[RevMen]

Theoretically WASAPI and ASIO should get you to the same place:  an unmolested bit stream.  I find WASAPI easier to use and more reliable.  ASIO depends on your soundcard.  If you have to install a generic driver it can be a pain in the ass to get working.
 
Quote:

Milkdrop is why I stick to Winamp. Nothing else that I know of comes close.

 
Did you know that you can use Milkdrop with your computer's analog in?  I run a cable from my preamp to my computer's line-in so that I can use Milkdrop with vinyl on my TV.  Hit Control-L and type "linein://" into the box.

 

[esldude]

Too much gimmickry and resources used by Winamp. 
 
I use Foobar via WASAPI on Windows machines. 
 
I recently started using UM Player rather than VLC for videos.
 
On my Linux machines I prefer Audacious though there are many fine pieces of music software available.  Clementine or Quod Libet and more can do a good job.  Everyone will have their preferences of course.

 

[anetode]

Winamp since '96 mainly due to habit. I have to rely on a small fleet of supporting apps where Winamp's native features are weak (e.g. Tag&Rename, Audacity, dB Poweramp), not to mention the plugins, but by now the whole experience is fairly quick. glitch-free and, most of all, comfortable.

 

[stijn]

Quote:

Theoretically WASAPI and ASIO should get you to the same place:  an unmolested bit stream. 

 
indeed; ASIO is still lower level though (or more like as lowlevel as it can get under Windows), it just gets you raw bits and nothing more. WASAPI is somewhat higher level and has volume controls etc (though I do not knwo at what level these operate). I haven't compared the two, but ASIO on was always the only reliable way to get extreme low latencies of a couple of milliseconds. WASAPI is also meant to do this, but I haven't got the chance to check if it does.

 

[xnor]

I do not see how you could go lower level than WASAPI exclusive. Also, latency does not matter in an audio player, what matters is glitch-free playback. Low latency means more overhead and higher risk of glitches.

 

[stijn]

should have been more clear - with low level I rather meant 'from a coding perspective'. Programming against the ASIO sdk is really all 'here's the most basic stuff, now do everything else yourself' while WASAPI is more higher level/programmer-friendly in that area. For a player latency indeed does not matter.

 

[gradohn]

Foobar for music and VLC for other media.

 

[xnor]

Well WASAPI only does additional processing such as resampling, mixing, FX .. in shared mode. In exclusive mode all you get is buffers to read from or write to, pretty much the same as in ASIO.

 

[StudioSound]

I prefer JRiver Media Center over other players. Not necessarily because it sounds better than other players - if a player is decoding properly and outputting WASAPI exclusive, it should be bit-perfect - but because it has a much larger feature set than anything else out there, and is very powerful.

Unfortunately, with all this power, it can be intimidating to use and get it set up to act the way you want it to.
The more I use it, the more I am finding that it will almost certainly be able to do what you want, but you might have to check the Wiki or ask on the forums before you figure out how to do that.

As a Music Server, I don't think anything else comes close. It's extremely powerful in that regard.

The other thing that's nice is that JRiver is not just a top-tier audio player - you have all of its audio features available when playing back video too, so it's the best video player out there as well as being the best music player.

What is the difference between an ASIO and WASAPI plugin? Is there a benefit of using one over another?

If your hardware has a native ASIO driver (i.e. the manufacturer's site has one for download) then ASIO generally has the most direct path into the audio hardware.
ASIO4All and other "ASIO" drivers are typically just wrappers for Kernel Streaming, and are not a good option. WASAPI is generally the best option if your hardware doesn't have a native ASIO driver.

There are a few types of WASAPI - Exclusive or Shared, and Event Style.

WASAPI Exclusive Mode allows the player to take control of the sound hardware and handle things like channel switching, sample rate switching etc. Most hardware allows access that is on-par with ASIO when using WASAPI Exclusive Mode. Some hardware, such as the ASUS sound cards, need an ASIO driver for this level of control. WASAPI Exclusive Mode does not allow other software to send audio to the sound card, so you won't hear system sounds while music is playing.

If you do not use Exclusive Mode, the player won't be able to change sample rates on the card, and it has to be set to output the same settings as you have in the Sound Control Panel.
While playing music, you will also be able to hear other sounds playing at the same time - system sounds, videos playing in your web browser and so on.

Event Style WASAPI allows the device to pull the audio data as required, rather than the system pushing the data to the card. Generally I find this works a bit better overall, but it's not going to affect audio quality.

 

[Tman5293]

I'm using Spotify. I pay the $10 monthly premium fee. Unlimited music for $10 a month seems like a pretty good deal to me. Spotify itself works pretty good as a music player, though I feel like they copied a few things from iTunes. 

 

[fuzzyash]

im deciding between foobar and winamp
can anybody comment on the differences between the two programs?

 

[anetode]

Quote:

im deciding between foobar and winamp
can anybody comment on the differences between the two programs?

 

I am certain that there are very well informed head-fiers who can and maybe will jump in and better outline the differences, but I think the most important suggestion is to download both of them and try them out. Note that foobar has a steep learning curve but near endless configurability while winamp comes from a more old school and cluttered all-in-one tradition that's sadly gone a bit stale as far as mods go. You can get bit perfect output from either one and the determinant factor might be your requirements for usability and flavor of GUI.

 

[RevMen]

I agree, download them both and see which you like more.  They're both free and small so you have nothing to lose.  Spend some time with Foobar configuring it and installing some plugins.  I like Foobar more because I find it easier to manage my music collection, which is organized by file structure rather than tags.

 

[xnor]

Hmmm.. my foobar2000 playlists are based on tags only. I do keep a file structure according to the tags but even without that my playlists wouldn't look any different.

 

[Happy Camper]

I've tried several over the years but come back to foobar because of it's bare structure and fast loading. Haven't noticed a difference in sound with Jriver, Musicbee, ililth, winamp, itunes, etc. but I'm all for convenience and free.