[kurt bermuda]

Foobar

 

[ranhoubeiyin]

i think so,there really shouldn't be any difference between any player, if there is it's filtering which you may or may not desire.thanks

 

[Terja]

  Ive always been a winamp user, but would like to try something new with wasapi exclusive mode. the thing is I want a really compact player like winamp. something that just covers a small part of the screen and has a simple playlist with just interpret - title & time and nothing like a windows which covers my entire screen, has a library with fancy pictures to show off etc. just something with a very basic GUI. which other player comes closest to this?

 
JRiver has all these options and more - at free to try for 30 days you can put it through its paces to see what it does. It's pay to play though after that but worth it in my view.

 

[RonaldDumsfeld]

foobar

 

[hogger129]

foobar2000

 

[Ari33]

   
It's pay to play though after that but worth it in my view.

 
Unless you have one of these calender dateshift programs like 'time stopper' which allows an indefinite trial.. I know a guy who does that, I keep telling him if you like the software, pay for it. His excuse is he can't afford it.. what a cheapskate freeloader!!  

 

[TheGame]

   
JRiver has all these options and more - at free to try for 30 days you can put it through its paces to see what it does. It's pay to play though after that but worth it in my view.

I like JRiver as well. A friend of mine here on Head-fi recommended that I try it out, and I fell in love with it. I was an avid iTunes user for many years, and while iTunes is ok, it doesn't play FLAC files, it wants to convert them to apple lossless. Besides that, there is a distinct difference to my ears for sound quality from JRiver compared to the other players I have tried. You can also set audio output mode to WASAPI exclusive, AISO etc. Foobar is great too and it is free.

 

[neergan1216]

I've auditioned maybe a hundred players.  For sound quality: SockPlayer. Also, it's free.

 

[TheGame]

I've never heard of SockPlayer, will have to look into it!

 

[neergan1216]

I monitor this CNET site weekly. You can find what players they have downloaded recently. There are many under-the-radar players out there. http://download.cnet.com/windows/media-players/?osNamesExact=Windows+7

 

[StudioSound]

JRiver gets my vote.

 

[Hellenback]

Tried J River when it was at version 16, compared it to Foobar and heard no difference using a mid-fi set-up (in this day and age) with approx $1500 invested in DAC -> AMP -> Cabling -> HD650s)
 
I'm not sure if J River has improved since then but when I read people use it for "high end" functions (like DSD playback and continual updates) I tend to think perhaps they haven't spent the time required to set up Foobar properly/completely. It has all the audio playback functions of other players (not into much eye-candy) and the components are updated when a better version is developed, as is the player. It also has quite a large community base from around the world.
 
I've used Foobar exclusively for many years (outside of trials) and have a hard time believing you can get better sound if you know how to set it up properly.
 
To be fair, I'll spend some time configuring/listening through the newer version of J River to see if their really is (as in I hear) a SQ difference. If there is, I'd be very interested in the science behind different sounding bit perfect playback through the same hardware.

 

[Terja]

  ... in the meanwhile ... no butter please.

 

[StudioSound]

  Tried J River when it was at version 16, compared it to Foobar and heard no difference using a mid-fi set-up (in this day and age) with approx $1500 invested in DAC -> AMP -> Cabling -> HD650s)
 
I'm not sure if J River has improved since then but when I read people use it for "high end" functions (like DSD playback and continual updates) I tend to think perhaps they haven't spent the time required to set up Foobar properly/completely. It has all the audio playback functions of other players (not into much eye-candy) and the components are updated when a better version is developed, as is the player. It also has quite a large community base from around the world.
 
I've used Foobar exclusively for many years (outside of trials) and have a hard time believing you can get better sound if you know how to set it up properly.
 
To be fair, I'll spend some time configuring/listening through the newer version of J River to see if their really is (as in I hear) a SQ difference. If there is, I'd be very interested in the science behind different sounding bit perfect playback through the same hardware.

 
If you believe that software can make a difference, JRiver is doing a few things which should make it better than Foobar.
If all you want is bit-perfect playback, I don't think it matters what software you use, and JRiver should sound no better or worse than any other bit-perfect player.
 
The thing about JRiver is that everything is integrated into one package. I don't need to figure out what plugins I need to get to enable ASIO output or WASAPI Event, and what I need to get DSD playback working - it's all built in out of the box.
 
JRiver also has native support for VST plugins, so if you want to use them, there's no need to mess about trying to get VST Bridge applications working. (I never got them working right)
This can be quite important for headphone users, as the best quality sound is normally achieved with a crossfeed or HRTF plugin. (I like Redline Monitor)
 
And once you start doing processing to the audio, it's working with 64-bit precision to avoid degrading the quality.
Even if you don't want to be using EQ or VST plugins, there are features like R128 Volume Leveling built in which benefit from this.
 
It also has a lot of very advanced library management features, and in addition to top-quality audio playback, you also get the best video quality playback as well.
Rather than only playing to one device at a time, with the Zone feature, JRiver running on one PC can be the center of your home audio/video system, handling playback to any number of devices. It's far more powerful than a simple music player like Foobar or iTunes.

 

[Ari33]

 
To be fair, I'll spend some time configuring/listening through the newer version of J River to see if their really is (as in I hear) a SQ difference. If there is, I'd be very interested in the science behind different sounding bit perfect playback through the same hardware.

 
Objectivist vs the golden eared subjectivist?  In theory bit perfect playback should sound the same with all players. Maybe I didn't configure Foobar correctly as it always sounded quite different to Jriver. Foobar was warmer, more analogue sounding but slightly lacking in detail in comparison to Jriver. 
 
There is a good blog on this subject where a number of music player programs were tested in bit perfect mode and according to the tester were all found to be identical sounding... the actual objective tests all showed results (which could be argued) to be identical in frequency response, noise THD, stereo crosstalk and jitter too.
 
See- http://archimago.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/measurements-bit-perfect-audiophile.html