[gsferrari]

Hi all,

I am not a big fan of Linux. I prefer windows because I consider it easier to use and more multimedia friendly. However something happened today that will make me eat my own hat...

I usually listen to all my mp3 cd's using my laptop and in the windows xp-pro environment. I thought Windows Media PLayer 9 would take come beating...Then I found Winamp

This afternoon I started up in Linux to do a few Cadence CMOS layouts and about an hour into my layout I got bored...I wanted to listen to music...so I went through a bit of trouble finding and installing XMMS and all the plugins, skins etc. for a good measure...

I start playing my mp3's and decide to give my 580's a go. They were always underpowered in Windows but here in Linux there seems to be a lot more output coming from the same crappy laptop sound card...I could reach higher volumes...

Besides that - the cans just ROCKED!!! The same tunes that sounded crappy from WMP9 and Winamp came to life in XMMS...

Much better sound quality and the crossfeed function was AWESOME!!! The soundstage seemed wider than anything I had heard before...

I am thinking of sticking to Linux (I use Redhat 9.0) in the future...who thought that a free OS would have such an awesome music decoder!!

Hats off to all those nix developers out there!!!

 

[ADS]

Are you using the ALSA drivers? Those are very often much better than the stock windows drivers (although there are sometimes some issues at high volumes).

 

[D-EJ915]

The problem I have with RH9 (didn't have it with Suse...anyway) is that it didn't always recognize my Sound Device right away (C-Media, built-in 6.1) and I had to "audio device check" thingy 3 times before it would work...annoying as crap, but it was good; I like the fact that it was modelled after Winamp.

 

[gsferrari]

Here is a list of all the stuff that I installed with XMMS...man I am in love with a linux box!! Never thought the day would come...They should make jukeboxes that run with Linux!!! Tha audio quality is stunning!!

here is the list :-

xmms-1.2.8-1.i386.rpm
xmms-esd-1.2.8-1.i386.rpm
xmms-gl-1.2.8-1.i386.rpm
xmms-icon8.xpm (XMMS Icon

)
xmms-mikmod-1.2.8-1.i386.rpm
xmms-skins-1.0.1-2cl.noarch.rpm
xmms-vorbis-1.2.8-1.i386.rpm

And this is the website where I found most of the packages...

http://www.xmms.org/

 

[Lando]

Thanks for the heads up. I'll have to boot into Knoppix and see how XMMS compares to Foobar2000.

 

[gsferrari]

Its incredible...gets better the more I listen to it...

I dont know how they managed it but I can actually feel the transposing of the vocals not only from left to right in a line through the head but straight out around the head in front and behind!!

This sounds close to Binaural...but it could also be because the 580's have this awesome knack of making the sounds seem to come from around and outside the head rather than from inside.

If you download all those .rpm files then you have the basic set up. I found even more rpm's for various effects and stuff but I havent messed with them "yet"

Just enjoying my music for now...

The funny thing is that the Linux sound package seems to be able to draw out a lot more power and volume from the sound card than windows could...I wanna thank whoever wrote the linux driver for my sound card which is a lowly Realtek AC'97 !!!

 

[blessingx]

I use XMMS on OSX occasionally. Although I tend to primarily use other players, XMMS' plugin support is amazing. FLAC, Ogg, MP3, whatever... anything I throw at it it'll handle.

 

[raif]

i use xmms and the ac97 with my philips headphones. I love the sound. I think some of the clarity comes from the sound going through alot less channels. With linux it is just decoded-data->soundcard->output. With windows there are alot of other things, like windows sound panel, direct-sound and other bs messing with the sound.

freebsd is awesome. all i have to do is

cd /usr/ports/multimedia/xmms
make all install

 

[CEO Matt]

Quote:

Originally posted by raif freebsd is awesome. all i have to do is cd /usr/ports/multimedia/xmms make all install

Just one question... are their many gentoo zealots around here?

anywhoo i'm a big fan of XMMS too, it works flawlessly with my .FLAC's, friendly interface and plugins galore. i'd highly recommend the BTRemote if anyone's got a mid-to-high end sony ericsson phone and bluetooth dongle, it turns your phone into a nice wireless remote. i can lie in bed and skip tracks etc.

only thing that beats that is iTunes, but i can't afford a mac... (Well iTunes plus salling clipper, so no it won't go with windows iTunes)

 

[hempcamp]

XMMS is and always has been a great piece of software. It was one of my favorites when I used Linux. Glad to hear from blessingx that it can be compiled in OS X!

--Chris

 

[keithdn]

I am a "non-Windows" user, and XMMS is my default player. I run Slackware (9.0), using ALSA as drivers. Recently I've had to shut down my PC because my parents are adding some outlets to our basement. Nonetheless, I've been on my upstairs 'family' PC with Windows XP using Winamp 2.91 and Foobar2000 v0.7.3a (which, BTW, is the best player ever) and I must say I am extremely underwhelmed about the audio quality. It's been some years since I've actually listened to music on Windoze, and I guess I've forgotten how great ALSA (when and only when, BTW, it is properly configured) actually is.

[edit]
I must attest to the post above (I'm sorry, I've forgotten the poster) that ALSA does have problems at high software volums: If you pump XMMS to a 92%+ volume leve, without kmix nor any other external mixers running, the sound will be very much so distorted, so my recommendation to you is if it's not loud enough at ~80-85%, get an external amp for the extra volume, as ALSA can be underwhelming.
[/edit]

@raif freeBSD:
I agree, FreeBSD is great! However I like, even more, OpenBSD. It just seems so secure to me, as I use it to power a few FTP servers (all currently down.. haha). Anyways, I must attest that I do not like any BSD systems as desktops, as they seem to run at high levels with nothing more than the kernel running -- too high. Linux, though far less stable and secure, runs much more efficiently for my everyday tasks. If you like FreeBSD (assuming it's your choice, and you're using it as a desktop system), I'm sure you'd feel right at home running Slackware!

@CEO Matt:
I've used Gentoo Gentoo quite a bit, and while I like portage extremely well (much better, IMHO, than Debian's apt-get), the only reason I stick to Slackware is my familiarity with it: I've been a diehard user since the 3.x days.

 

[gsferrari]

Ok can you do us a favor and make a list of software to install WITH xmms and post links to the downloads. If you can also make installation isntructions it will be great!!!

Cant wait!!! The kmix stuff is getting me all hot...xmms is great on its own - super even at high volumes - dunno what you meant with the distortion...windows distorts at FAR lower volumes...

Cheers!!

 

[keithdn]

Well, Kmix is a completely different app, run seperately from XMMS and often used as Microsoft's "Playback Control" is used, though it can be completely disabled (which I ultimately recommend).

For a list of 'sound enhancing' plugins for XMMS, you can have a look here: http://www.xmms.org/effect.php. Most of them I've tryed and are quite nice, especially Spatializer StreamFX (notice, the headphone option

)

Also, now that I actually think about what I've posted, the 'distortion' I've talked aboout is most likely the effect of my mediocre (for lack of a stronger word) headphones (Sony MDR-300 and the occasional V6 that are my fathers). I've been very much so planning on getting the Senn HD580's as I've found a shop that sells them for around ~$150 plus shipping, but I'm not especially rich and it may be a month or two before I can actually order them. :\

I'm sorry if this sounds rather.. messed up. I'm quite new to this whole audiophile-headphones deal, and even moreso to Microsoft Windoze (

) so forgive me if I really don't know what I'm talking about. I do encode my albums with FLAC (most of the time), Vorbis (nearly the rest of the time, and Musepack (a few albums, just starting to mess around with it).

Thanks for your patience and I am much like you looking forward to improving the sound quality of my linux environment. I am especially interested in this as you say this drives your Senn 580's very nicely, and I am most intent on ordering a pair within a very short time, and was considering a Gilmore amp to drive them (though all options are still in the air..).

EDIT: period breaking the link..

 

[jim]

Quote:

Originally posted by CEO Matt Just one question... are their many gentoo zealots around here?

yay, team gentoo!

Been using it since june of last year and haven't looked back; it's simply awesome. I believe Capt. Bubba is also a gentoo fan, and there are a few others as well but I forget who.

I noticed this a long time ago on my dell inspiron, though I don't recall if I ever mentioned it on these boards. My laptop always had this really nasty static sound from the headphone output in windows, but sounded perfectly fine in linux. I might try using alsa one of these days, but so far haven't found the need. My el-cheapo soundcard is natively supported by the kernel!

 

[CEO Matt]

Quote:

Originally posted by jim My el-cheapo soundcard is natively supported by the kernel!

I'll take it you haven't compiled the 2.6.x series test kernels yet then... They've moved from OSS to ALSA as the kernel sound system. Real nice latency tweaks too, if you can gentoo you should be able to upgrade that kernel ^^

As for a list of dependancies for XMMS, i think it's rather light (i've become a lazy gentoo user so all i have to do is 'emerge xmms') gtk-1.x and gtk1.x-devel, vorbis (well not really but why wouldn't you want to use it?)

that's just a starting list so feel free to modify it to be a tad more precise.