[liRetro]

I recently stumbled across XMPlay which is an audio player for windows. It seemed pretty simple and supported the basics plus a few nice things. Well, I decided to try it because of some issues with Winamp and Foobar. First let me rank the players with the quality as I know them.

WMP - A rather sucky player. It crackles pops, and does a poor job IMO. Crappy EQ manipulator tends to distort in unpleasant ways.

iTunes - Ugh. It plays back sound but somehow it's worse than WMP.

Winamp - I remember when this came out. It sure has changed a lot, though not all for the better. I generally play music with this, except at work where it has hardware issues

. The EQ does a decent job of not distorting until extreme adjustments are made.

Foobar 2k - Plays back audio faithfully possibly better than winamp. I'm sure some here will jump about saying it's way better, but with my equipment it sounds only slightly better... If any better at all (may be in my mind).

XMPlay - Uhm, wow... I don't know what it is but something about it makes my audio sound so much warmer. A big plus is that the EQ does not distort as much and gives better results than all the others.

So my question is, what is making XMPlay sound better than the others? I am using the built in Soundstorm (NForce 2 Pro) sound hardware, which somehow sounds better than the Soundblaster Live! 5.1 I have sitting on my desk. I am listening with an ATH-A700 (hits the highs a little hard for me, which is why I use the EQ). Is it the sound shaping options that are built in? I know there are other plug ins in there that are supposed to re-define the detail and make it sound better, but I'm not using those. Is the decoding just perhaps a better match for my equipment?

 

[jiiteepee]

Quote:

Originally Posted by liRetro I recently stumbled across XMPlay which is an audio player for windows. It seemed pretty simple and supported the basics plus a few nice things. Well, I decided to try it because of some issues with Winamp and Foobar. First let me rank the players with the quality as I know them. WMP - A rather sucky player. It crackles pops, and does a poor job IMO. Crappy EQ manipulator tends to distort in unpleasant ways. iTunes - Ugh. It plays back sound but somehow it's worse than WMP. Winamp - I remember when this came out. It sure has changed a lot, though not all for the better. I generally play music with this, except at work where it has hardware issues . The EQ does a decent job of not distorting until extreme adjustments are made. Foobar 2k - Plays back audio faithfully possibly better than winamp. I'm sure some here will jump about saying it's way better, but with my equipment it sounds only slightly better... If any better at all (may be in my mind). XMPlay - Uhm, wow... I don't know what it is but something about it makes my audio sound so much warmer. A big plus is that the EQ does not distort as much and gives better results than all the others. So my question is, what is making XMPlay sound better than the others? I am using the built in Soundstorm (NForce 2 Pro) sound hardware, which somehow sounds better than the Soundblaster Live! 5.1 I have sitting on my desk. I am listening with an ATH-A700 (hits the highs a little hard for me, which is why I use the EQ). Is it the sound shaping options that are built in? I know there are other plug ins in there that are supposed to re-define the detail and make it sound better, but I'm not using those. Is the decoding just perhaps a better match for my equipment?

I can't answer your question. All I can say is,
- both of your sound devices are plain crap for analog audio

- player it self shouldn't give different sound if there is no internal processing done (EQ, SRC, gate/limiter, etc.) or data loss/addendum

W/ Winamp and Foobar you can use any VST EQ you like (there are lot of pro quality EQs even as freeware available @ KVR)
See my sig for needed components. Also, for Winamp, there is a good EQ from AIXcoustic creations - .:Electri-Q:. - posihfopit edition (freeware).

Also, have you already
- tried the Rear L/R output channel from Live! (if your model has separate DAC for Rear, the quality may be better than through Front L/R). You may need to use 4/4.1 mode in speaker settings. You can set the output to front l/r least on Winamp, Foobar and BeatPort Player (mentioned below).

- tried/compared NI TRAKTOR BeatPort Player w/ Asio4All and

- tried Winamp and Foobar w/ ASIO or KernelStreaming (plug-ins for both modes is needed + Asio4All for ASIO)?


jiitee

 

[liRetro]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jiiteepee I can't answer your question. All I can say is, - both of your sound devices are plain crap for analog audio - player it self shouldn't give different sound if there is no internal processing ...

That's just the thing, I see a bunch of settings in the XMPlay software for "sound shaping" and a couple others for "dithering". I thought it may be crap talk, but I noticed the options were also there on audio editing software I have (even more options too).

 

[ferdit]

I just downloaded Xmplay 3 last week and it sounded better than wmp11.

 

[AnAnalogSpirit]

I just gave XMPlay 3.6 a whirl with WASAPI output set to 16-bit/44,100kHZ, using my Auzen X-Meridian 7.1, and it sounds quite a bit CLEARER and better rendered compared to foobar2000 (WASAPI output, 16-bit/44,100kHZ), and MediaMonkey 4  (WASAPI output, 16-bit/44,100kHZ), or MediaMonkey 3 (ASIO4All, 16-bit/44,100kHZ).
 
I'm pleasantly surprised, and as for EQ's there's Electri-Q (posihofpit (FREE) edition) from AIXcoustic Creations, via the WinAmp VST Bridge, or the 250-band "Equalizer by nevi" which uses the WinAmp DSP Wrapper. I prefer the Electri-Q VST Plugin, because, like the Rockbox Parametric EQ, you can specify how many points on the EQ graph you'd like, and specify the "Q" of the EQ point. This allows me to match the configuration of the BioEQ setup on my Rockboxed devices, and on my PC. FWIW I dislike the default skin, and find the WMP11 skin to work nicely, esp. as it integrates with Windows 7 very well
 
The only "bad" thing about the XMPlay setup is that it is SO modular, it takes a while to set-up. On the other hand, if it sounds nicer, why not?

 

[moriez]

XMP for the win! Love this little thingy. Using ASIO on XP and satisfied with it. Grab yourself a nicer skin. The default is god awful IMO