[P.J]

Ain't ASIO better than Wasapi? My audio interface has native ASIO.

 

[SirDrexl]

I like Foobar for music, PowerDVD for video (I need BD playback, including discs that aren't ripped).

 

[chinesekiwi]

Quote:

Originally Posted by vcoheda /img/forum/go_quote.gif for vids i use VLC Media Player although MPC is good too.

Oh god VLC is terrible for video. VLC is nothing but crap now tbh.
Remember, it's MPC-Home Cinema. It easily beats the default MPC.
I've compared a lot of video player side-by-side and MPC-HC came out on top. Windows Media Player 11 actually came in second believe it or not. It's actually not that bad at all. MPC-HC + using the Haali Renderer in the options = fantastic.

 

[Ham Sandwich]

Quote:

Originally Posted by HotHead /img/forum/go_quote.gif I was going to try J.River but seen it wasn't freeware so I frigued I'd give Foobar a shot, first. Foobar w/Wasapi sounds amazing.

J. River has a freeware version called J. River Media Jukebox.

The Jukebox version is a stripped down version of J. River Media Center. It does audio only (no video), and has a few other features stripped out. It is based on version 12 of J River Media Center. J River Media Center is now at version 14, so you're missing additions that J River made in versions 13 and 14. One biggie new feature is WASAPI support which was added in version 13. And since Jukebox is older it doesn't recognize new iPod versions. But otherwise Jukebox and Media Center are very similar. Jukebox does support ASIO as a playback method for bitperfect playback.

The J River players are based around your music being organized in a database. Foobar is more based around your music being organized by files. Being based around a database allows you to do more complex searches and track more metadata and tagging info about your music. Makes it easier to organize and reorganize your music. Very nice for large collections.

Both Foobar and J River do pretty much perfect gapless playback both with LAME encoded MP3 and with lossless files like FLAC.

 

[Ham Sandwich]

Quote:

Originally Posted by HotHead /img/forum/go_quote.gif Like already I have noticed that my regular computer speakers no longer work on any web content since I've configured foobar.

That's because Foobar runs WASAPI in exclusive mode. Exclusive mode means Foobar gets exclusive use of the audio hardware. That means no other applications will be able to do audio while Foobar is running with WASAPI playback mode. That also means that your able to get bit perfect playback from Foobar always. If Windows is allowed to mix sounds from multiple applications then you no longer have bit perfect playback. If you want software mixing you give up on the bit perfect playback.

I don't know if there is a way to get Foobar to do WASAPI playback set to shared mode. Shared mode WASAPI allows software mixing but sacrifices bit perfect playback.

J River Media Center has an option to be able to run WASAPI in shared mode or exclusive mode.

There are other ways to manage playback from multiple aplications. One way is to use a hardware mixer. If you have two audio devices you can dedicate one to music and the other to system sounds. Then use a hardware mixer to combine the two. That's the route I've gone. Foobar or J River get exclusive use of my good audio device for music listening. All other sounds including YouTube get sent to the onboard audio. Then the two audio outputs are combined in an external mixer (in my case a Mackie Big Knob). That setup makes it easy to mute system sounds and other sounds so nothing interrupts my music.

 

[Sherlock19]

hmm foobar is good for me simply because i dont feel the need to buy an application where theres something(foobar) that can prolly do it for free

 

[Aynjell]

I found a notice-able difference between WMP and foobar playback with the same files. ON linux I rip with sound-juicer and play with rhythmbox, which is my current situation.

 

[HotHead]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ham Sandwich /img/forum/go_quote.gif There are other ways to manage playback from multiple aplications. One way is to use a hardware mixer. If you have two audio devices you can dedicate one to music and the other to system sounds. Then use a hardware mixer to combine the two. That's the route I've gone. Foobar or J River get exclusive use of my good audio device for music listening. All other sounds including YouTube get sent to the onboard audio. Then the two audio outputs are combined in an external mixer (in my case a Mackie Big Knob). That setup makes it easy to mute system sounds and other sounds so nothing interrupts my music.

This seems like a good solution. I fail to see though how you can use the on-board audio at the same time as you're using the other "good audio device" as it seems my PC speakers have been disabled once foobar was configured. I did notice that as long as foobar isn't running that web content like youtube plays out my stereo speakers that i configured foobar to play out of. But my PC speakers are no longer functional.

 

[SirDrexl]

Quote:

Originally Posted by HotHead /img/forum/go_quote.gif This seems like a good solution. I fail to see though how you can use the on-board audio at the same time as you're using the other "good audio device" as it seems my PC speakers have been disabled once foobar was configured. I did notice that as long as foobar isn't running that web content like youtube plays out my stereo speakers that i configured foobar to play out of. But my PC speakers are no longer functional.

It sounds like your PC speakers are connected to the same device Foobar uses.

You'll have to separate them, and you may not have to use onboard sound to do it. Some sound cards will treat the analog and digital outputs as two separate devices. Check the audio devices in "Sound" in Control Panel. For instance, my Xonar D2 has both a "Speakers" (analog) and an "S/PDIF Pass-through" device. If your sound card doesn't separate them like this, you'll have to use onboard sound.

You set the one you want to use for everything but foobar as the default device (analog), then manually configure foobar to output through the other (digital), and that would go to your DAC. Then, Ham Sandwich suggested you could connect the analog outputs of both the external DAC and the default audio to a mixer.

 

[Ham Sandwich]

Quote:

Originally Posted by HotHead /img/forum/go_quote.gif This seems like a good solution. I fail to see though how you can use the on-board audio at the same time as you're using the other "good audio device" as it seems my PC speakers have been disabled once foobar was configured. I did notice that as long as foobar isn't running that web content like youtube plays out my stereo speakers that i configured foobar to play out of. But my PC speakers are no longer functional.

It can work cause I've set it up that way in both XP and Vista. I have J River Media Center set to use my FW-410 in exclusive mode. I have my onboard sound set as the default audio device. I can open a browser and play a YouTube video while J River Media Center is playing music. The YouTube audio plays over my onboard sound. The J River audio plays over my FW-410. Both can be playing at the same time with no conflicts.

My setup is an M-Audio FW-410 for my good audio device. Onboard audio is by Realtek.

Go to the sound control in the control panel. Verify that the onboard audio device is set as the default for playback. Flash (YouTube), iTunes, WMP and the Windows system sounds all go through the default audio device, and infact are only able to play over the default audio device.

Then in Foobar select your good audio device as the playback device. Foobar will use your good device and everything else will use the default device.

There are cases where plugging in a USB audio device will automatically set that device as the default. That's the behavior that most people want from a consumer level device. Plug in a USB speaker and it automatically starts working. But that kind of behavior is not what we want in this case. You'll have to manually check in the control panel to verify that a USB DAC isn't getting automatically set as the default device. Windows should remember your setting after you make the change, but there are cases where a driver can override that. Hopefully you've got drivers that behave nicely.

 

[digitor]

what about realplayer standard version?

 

[MrGreen]

Quote:

Originally Posted by chinesekiwi /img/forum/go_quote.gif Oh god VLC is terrible for video. VLC is nothing but crap now tbh. Remember, it's MPC-Home Cinema. It easily beats the default MPC. I've compared a lot of video player side-by-side and MPC-HC came out on top. Windows Media Player 11 actually came in second believe it or not. It's actually not that bad at all. MPC-HC + using the Haali Renderer in the options = fantastic.

VLC has always been ****.
Zoom is better than WMP11
MPC is still the best.
cccp
the only thing you need. ever

 

[b0dhi]

VLC doesn't need any codecs yet plays almost anything, that's what's good about it.

For music I use Winamp (classic mode) + ASIO output + Dynamic Library.

 

[HotHead]

Quote:

Originally Posted by SirDrexl /img/forum/go_quote.gif It sounds like your PC speakers are connected to the same device Foobar uses. You'll have to separate them, You set the one you want to use for everything but foobar as the default device (analog), then manually configure foobar to output through the other (digital), and that would go to your DAC. Then, Ham Sandwich suggested you could connect the analog outputs of both the external DAC and the default audio to a mixer.

Thanks, I separated them and now it's working properly and no mixer is needed. Analog RCA outs from my external DAC are going to my stereo preamp and I have my desktop computer speakers connected to the default audio (on-board sound) device. I can now play both youtube out of my PC speakers and foobar out of my stereo speakers at the same time.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ham Sandwich /img/forum/go_quote.gif It can work cause I've set it up that way in both XP and Vista. I have J River Media Center set to use my FW-410 in exclusive mode. I have my onboard sound set as the default audio device. I can open a browser and play a YouTube video while J River Media Center is playing music. The YouTube audio plays over my onboard sound. The J River audio plays over my FW-410. Both can be playing at the same time with no conflicts. My setup is an M-Audio FW-410 for my good audio device. Onboard audio is by Realtek.

Mine is now set up the same way. My good device is the Musiland Monitor 02 US. On-board audio is by Realtek.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ham Sandwich /img/forum/go_quote.gif Then in Foobar select your good audio device as the playback device. Foobar will use your good device and everything else will use the default device.

OK, here's something I don't quite understand. As noted above, I took care of setting the on-board audio as the default playback device. However, listed in foobar under Playback Output (as well as playback devices listed in sound control in the control panel) are two separate devices for my Musiland Monitor 02 US soundcard. One is listed as "Speakers" and the other is listed as "SPDIF Interface". I have the MM 02 US connected to my PC via USB and then I'm using it to convert the signal to SPDIF and send it to my external DAC via coax cable. The SPDIF Interface Properties for the MM 02 listed in sound control in the control panel has a tab for "Supported Formats" for Encoded formats and Sample Rates which has to do with what a digital receiver will support. I'm not using a digital receiver, but of course, I am using a DAC. Never-the-less, these setting don't seem to be active because the "Test" buttons are grayed out. I still don't get why my MM 02 US is listed twice, once as speakers and also as a SPDIF Interface.

I'm also unsure which one is the proper one to use in foobar and if I should perhaps disable one of them.

 

[SirDrexl]

That's what I was talking about when I said it might have two devices for one sound card. It's like two different "paths." Speakers is probably for the analog output, while S/PDIF is probably the digital.

Now, on my sound card, I can actually use SPDIF in either Speakers or SPDIF Interface, but I have a feeling that by selecting Speakers, it's actually converting analog back to digital (because I've tried, and I can't get bit-perfect output that way). In case this is what's happening on yours, I would select SPDIF Interface for Foobar. Edit: I bet the Speakers are the line outs and the SPDIF Interface is the coax/optical outs. So yeah, select Speakers (but you could try SPDIF Interface to see what it does).

Did you try clicking on a codec or sample rate? The test button is greyed out until you select which codec or SR you want to test.