[rincewind]

Hi,

I'm new here. I went to the foobar web site and they say themselves that their player sounds only as good as most mainstream players (eg winamp).

So I'm wondering why it seems a lot of ppl on here use it? Before I read their site, I assumed foobar decoded mp3s/etc better than winamp, but now I just don't know why you guys use it

Thanks in advance.

 

[llmobll]

Foobar to me is just easier to use. I say this in regard to setting up high-quality playback. i.e. kernal streaming. I also love the EQ this thing has. I couldn't take winamp's, what 6 bar EQ?? i dont' remember. Overall Foobar is just easier to use when you want maximum tweakablity. I don't see why anyone would want to use it if they're just using a generic soundcard. Doesn't really offer any better performance. Its in the tweaks and high quality tweaks that this little player shines.

 

[KenW]

I agree....just so tweakable. It's easy to please your own ear/tastes using it.

 

[rincewind]

Thanks for the reply.

The reason I ask is that I just bought a NAD C320BEE and paradigm monitor 3's and currently experiencing a bit of garbage-in-garbage-out with my cruddy old SB Live 5.1 DE.

Side note: I've had pops and click in my music for ages. I listen to the same passage of music again and NO clicks.. I assumed it was my old amp and or speakers. Now they're all new (cabling too), but it's still there. I'm left thinking it's the soundcard. Oh dear.. I'll have to upgrade.. boohoo

I've read a little about the Chaintech AV-710, which it looks like you've owned in the past, going by your sig. I'm attracted to it because of how cheap it is... having just spent all the money on my amp and speakers, I don't want to blow another 200 on a soundcard (especially if I'll need adapters and such).

What made you change to the E-Mu 0404?

Put simply: I could just get another SB Live 5.1 (which I think most people on here would frown upon?), but if i can get another soundcard for similar price or a little bit more, that will compliment my other new parts, I'll go for it.

What do you reckon?

 

[rincewind]

PS, I have Sennheiser HD590's which considering upgrading to 650's later on, if that info is of any use.

 

[S_Dedalus]

I've used nforce2 audio, Live!, av710, and an e-mu 0404. The nforce2 onboard sound is better than the live! at music reproduction, but its still pretty bad. Neither were as good as either the sony d-321 or Zen Xtra I owned. The av710 was better than any of these, better than the cheap JVC cd carousel in the house, and actually quite pleasing. Then I got the 0404, and it was a definate improvement, but not as big as the change from the live to the av710, then I removed the output capacitors, detail is much better, bass is much better, and the overall sound is much better than the chaintech, but it's 4-5 times as much money. I'd get the av710 to see what it sounds like. If you like it, it might be all you need.

 

[kyrie]

People upgrade from Chaintech (to E-MU cards) because they're better. But source should certainly come before an amp, and if you've spent $300 on an amp then there's absolutely no reason not to spend a few hundred bucks on your source, at least eventually when your wallet recovers. Don't go cheap.
But for the time being Chaintech would be infinitely preferable to your SB Live, to be certain, because SB Live is the source from hell.

 

[skitlets]

I choose foobar because it not only plays music, but can transcode music files and tag them using free db. That, and multiple and large playlists are handled effortlessly.

 

[kunwar]

don't forget teh excellent tagging facilities.
some of the best I have ever used.

 

[Talonz]

Quote:

Originally Posted by kunwar don't forget teh excellent tagging facilities. some of the best I have ever used.

Agreed. I do all my tagging through Foobar now

 

[commando]

I use foobar for it's equaliser, resampling, and control.

I just upgraded from AV710 to Emu 1212, and haven't noticed much of a difference. I haven't compared them side by side yet though.

 

[scottder]

I like foobar for the reasons above (tagging, renaming), plus it plays a lot of formats out of the box, very customizable. Replaygain is nice too. I don't need the pretty skins of winamp, foobar does it all in a fairly low memory footprint.

Scott

 

[Cyrillic]

So there isn't a way to get the pretty skins? Because I DO need those stupid pretty skins.

 

[commando]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cyrillic So there isn't a way to get the pretty skins? Because I DO need those stupid pretty skins.

I have a nice one at work, someone should be able to point you at a site with skins. Probably the main foobar site, I guess.

 

[rincewind]

Ok! THanks for all the help so far.

I'm thinking of replacing the SB live with the AV-710, then (sloooowly

) replacing my 52gig of mp3 with either the legit stuff or double the bitrate mp3 or some other lossless format (the majority are 128kbps mp3s...)

If I have this chain:

Audio player > AV-710 > NAD C320 > Paradigm Monitor 3 (v3),

Do I need anything else? I've noticed ppl often have a "CMoy" in their chain. I think this is a headphone amp and I therefore won't need it cos the NAD is doing that job?

As for the audio player I'll use.. I'll try out foobar with the "tweaks" once I've got some decent source music and the new soundcard. For now I think winamp will do.

Thanks again for all the help!