[m-i-c-k-e-y]

But when they say it plays Bitperfect its bitperfect right?
 
However I am more on functionality. Using JRiver (available in MacOS too) as my media player...Audio, Video, TV, Streaming.
 
Like right now I am watching HDTV material with my HP and DAC + AMP. Most players can't do those.
 
But one additional feature that I like in JRiver (w/c is available in F2K too) is the ability to use  your VST plugins.

 

[Dobrescu George]

  But when they say it plays Bitperfect its bitperfect right?
 
However I am more on functionality. Using JRiver (available in MacOS too) as my media player...Audio, Video, TV, Streaming.
 
Like right now I am watching HDTV material with my HP and DAC + AMP. Most players can't do those.
 
But one additional feature that I like in JRiver (w/c is available in F2K too) is the ability to use  your VST plugins.

 
This is a great feature, and I always thought that it is important to be able to use VST plugins, especially izotope Ozone plugins are great. 
 
I remember being able to use VST plugins with foobar too, but I forgot exactly how I set it up to be able to. 

 

[highender]

I am using www.albumplayer.com for years now and still satisfied, well worth a try.

 

[Schonen]

I've been using Mixxx DJ software recently when I stumbled upon it by accident. Has lots of features, including asio support, and is stellar for free.
 
http://mixxx.org/
 
Another player I like and sometimes use is 1by1, it is a directory player instead of a playlist/tag player.
 
http://mpesch3.de1.cc/

 

[yeahaudio]

Sock Player. What a revelation. I can hear the minute details of the singers breathing in. Wow.

 

[GnuB]

I am surprised that nobody has mentioned Kodi (XBMC) as it is a full featured, cross-platform multimedia software package.  I am using it on Windows 10 and Raspberry Pi for both music and video.  It also has a picture viewer.  It supports WASAPI on Windows and browses libraries in a variety of ways.  I like the Party Mode which randomly plays music from the library.  It may not be the "Best" or have all of the features of some of the other packages mentioned but it works for me.
 
https://kodi.tv/ 

 

[yay101]

I'd say mostly because it is quite heavy for "just music" but you are right it does the job superbly. There is also kodibuntu which can be used to give new life to old machines, kodi for both android and iOS in both app and full media centre forms wasapi/ alsa for bit perfect playback, visualisations, automatic metadata retrieval including band images, upsampling for greater than 2.0 setups, is both a upnp renderer and server, has apps for everything including tidal.

It is quite feature rich, and has its own repositories for more plugins.

 

[Dobrescu George]

  I am surprised that nobody has mentioned Kodi (XBMC) as it is a full featured, cross-platform multimedia software package.  I am using it on Windows 10 and Raspberry Pi for both music and video.  It also has a picture viewer.  It supports WASAPI on Windows and browses libraries in a variety of ways.  I like the Party Mode which randomly plays music from the library.  It may not be the "Best" or have all of the features of some of the other packages mentioned but it works for me.
 
https://kodi.tv/ 

 
I think that XBMC can work with madVR, which makes it much more valuable for video playback. 
 
As a music playback software. it is not the best though. 
 
SQ wise, Foobar tweaked can provide good quality music, especially for us geeks who take the time to tweak it. For those who find it complicated, there is always jriver, but it is a bit expensive.
 
 (in Romania, at least half of people are still using winamp. It sounds worse than most players, but people continue using it (O.O) )

 

[goodsguys]

I spent half a day downloading trial versions of the most popular music players to try and gauge sound quality differences.
 
Although they do play video and are paid for as well so may not be what you are after
 
1. Best for sound quality: Nero
2. Powerdvd
3. Windvd
4. Windows media players
 
These easily beat kodi

 

[yay101]

  I spent half a day downloading trial versions of the most popular music players to try and gauge sound quality differences.
 
Although they do play video and are paid for as well so may not be what you are after
 
1. Best for sound quality: Nero
2. Powerdvd
3. Windvd
4. Windows media players
 
These easily beat kodi

You might want to check your settings. Bits ARE bits. If you think you are hearing things that sound better you might want to check the EQ in those programs. Windows media player doesnt even bypass the windows resampler.
 
Thats the bad thing about subjective things like "this sounds better" people always forget the "for me" part.

 

[Creeping Doom]

All too true , the "for me" part .

 

[goodsguys]

I suggest you download and try the media players i mentioned then you would have room to talk.
 
I'm not an expert or a software developer, so cannot provide an explanation as to why some media players sound better than others,
 
they just do.
 
I don't agree with you simple bits are bits explanation.
 
It may depend on how transparent your audio system is.

 

[Dobrescu George]

  I suggest you download and try the media players i mentioned then you would have room to talk.
 
I'm not an expert or a software developer, so cannot provide an explanation as to why some media players sound better than others,
 
they just do.
 
I don't agree with you simple bits are bits explanation.
 
It may depend on how transparent your audio system is.

1. You are right, software sounds different. However
 
2. I find it very disturbing that you liked Nero most. I mean... No, I don't meant anything at all. Nothing to see here. You must wither really like it's particular sound, or have a setup which reacts better to it than to other software. 
 
 

  You might want to check your settings. Bits ARE bits. If you think you are hearing things that sound better you might want to check the EQ in those programs. Windows media player doesnt even bypass the windows resampler.
 
Thats the bad thing about subjective things like "this sounds better" people always forget the "for me" part.

 
 
At first I was going to argue over the fact that Nero cannot be the best software for music playback, there is foobar, fidelizer stuff, jriver, etc. but then this statement came up. 
 
Bits are bits. Data. This data is taken in samples. One second is split in 44100 points of data, in which data is measured in 16 bits, think of them as +8 to -8, where positive and negative are relative to a zero in which the driver is in resting position. These points need to be interpolated, using quite complicated algorithms, high pass, low pass, filters, then OS will resample the music, then OS kernel will add it's own flavor to the music. 
 
Nothing can bypass this to this day, only players with dedicated OS are immune to this. 
 
Now, I can assure you want winamp does not sound like foobar, and if you download and test, you will hear obvious differences. It is not relevant which sounds better for you, but that they are different. 
 
All software sounds different. 
 
My own project will have it's own sound, it is inevitable. The most important aspect is which sound closest to real, natural music, and if that one is the best for all people. (HQplayer is a king is sound quality, but using it....... I simply given up after having to stop song each time I wanted to change song or modify a setting.)

 

[yay101]

  I suggest you download and try the media players i mentioned then you would have room to talk.
 
I'm not an expert or a software developer, so cannot provide an explanation as to why some media players sound better than others,
 
they just do.
 
I don't agree with you simple bits are bits explanation.
 
It may depend on how transparent your audio system is.

I AM a software developer, and i have used all of those programs many times. My point stands.
 
Bias, mood, what you ate, smells currently in the room all have effects on your hearing, and i would put money on bias being a big part of your listening experience.
 
Bits are bits is a fact, 1 is 1. 0 is 0. If you disagree then you are missing a fundamental understanding of how computers work. They CAN HOWEVER send different bits if they have done processing to the signal to "make it sound better" which is why i suggested checking for equalisation.

 

[castleofargh]

IMO a player should be picked for its features(some of which could be related to sound options), not for how it "sounds" when nothing is set correctly.
if I start using some with windows mixer including some weird THX DSP I have on my laptop by default, and then get another player that goes with kernel streaming, boom they sound different. if one forces the max resolution of the DAC like asio, and another makes some weird resampling because I didn't care to check my windows settings, they might just sound different from bad resampling or the DAC's low pass at low resolution, or whatever else.
blaming the player for those stuff is going a little far IMO. now going for the all " a 1 is a 1" thing, is ideally true, but in practice, as soon as something as simple as volume control is used, we're passed the bit perfect concept. so it's not all black and white.  but it should be easy enough to get stuff that are audibly identical. http://archimago.blogspot.fr/2013/06/measurements-part-i-bit-perfect.html
 
now when everything else is equal and 2 players still sound different, personally I would try to RMAA them or something like that to find out which is doing it wrong, try to solve the issue, or simply unistall the sucker.

 
so far I've been happy with foobar for what I do, but plenty of others are just as fine.