[skoiboy]

Is there a ASIO plugin for winamp 2? If so where could I find it and is it a better output than my current SSRC ?

 

[aroon]

Quote:

Originally posted by skoiboy Is there a ASIO plugin for winamp 2? If so where could I find it and is it a better output than my current SSRC ?

i have no idea if its better than what you've got right now and i cant remember where i got it heh [man im useless].

but to redeem myself, ive tossed both the plugins i use up on my webserver [input: mad, output: asio]. you can grab em here:

http://pureimaginary.com/audio/plugins.zip

enjoy

edit: i dont really know what ssrc but i went through my winamp output plugins again. ive got one called waveOut output v2.02a SSRC. i was using that for a while as well and it sounds the same as asio. in fact, im going back to it becuase it lets me control the volume in winamp [asio output can only be modulated using master volume, winamp uses wav]

ive added the SSRC plugin to the obvove zipfile

 

[lan]

The winamp5 ASIO plugin is same as Winamp2 one as they are compatible. http://www3.cypress.ne.jp/otachan/

Resampling and ASIO are different things. But ASIO should sound better if you're using ME/2K/XP as it bypasses kmixer compared to WAV or DS out.

 

[fewtch]

Quote:

Originally posted by Douglas256 I don't have anything against opamps (there are opamps in every piece of audio equipment I own), the problem is that the opamps in (consumer) sound card just aren't up to snuff.

The opamps in my Delta AP 24/96 are NE5532s. Although they aren't audiophile op-amps, I'd argue that they are definitely "up to snuff." Low distortion, low noise, clean amplification (perfect for an application inside a noisy PC)... you really don't need super sound quality for a low-level amplification immediately following the DAC stage, in my humble opinion. When I amp my card with a Meta42 I get the AD8620 sonic signature and not the NE5532 signature, which may tell you something.
Quote:

Originally posted by Patrickhat2001 I think the sonic differences between the programs are quite obvious.

Errrm... are you talking about different sonic signatures between MP3 decoder plugins? Audio player programs don't have sonic signatures (unless configured incorrectly), and both Foobar2k and WinAMP simply act as interfaces to a number of .dll modules that do various things like play back MP3, OGG, FLAC, WAV, CD Audio, etc. Each plugin may or may not have a sonic signature associated with it (the lossless decoders definitely do not). Just thought this needed clearing up.

 

[AsuAmo76]

Quote:

Each plugin may or may not have a sonic signature associated with it (the lossless decoders definitely do not). Just thought this needed clearing up.

Sure we need to clear it up a bit.

Why directsound and waveout plugins sound completely different while playing wav-s or cd-s? Take 16 bit data stream and send it to sound card. Easy. Well, don't forget DMA-s, IRQ-s, sampling rate and other boring stuff.

In my case, waveout is much "better". Or rather I just like it's sound more. Can I say that waveout is the very best and optimal plugin? I don't think so. Let's do listen test then.

I compared 3 players: WMP - 9.0, Winamp 3 and Foobar 2k. All dsp and equalizer options disabled. Safe to say - everything was disabled.

Setup: windows se, carddeluxe driving hd600 via cardas.
On vocals (Krall, Sting, Patricia Barber CD-s) wmp was far better. It's sound is definitely bright. It's a sort of grado versus senns scenario. Don't want to repeat multiple reviews. Compare to wmp, winamp and foobar sounded similar, but winamp slightly brighter.
On classical Tchaikovsky symphony #6 sounded the best on winamp, can you believe it?

I can only assume that if someone uses different headphones, sound cards, cables, amps - the result will be different. After I get sr325, I will probably say that foobar is the best ever player.

 

[Glassman]

guys, be serious! use RMAA to generate test .wav, then play it in whatever player and do a digital loopback and record it, if it differs from the original, something is wrong. if not, that player has NO sonic signature no matter what you think.. sometimes it's usefull to be rational

 

[fewtch]

Quote:

Originally posted by Glassman guys, be serious! use RMAA to generate test .wav, then play it in whatever player and do a digital loopback and record it, if it differs from the original, something is wrong.

Of course it will measurably differ from the original (having gone through D->A->D conversion)... that means that it could possibly differ sonically from the original as well.

But the fact is, programs don't have sonic signatures (like saying "Foobar sounds better than WinAMP" or whatever is just silly). These are computer programs, and only output data to the soundcard... they don't manipulate it unless you tell them to somehow (DSP, etc). A few people say that different MP3 decoders have sonic signatures, so I allow for the possibility... but with lossless, certainly there's no sonic signature. The data is just decoded back to original and sent to the soundcard, that's it.

 

[Glassman]

fewtch, read my post again, I wasn't talking about analog loopback but digital, so where did you get that D->A->D

 

[fewtch]

Quote:

Originally posted by Glassman fewtch, read my post again, I wasn't talking about analog loopback but digital, so where did you get that D->A->D

Oops, my mistake...

 

[Patrickhat2001]

Alright I've comparing Wav files between Winamp 2, Winamp 5 and Foobar 2000 (both Winamps have MAD and all three players are using ASIO) for half-an-hour and I still stand by my statement that each of these players has a different sound signature.......

.....but I have good reason to believe that these differences could be due to the MAD plugin used in both versions of Winamp. The MAD plugin is the only plugin which has been added to both of the Winamp players and is the only plug-in which is used in them and not in Foobar. Within MAD on the two versions of Winamp I have the resolution set to 32-bit, the output set to highest and auto clipping attenuation turned off. In adition the ASIO plug-in for Winamp has a option to use the ASIO plug-in for sampling, however, I cannot use this option because it causes my computer to play the music at a very slow speed and with many pauses. Is this normal? Do I just need a more powerful PC? If my PC were ample to use the resampling option within ASIO program would this, then, make the two versions of Winamp sound like Foobar? If I could use resampling within ASIO would I still need to resample via the MAD plug-in?

Furthermore with the inclusion of the MAD plug-ins may explain why the two versions of Winamp sound different from Foobar it doesn't explain why the two versions of Winamp sound different from each other.

If I'm doing something wrong, please give me some advice. I'm always open to suggestions as to how to improve the sound from my system.

P.S. Oh yes, just in case you're wondering my settings for Foobar are 32-bit output, playback thread priority set to highest, dithering is turned off and the target sample rate is set to 96000Hz.

 

[fewtch]

Quote:

Originally posted by Patrickhat2001 Alright I've comparing Wav files between Winamp 2, Winamp 5 and Foobar 2000 (both Winamps have MAD and all three players are using ASIO) for half-an-hour and I still stand by my statement that each of these players has a different sound signature....... .....but I have good reason to believe that these differences could be due to the MAD plugin used in both versions of Winamp.

The MAD plugin is used *only* for MPEG (MP3) playback. So you're hearing decoder plugin "sound signatures," not program "sound signatures."

If you were to play a regular .WAV file using both programs, they'd sound identical if the programs were configured the same way... so you cannot say the players themselves have different sound signatures, it's absurd. It's almost like saying that Microsoft Word has a different sonic signature than Microsoft Excel. Those programs deliver text to the screen, and audio player programs deliver data to the soundcard drivers (which pass it on to the card)... end of story.

 

[Patrickhat2001]

Alright, I disabled MAD on both verisions of Winamp but the difference is still there when listening to Wav files (I didn't try any MP3s). Foobar still sounds more detailed but a little on the thin side, Winamp 2 adds a little more warmth and sacrifices a little in clarity, Winamp 5 adds still more warmth and sacrifices just a little more clarity.

Any more ideas? Is there anything else which could be tweaked in the settings?

And just a question (I don't mean for this to sound like an accusation)--has anyone else tried listening to all of these players with ASIO (or kernal) and upsampling enabled? They sure don't sound identical to me, although, by logic, they are supposed to sound identical.

 

[proneax]

Winamp 5 and Winamp 2 use the same exact input and output plugins. There is no difference. Winamp 5 is more visually appealing, which may be affecting the percieved sound quality, but bit for bit the plugins are the same. Really the only difference between winamp 2 and winamp 5 is the addition of the media library and the addition of freeform skinning. Maybe you have some kind of dsp/eq on one of them unknowingly?

Winamp has always been the superior audio player. Now I use it for video playback as well. I love the new media library in wa5, and the wide range of relatively high quality (192kbps mp3) streaming audio and high quality streaming video (up to 1mbit/s), that's accessable directly from the media library. I also love the free form skins, mine is a minimal skin that sits in the title bar at the top of the screen in always-on-top.

Also winamp 5 now has Universal Hotkeys.

Plus, you don't have to install anything you don't want to, or in some cases even download it at all, meaning it can never be bloatware! (you can fit two copies of the lite version on a floppy disk)

 

[Patrickhat2001]

proneax,

Good point about the differences in appearance between the players possibly affecting perceived sound quality. But, when I installed Winamp 5 I choose the option to use it with the old interface so my Winamp 5 looks extactly like my Winamp 2. And your right about Winamp 5 and 2 sharing the same plug-ins--both programs not only share the same plug-ins but also whenever I make a change in one (like when I disabled the MAD plug-in to test Fewtch's idea) that change is also made within the plug-in of the other Winamp.

But I'm still hearing a difference between the two Winamps and Foobar. All three programs have had no plug-ins added except for ASIO on all three and the MAD plug-in on the two Winamps. I haven't messed with the options of any of the plug-ins for each player besides those in ASIO and MAD.

But I'm happy that each of these programs sound slightly different to me--they give me more options for creating exactly the right synergy between my source and whatever cans I'm using.

 

[AsuAmo76]

Just the guess. I don't have oscilloscope to check it, but the pulses with different length in a DAC output supposed to sound differently. DAC basically is feeding up by driver and eventually by plugin. If I decided to build sound card, I would make this parameter controlled by application (output plugin).

Examples of DAC otput:

|
|_|_____________
| | |
|
By the way, foobar at -12dB sounds more silent compared to winamp or WMP at 25% levels. And the picture above promises the more accurate spectrum after DAC.

OR
__
| | __
|_|_ |_|___________
|_|

This will sound louder and ... well, differently.

One more guess.
WMP has the option to disable/enable error correction. If enabled, this might cause extra signal distortion (input plugin).