call up a YouTube video, because the sound driver is locked by MusicBee.

There is usually no problem getting wasapi exclusive on one DAC. There are or at least were a bunch of situations where foobar would behave like you describe depending on settings, type of sound card you had(mostly how non standard and intrusive the drivers were), or just using some version of foobar just after it got released with some bug on this in particular? But all of those and what you describe are atypical situations. Almost everybody gets exclusive mode with wasapi so long as window$ settings for the DAC have 'allow exclusive blablablah' checked.

I also think that Musicbee is a cool player, and I would probably suggest it as a nice all rounder to use almost as is(easy UI, bit perfect options, VSTs). I stick with foobar because of habit TBH. I customized plenty of tiny little things over the years, because with foobar, I could. just like in what seems like another life, I was making my own skins for the classic winamp. As a result, it now bothers me when I don't have all those little things the exact way I'm used to have them. call it a old guy's behavior.
My only issue is as I mentioned above, foobar is 32bit and has no VST3 support, but last I checked it was the same with Musicbee, so... For now I just route foobar to a 64bit VST host with some virtual cable when I want to push a few heavy DSPs to the limits of space time without torturing my CPU too much^_^.
I guess we simply all have our own priorities, habits, desires, and it's well that many tools exist to satisfy as many people as possible.

 

[Supremevegbeef]

Not sure what there is not to like about iOS Foobar2k. I honestly have no complaints with it, and it has seamless Files support which means I can download mp3 or flac or what have you directly and it works.

I'm sure Musicbee is nice if you want library management and all that, but it looks just like Amarok to me. Might as well use Linux at that point.

Part of the beauty of foobar is its extremely powerful conversion engine, dsp, and other utilities. It's more of a swiss army knife for audio than an idealistic hi-fi player. As a result, it's extremely useful in a non-hifi oriented setting as well.

 

[GREQ]

Part of the beauty of foobar is its extremely powerful conversion engine,

Good point. I do like the LAME converter plugin and use that for converting from FLAC to MP3.
Also the 31-band graphic equalizer plugin is pretty damn unique.

Plugins for days............

 

[Supremevegbeef]

Good point. I do like the LAME converter plugin and use that for converting from FLAC to MP3.
Also the 31-band graphic equalizer plugin is pretty damn unique.

Plugins for days............

Not only is it good, and the plugins are so powerful anything can be done with foobar. I don't think anybody could name me a single other freeware program which can batch convert a mix of audio and non-audio, process it with DSP, apply replaygain, and save as a single file or structured individual files - and that is in its stock form.

 

[tomb]

Not only is it good, and the plugins are so powerful anything can be done with foobar. I don't think anybody could name me a single other freeware program which can batch convert a mix of audio and non-audio, process it with DSP, apply replaygain, and save as a single file or structured individual files - and that is in its stock form.

Exactly. It's good software for processing audio. I keep and continue to use it for that reason - but NOT as a music player anymore.

 

[tomb]

Add the VST wrapper and then any of the many free(or not) parametric EQ VSTs you'll find online. It's not on by default and you can't use VST3 or anything 64bit(because foobar is 32), but that still leaves a vast range of more or less stable options.



There is usually no problem getting wasapi exclusive on one DAC. There are or at least were a bunch of situations where foobar would behave like you describe depending on settings, type of sound card you had(mostly how non standard and intrusive the drivers were), or just using some version of foobar just after it got released with some bug on this in particular? But all of those and what you describe are atypical situations. Almost everybody gets exclusive mode with wasapi so long as window$ settings for the DAC have 'allow exclusive blablablah' checked.

Been there … done that … many times.

Have you ever actually tested it? Have you ever actually tried another software that accesses the sound system (whatever it may be) and does it get killed?

I also think that Musicbee is a cool player, and I would probably suggest it as a nice all rounder to use almost as is(easy UI, bit perfect options, VSTs). I stick with foobar because of habit TBH. I customized plenty of tiny little things over the years, because with foobar, I could. just like in what seems like another life, I was making my own skins for the classic winamp. As a result, it now bothers me when I don't have all those little things the exact way I'm used to have them. call it a old guy's behavior.
My only issue is as I mentioned above, foobar is 32bit and has no VST3 support, but last I checked it was the same with Musicbee, so... For now I just route foobar to a 64bit VST host with some virtual cable when I want to push a few heavy DSPs to the limits of space time without torturing my CPU too much^_^.
I guess we simply all have our own priorities, habits, desires, and it's well that many tools exist to satisfy as many people as possible.

I understand. Even when something is better, change is hard for some of us.

 

[GREQ]

I understand. Even when something is better, change is hard for some of us.

Try dropping that in a discussion about headphones
Sometimes better isn't better

 

[castleofargh]

off topic about how foobar behaves with wasapi for me(and most people?). #mylife #nothingtolearnhere #TLDR

Have you ever actually tested it? Have you ever actually tried another software that accesses the sound system (whatever it may be) and does it get killed?

If I have something with sound in my web browser or a video player going through the typical DS mixer and out to my DAC, when I start foobar set with DS to that DAC, it adds foobar to the total sound. Logical.
When I switch foobar to wasapi, audio cuts off for a sec, then I only get sound from foobar. The browser usually doesn't care beside losing audio, but my video player can go from playing without audio to jerky video, to plain freezing the video and needing a restart. If I turn foobar off, and the video player didn't freeze, I can usually get sound back with pause then play, or moving to another moment in the video(same with youtube vids),or by changing the audio settings.
With wasapi, the global Windowz volume doesn't affect audio for me beside the ability to mute the sound.
The exclusive aspect is pretty clear in my case, and if I set 2 apps with wasapi exclusive, then whichever was launched first gets to speak while the other is silent. Some might show a message about the output being in use or some error like that.

 

[FullBlownEargasam]

So after using MusicBee for a day and half I have to admit its pretty and has a ton of functionality. I see it as a good alternative to foobar and a great overall experience. I don't know if it is the familiarity or the simplicity but I went back to foobar. I figured out how to add the Genre (which is all I really wanted to do) So overall they both seem very flexible and capable players. MusicBee is a lot easier to make pretty and I do like the scrolling pictures but I am back to foobar. Thank you all for your suggestions and input. I really appreciate it as I am sure I am not the first person to ask this question.

 

[genck]

Glad you found what you wanted (going back to foobar, apparently).

 

[FullBlownEargasam]

I think it is honestly more of a comfort thing. Musicbee is awesome and I don't see any faults other than having to learn a new system.

 

[FullBlownEargasam]

I super appreciate all of the input though. You guys are the best.