[dissembled]

I've tried WMP, Mediamonkey, Winamp, Xion and Foobar. Xion sounds the best to me stock (and with EQ disabled).

 

[some1x]

I've been Foobar for a long time. It has all the superior* output options and has a unclogged, fast interface with low memory usage. I'd try J-river if I'm ever inclined to switch.

* asio, kernel streaming, wasapi

 

[Romulus1]

Quote:

Originally Posted by azncookiecutter /img/forum/go_quote.gif Foobar here. The general modular design of foobar allows anyone to customize it to their liking. You can easily add new features and options through components that can be easily downloaded. Oh, and it sounds great to begin with too.

Thanks for the info.

Have Foobar users noticed issues with a very large library (100's of gigs) lagging when browsing?

A slow jerky browsing interface is one of the things that bothers me about iTunes most.

 

[Saitek666]

I started with WMP in 2000, then I switched to Winamp on 2003, and then to itunes for a year untill I got tired of it, switched back to winamp, and then on 2005 I switched to Media Monkey, been my media player for almost 5 years already.

 

[krmathis]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Romulus1 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Could you point me toward some reading material explaining the benefits of Foobar2000 over other common players?

Perhaps start here:
foobar2000
Foobar2000:Foobar2000 - Hydrogenaudio Knowledgebase
foobar2000 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hydrogenaudio Forums -> foobar2000

In short, its extendibility allow it to perform almost any audio related task. Add components and tweak it to fit your exact requirements.

 

[talsilo]

I use Foobar. It is ideal for those who want to customize and are willing to research extensively on the net to use its full features.

Not for those who want a simple beautiful design at the time of installation

 

[battosai]

I use media monkey to do all my transfers to my MP3 player, also to listen to music (gapless is nice feature), but I also use Foobar2000 for the speed and the output quality (but it's more a specialist software, not for noob!)

 

[Romulus1]

Quote:

Originally Posted by krmathis /img/forum/go_quote.gif Perhaps start here: foobar2000 Foobar2000:Foobar2000 - Hydrogenaudio Knowledgebase foobar2000 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Hydrogenaudio Forums -> foobar2000 In short, its extendibility allow it to perform almost any audio related task. Add components and tweak it to fit your exact requirements.

That's excellent. Thanks for saving me a ton of time.

 

[Jerrycan]

Foobar for me, excellent player for both; output quality and customization.
Window7 and WASAPI plugin.

 

[FasterThanEver]

J. River media Center 14 for me. I started with v11 3 1/2 years ago.

secure ripping
great tag editing
fully supports using whatever tags I want
database only fields for things I don't want in tags
customizable UI - It can use browser panes and details with the tags I want to use
or can display album covers.
Builtin ASIO and WASAPI exclusive mode output support
a selection of skins - I use a iTunes 4.x mimic.
multiple views for different browsing needs
multiple music libraries each with its own database
multiple playback zones (rooms)
lots of utility commands for moving, copying and converting music files
and even more

Bill

 

[Optimus Prime]

Foobar 2000 for me. That plus Wasapi will upgrade your audio quality considerably.

 

[somestranger26]

I used to use Foobar2000, now I like the simplicity and aesthetics of the Zune software. I use MediaMonkey, but I use it exclusively for tagging and organizing my FLAC prior to transcoding to WMA lossless.

 

[Mr. B]

I've been using Winamp for a little over 10 years. I tried Foobar after joining Head-Fi because of its popularity here but it doesn't appeal to me. I don't need my music player to be that complicated. I did start using ASIO, however.

 

[Qonmus]

A quick question about foobar; do your files need to be in FLAC or some other lossless format to support WASAPI or ASIO ?

 

[chinesekiwi]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Qonmus /img/forum/go_quote.gif A quick question about foobar; do your files need to be in FLAC or some other lossless format to support WASAPI or ASIO ?

No. Format does not matter.

Anyway, I have Foobar2000 with native ASIO set to 16-bit (as I have no 24 bit music) at 2ms latency + Noise sharpening plugin set at 22%. (The percentage = highly dependent on your equipment). Noise sharpening = artificially lowers the noise floor much like how a power conditioner does.

Anyway for Videos, I highly recommend Media Player Classic Home Cinema (MPC-HC) and disabling the audio switcher and using the Haali renderer in the video renderer options.

Media Player Classic - Home Cinema - Video Player