The best of both worlds, the iTunes interface with foobar as a backend.

[keiron99]

Quote:

Originally Posted by StevieDvd There is a plugin foo_alac which is supposedly a little unstable. I've used one of the later 0.8 releases of foobar for a while now as the first time I tried 0.9 I had a few hiccups. Not tried it since as it all seems to work I stopped fiddling. I just selected the iTunes files in foobar and got them to play OK but some of the files don't display the information on the track correctly. The change is sound is quite noticeable for me. Steve

Thanks, Steve. I don't seem to be able to find the versions of Foobar and foo_alac which work together with iTunes.

I have spend some considerable time playing around with Foobar and Itunes the last couple of days, with kernel streaming etc. I'm listening through my superb new Perpetual Technologies DAC into a Stax SRM3 energiser and Lambda Sig Pros and I can't hear one single iota of difference between them all...and I'm not really sure why there should be!

 

[keiron99]

I've come back to this, just for a bit of fun, really. Someone please tell me if I'm wrong, but Itunes with the Foobar pass through will not play either Apple Lossless files nor FLAC files, at least it I can't get it to do so. So what sort of files are you guys using?

 

[vulc4n]

Quote:

Originally Posted by keiron99 I've come back to this, just for a bit of fun, really. Someone please tell me if I'm wrong, but Itunes with the Foobar pass through will not play either Apple Lossless files nor FLAC files, at least it I can't get it to do so. So what sort of files are you guys using?

I'm using lame 3.97 encoded MP3.

EDIT: Just some more specifics... I originaly planed to go lossless but decided against it for a two reasons... One, to me there is no audible difference between V2 lame MP3 and lossless. Seccondly, mp3 is universaly compatible with everything from my cell phone to the tivo hile flac, shorten etc are not.

 

[Oski]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Elephas 4. WAV/FLAC > foobar ASIO > E-MU 1212m optical > DAC > Amp > Headphones 5. ALAC > iTunes > AirPort Express > mini-toslink cable > DAC > Amp > Headphones 6. WAV > iTunes w/foobar pass-thru > E-MU 1212m optical > DAC > Amp > Headphones 5 and 6 sound very similar to 4. Sometimes I think I can hear some differences but they are very slight and could be imagination or wishful thinking.

I'm currently using 5 above (but 320 kbs) and find that it sounds really quite excellent. I'm glad you did not indicate that either 4 or 6 is materially different as that would have probably forced me to go through the painstaking task of figuring out Foobar/pass-through.

I like the iTunes interface and recording in AAC. Using the APX to my DAC was a nice improvement over USB. This is about as complicated as I'd like to keep it...I guess I'm not a very good audiophile.

Thanks for that comparison Elephas.

EDIT: That is when the APX is working properly. I get drops and such. Is it the fault of my particular unit or just the interference that can be expected living in a condo?

 

[Elephas]

I haven't experienced any drops, clicks, etc. with my AirPort Express. It also makes iTunes play gapless between tracks.

Are you using another brand of wireless router as well? I'm using two AirPort Extremes with the AirPort Express with WPA Personal enabled.

There is an option called "Enable interference rubustness" in the AirPort Admin Utility that you can try. Also check if you're getting interference from another wireless network on your channel. Although 802.11b/g has many channels available for overlapping networks, there are really only three to use: 1, 6, 11.

You can also try moving the AirPort Express very close to the machine doing the streaming and see if it still drops.

 

[keiron99]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Elephas I haven't experienced any drops, clicks, etc. with my AirPort Express. It also makes iTunes play gapless between tracks.

Sorry to doubt you but this directly contradicts what I've read elsewhere, that in fact Airport Express introduces clicks between the tracks that weren't there before. Can anyone alse comment?

 

[Myamps>thanyours]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Elephas I haven't experienced any drops, clicks, etc. with my AirPort Express. It also makes iTunes play gapless between tracks. Are you using another brand of wireless router as well? I'm using two AirPort Extremes with the AirPort Express with WPA Personal enabled. There is an option called "Enable interference rubustness" in the AirPort Admin Utility that you can try. Also check if you're getting interference from another wireless network on your channel. Although 802.11b/g has many channels available for overlapping networks, there are really only three to use: 1, 6, 11. You can also try moving the AirPort Express very close to the machine doing the streaming and see if it still drops.

Please if you could elaborate on how you got gapless to work, that would be great.

Thank you

 

[bangraman]

j.River Media Center handles formats such as Apple Lossless, FLAC, Ogg, etc at the same time. It is also a ripping front end for MP3 (LAME, any version), FLAC, Ogg, etc.


The user interface for playback / navigation can be set up to be superficially similar to iTunes. It will output through ASIO. There's media server functionality. Gapless, crossfade, etc features are implemented.


The authors are known to be working on album art compatibility with the iPod, but it will retrieve cover art automatically and embed them into MP3 tags. It will load the iPod, any UMS player, MTP players and various others.


It is also a DirectX host. For example, I use Algorithmix with it. http://www.algorithmix.com/en/peq2.htm


It's also capable of transcodes on-the-fly using LAME as the encoding engine, so you could store in lossless and load players using MP3 (machine speed pending). With a dual-core processor you can halve transcode times. It can also call LAME MT to theoretically cut even that time in half, although MT is not sonically proven yet.


$40. The best investment I ever made in terms of computer audio. www.jrmediacenter.com

 

[Elephas]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Myamps>thanyours Please if you could elaborate on how you got gapless to work, that would be great.

I didn't really do anything. I just bought an AirPort Express and used it, and noticed that track transitions are seamless.

 

[ipumuk]

i think you have to change the playback settings according to this guide by zemo to improve your sound. although i am not sure if it really improves the soundquality with a bad source/components ;(

http://www.ubernet.org/index.php?p=FoobarSetUp

Quote:

Playback Set “Output Data Format” to the highest your card will support. If you don’t know, set it to 24bit. If sound doesn’t work when you hit play, change it to 16bit. Check the “Dither” box, and set it to whichever sounds best (FYI – Strong ATH sounds best). Playback: DSP Manager: Resampler Remove all components from the left pane. Move “Resampler (PPHS)” to the left pane. Move “Advanced Limiter” to the left pane. It has been suggested that you should feel free to use the crossfeed DSP if you're using headphones. It may help spacial positioning, but I don't like it...my amp accounts for that! Playback: Resampler Set target sample rate to 48000Hz. (NOT to 192000 or anything like that. The reasoning is that all 10k2 based cards [as all creative cards are...audigy, audigy 2, etc, as well as all AC'97 cards, wich include nearly everything onboard, etc] resample EVERYTHING to 48000Hz in the hardware. So it wouldn't matter what samplerate you set it to, it's all being turned to 48000Hz. BUT, a problem arises....the hardware resampler does a crappy job. The solution is to set a GOOD software resampler [like the SSRC algorithm....included in foobar] to resample to 48000Hz, therefore bypassing the hardware resampler. If you are using a higher grade soundcard [such as the E-mu 1212m] then you may set the samplerate to the known best setting [with the E-mu 1212m, 192kHz sounds best.] If you have a truely magical card like the RME HDSP 9632, you can set the card to resample to the best possible rate of 176.4kHz, but few cards can do this. Playback: Output Select Kernel Streaming

how do you change the sound volume in foobar?

and how do you change the sound volume in itunes when you use the passthrough?

 

[thomaspf]

Wow, what a stream of responses. I think the original poster left out the material benefit of this solution which might explain the lack of enthusiasm.

Itunes on the PC does not use kernel streaming or ASIO and as a consequence does not play music with full fidelity.

If you can route the audio data through foobar this would open the possibility of bit perfect playback with itunes.

Has anyone actually verified this with a DD/DTS encoded WAV file?

Cheers

Thomas

 

[johnas]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bangraman j.River Media Center handles formats such as Apple Lossless, FLAC, Ogg, etc at the same time. It is also a ripping front end for MP3 (LAME, any version), FLAC, Ogg, etc.

I have switched over to J. River MC also. I was using Foobar with columns UI.

I prefer the database in J River, the smart playlisting and the fact that it works with my DAP. My favourite feature is the Library Browser, which is cover art/graphic view of the music.

They've got a thirty day trial, definitely worth a look if you like iTunes but need the format support of Foobar.

 

[thomaspf]

And as the ultimate bonus Jriver support ASIO directly so you get bit perfect playback...

 

[johto]

Ok, what am i doing wrong, i completely uninstalled Itunes, then installed the newest Itunes again, then installed the multi-plugin. It shows up on the Itunes preferences but i am not able to enable the foobar pass-through because it either complains about "access privileges" or "foobar is not installed" my foobar is the 8.0.3 special edition and it is installed in the default directory c:\program files\foobar2000.

This is the error message i get after checking the foobar pass-through and hitting OK button:


I tried to run itunes as "administrator" and i get the same error plus this:


pdate: ok i got it fixed, the problem was, that i have two cards, and wanted to use the secondary card(juli@) with asio(not the default playback) for the foobar/itunes...i had to switch the asio card to primary for the multi-plugin to "remember" the settings, after that i was able to switch it back to the secondary and it still uses it fine. Huh that was strange

 

[Achtunghoy]

Genius component!!!!!

Now I can stand to use iTunes!

Thank you, whoever.