[Murugesh]

I like MediaMonkey player. Somehow my ears tell me that MM delivers more details than Foobar. Though I'm not very satisfied with MM's look and feel, I'm using it only for its excellent sound reproduction.

 

[incubated]

foobar sold me though. can't go back to winamp. with these speakers, and sound card, foobar makes flacs sound incredibly authentic.

 

[ford2]

Foobar,once mastered is the only one.
I dream of the day it handles radio.

 

[Quaddy]

foobar over winamp here.

 

[geekmaster1]

foobar is the best app i've ever used hands down. i do not exaggerate here.

 

[royalmathmtcs]

Winamp and ASIO for me.

 

[StevenTam]

I am using Winamp +AISO4ALL
It is a very nice software to play lossless formats.

 

[Smoke]

 
Sorry for the bump of an old thread. I just love my new Winamp skin!

 

[RonaldDumsfeld]

Foobar is a world class media player but what makes it special is because it is an object lesson in the design and implementation of user configurable software.
 
It starts out simple as you like and does 90% of everything you want out of the box. Then when you think of something you want it to do is make the changes or find the right plug in. So in next to no time you have something unique to you and your requirements that you understand because you built it but it's still a really lean application because there is nothing there you don't need. The bloke that wrote it is a genius. Never seen it done better.

 

[J.Pocalypse]

I used Winamp years ago. It's gotten pretty bloated lately from what I remember. It's also a bit more resource heavy than what I like since I'm not running a full size computer rig. Foobar2000, for me, is a no frills visually, great sounding music player that handles any audio file I've ever thrown at it. However, while MediaMonkey is decent, I think J. River Media Player (the free download) version, without ASIO or anything similar, sounded all around better with my setup. Same general layout as MM, better sound (to me), than Foobar2000. The thing that really turned me off J. River MP was that, when I started it up, it would need about 45 seconds of "i'm starting up, and doing something, that you the user has no idea of" thing. I don't like waiting. So, I'm back to Foobar2000. Now if only I could get a 800x480 res. skin/theme for it, to use with my Asus Eee PC 701 + touch screen, I'd be a mighty happy camper.

 

[Ham Sandwich]

It is possible to configure J River to not do quite as much during start-up.  By default it is going to scan your entire library and possibly some other folders for auto-import and some other things.  You can disable auto-import or limit it to just checking a specific directory.  It does need to do some things like check the integrity of the database and probably some other things during start-up.  That's part of the price you pay for a database driven media player with a library.  Most of what it does is in low priority background threads so shouldn't impact foreground interaction too much.
 
Small netbook size screens are also a slight challenge with J River.  The general interface likes screen space.  I'm not sure if there are good compact netbook friendly skins or layouts available for it (I don't have a netbook so haven't bothered to check that out).

 

[Cantonese]

Never really liked Winamp, even when I used it back in the day before I found Foobar2000. FB was just easier to use out of the box, and when I got the hang of the program, the possibilities were endless (currently my favorite combo of FB tools are first renaming my split FLAC files, and then create a cue sheet on FB). Plus, the big thing about FB is that it is never bloated, even after all the new features since its inception. I hope FB never grows old so I don't ever need to find another music player.
 
BTW this should be a poll.

 

[khaos974]

 
Quote:

It is possible to configure J River to not do quite as much during start-up.  By default it is going to scan your entire library and possibly some other folders for auto-import and some other things.  You can disable auto-import or limit it to just checking a specific directory.  It does need to do some things like check the integrity of the database and probably some other things during start-up.  That's part of the price you pay for a database driven media player with a library.  Most of what it does is in low priority background threads so shouldn't impact foreground interaction too much.

 
Hey! Don't forget that Foobar is a database drivenmedia player with a library too, and it does is without being slow or bloated.

 

[Ham Sandwich]

Quote:

 
 
Hey! Don't forget that Foobar is a database drivenmedia player with a library too, and it does is without being slow or bloated.

Foobar has a database but it isn't database driven the way J River is.  Worlds of difference.
I think of Foobar as a file based media player that has a basic database to allow for faster searching.
I think of J River as a database driven library to organize and play music.
In Foobar you play files.  In J River you play a library of music.  A different focus and mindset for each.

 

[khaos974]

I'm not sure about what you mean, my own fb2k setup pretty much works like itunes with a file library and intelligent playlists, could you elaborate?