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Foobar2000 vs iTunes

Oct 12, 2009 at 1:39 AM Post #31 of 85
Ok, I understand foobar and ASIO/WASPI alot better now, but there is still to many reasons not to switch to it. I am sure the audio difference at least for me is negligible. Its sorta like the flac vs 320kbit mp3 debate.
 
Oct 12, 2009 at 2:15 AM Post #33 of 85
There is a general desire here to try to get the best possible sound. Bit perfect playback is preferred along with lossless. How much of a difference such a pursuit makes to the actual audio quality is up to the individual to decide.

iTunes on Windows is hampered by only being able to play through the default audio device. That means if you have two or more audio cards/interfaces installed that you can only play through the one defined as the default (the one that plays system sounds from the OS). That's a serious limitation for those of us with multiple interfaces installed. It's also nice to be able to play to a secondary audio device so system sounds don't get blasted through the headphones during music listening.

Foobar and J. River Media Center, and other media players allow you to select which audio device is used. You aren't restricted to just the default audio device.
 
Oct 12, 2009 at 6:16 PM Post #34 of 85
Quote:

Originally Posted by Crazy*Carl /img/forum/go_quote.gif
Ok, I understand foobar and ASIO/WASPI alot better now, but there is still to many reasons not to switch to it. I am sure the audio difference at least for me is negligible. Its sorta like the flac vs 320kbit mp3 debate.


What is the debate between flac and 320??? Flac is factually superior.
 
Oct 12, 2009 at 6:28 PM Post #36 of 85
Quote:

Originally Posted by Crazy*Carl /img/forum/go_quote.gif
Ok, I understand foobar and ASIO/WASPI alot better now, but there is still to many reasons not to switch to it. I am sure the audio difference at least for me is negligible. Its sorta like the flac vs 320kbit mp3 debate.


I too question the audio difference, iTunes itself is the dealbreaker for me. I'm working on a list of reasons to use J. River:

"iTunes will work fine for a basic user with a static collection. Not for anyone frequently adding, modifying, downloading, and changing their collection frequently."

1. Custom tag fields for metadata.

2. For video MC blows iTunes out of the water for support of file formats.

3. For photos MC blows iTunes out of the water because it handles photos.

4. Native FLAC support.

5. Stream lossless audio over LAN or WAN to another instance of MC gui (Library Server).

6. Auto-import

7. Playing different music on different sound cards at the same time (using zones).

8. Rename files from properties (metadata).

9. Use of complex expressions to sort, edit, rename, etc.

10. Define and backup more than one library

11. Native file conversion (multi-threaded)

12. Secure ripping (on the fly encoding from multiple drives)

13. High quality 32bit audio engine.

14. MC lets you use whatever tags you want and also lets you define database fields that aren't based on a tag in the music files. Classical music is about 2/3 of my library. So being able to fully use Composer and other tags is very important. iTunes will make limited use of the Composer tag won't let me put it in a browser pane.

15. 15mb download

16. uPnP

17. Last.FM plugin

18. Display View and Theater View for HTPCs

19. DirectShow filters full customizable.

20. Uncompressed AIFF audio (*.aif, *.aiff, *.aifc) files can be played natively in "J. River audio engine (using input plug-in)

21. Access to Gracenote & FreeDB in addition to J. River's YADB using 2 free 3rd party apps to import cd.ini.

22. Access the web and auto-tag covert art to files from within MC.

23. Tabs

DC
 
Oct 12, 2009 at 10:48 PM Post #37 of 85
Quote:

Originally Posted by doctorcilantro /img/forum/go_quote.gif
And just lose all your metadata
angry_face.gif



True, hopefully you dont have to many files to redo...
redface.gif
 
Oct 12, 2009 at 10:51 PM Post #38 of 85
Another annoying thing about using ASIO would be you have to exit foobar (at least from my tests and to the best of my minimal knowledge) to watch a youtube video, play a game (no more playing a game and music at the same time), or anything other type of dual sound tasks.
 
Oct 12, 2009 at 11:16 PM Post #39 of 85
Itunes is a complete mess on Windows. It's bloated, leaves a huge memory footprint compared to foobar, and is just annoying to have on my system.
 
Oct 12, 2009 at 11:49 PM Post #40 of 85
Is there a way to have foobar automatically organize your folders with artist->album names?, or is it up to you and foobar just grabs everything off the directory?

Also is there a playlist filter like in itunes?

As you can see its taking alot of work just to get the foobar interface to be as good as itunes, and all I get out of it is less ram usage and ASIO support which I am questionable to skeptical the difference is noticeable
 
Oct 13, 2009 at 12:36 AM Post #41 of 85
Quote:

Originally Posted by Crazy*Carl /img/forum/go_quote.gif
Another annoying thing about using ASIO would be you have to exit foobar (at least from my tests and to the best of my minimal knowledge) to watch a youtube video, play a game (no more playing a game and music at the same time), or anything other type of dual sound tasks.


There are some ways around that. If you are using Vista or Windows 7 you can experiment with WASAPI in shared mode. I'm not sure if Foobar is using shared or exclusive mode. J. River Media Center has a checkbox to select whether it uses shared or exclusive mode. In shared mode the other sound applications won't get blocked.

I've gone the hardware mixing route. I'm using a Mackie Big Knob as a pre-amp, input selector and output selector. It sums inputs like a mixer. I can disable inputs that I don't want to hear (so for example system sounds won't interrupt my music). My M-Audio FW410 is used for music. The onboard sound is set as the system default so system sounds, YouTube and similar all go through the onboard sound.
 
Oct 13, 2009 at 12:39 AM Post #42 of 85
Quote:

Originally Posted by doctorcilantro /img/forum/go_quote.gif

2. For video MC blows iTunes out of the water for support of file formats.


Except for AAC and ALAC. MC falls down there.
 
Oct 13, 2009 at 12:45 AM Post #43 of 85
All the software has it plusses and minuses, just like the OSs do. I live in both worlds, by profession. My library is on my Mac, and uses iTunes. I have an iPod and an iPhone, so I guess I'm stuck, but I've been using iTunes since it came out. It's installed on my Windows machine also, as is Foobar. I don't really use iTunes in Windows, and have Foobar installed because I want to play with it after reading so many things about it here and other places. I DO use my Windows machine to rip cds using EAC, nothing on the Mac can compare although XLD comes closer than any other offering.

iTunes is a resource hog on the Mac also, especially when the database is 80,000 + tracks strong. Whatever works for you, no one is going to switch software or platforms because you think it sucks.
 
Oct 13, 2009 at 2:31 AM Post #44 of 85
Quote:

Originally Posted by Solitary1 /img/forum/go_quote.gif
especially when the database is 80,000 + tracks strong.


80000? Are you serious? I though I had a high amount at 4000.

I can only imagine how hard it must be to organize that.
 
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