# Best FLAC player for PC?



## Daniel5243

I'm just getting into what's beyond 320kbps and I'm just trying to get some opinions about the best FLAC player out there. Thank you.


----------



## Daniel5243

Preferably less than $30.


----------



## Smeckles

The Absolute Sound is currently in the middle of a 4 part series on computer audio and in part 2 (last month) they rated several programs.  Top program (for both CD ripping and playback) was JRiver Media Center.  $50 (but does have a 30 day trial period).  Two additional plug ins CPlay ($free) and JPlay (99 euros, has a hobbled trial package) add a huge amount to JRMC according to the articles.  CPlay is stand alone and minimally featured.  Jplay now rides on top of  the JRMC interface.
   
  You want the best player, there is one person's opinion.


----------



## VCRHIFI

I personally use foobar2000. It "free" so you can try it and see how you like it. It also allows a lot of customizations if you like to tweak.
   
  http://www.foobar2000.org/


----------



## VCRHIFI

Quote: 





smeckles said:


> The Absolute Sound is currently in the middle of a 4 part series on computer audio and in part 2 (last month) they rated several programs.  Top program (for both CD ripping and playback) was JRiver Media Center.  $50 (but does have a 30 day trial period).  Two additional plug ins CPlay ($free) and JPlay (99 euros, has a hobbled trial package) add a huge amount to JRMC according to the articles.  CPlay is stand alone and minimally featured.  Jplay now rides on top of  the JRMC interface.
> 
> You want the best player, there is one person's opinion.


 


  I'm not sure what to make out of The Absolute Sound's articles on computer audio. In part three, they claimed through their testing that "Flac sounded worst than Wav." I'm still trying to figure out how this logically would make sense. Anyway, I don't want to to derail this thread, so I will leave it at that.


----------



## celcius

I love using media monkey. Free and works great for me.


----------



## TheRH

I use EAC to rip in FLAC and use Media Monkey to play music. I like it because it is easy to use and has ASIO support, oh and both are free.


----------



## andrewberge

Another vote for the free and incredibly versatile foobar.
   
  You might want to look into dBPoweramp or even Winamp as well. Both are pretty popular, both have free and paid versions.


----------



## stv014

Quote: 





vcrhifi said:


> In part three, they claimed through their testing that "Flac sounded worst than Wav." I'm still trying to figure out how this logically would make sense.


 

 It was quite likely just placebo.


----------



## wespinvinyl

MPD on Voyage Linux with MPoD. Better than a squeezebox, 10% of the price.


----------



## K3cT

I really like Foobar + JPLAY.


----------



## goodvibes

Foobar is great sounding for FLAC and I agree with Absolute Sound about vs wav while understanding that they should be the same. I just think Foobar is one of the best sounding players for all formats with the right sort of plug ins. Crappy for a wav library however.


----------



## Timestretch

If your concern is sound quality, then any player that supports flac and either WASAPI, ASIO or another "Bit-perfect" mode should be identical in sound quality, unless it defaults to some specialized equalizer or replaygain system that adjusts things.  
    
  Foobar2000 is free and supports massive customization, loads of optional 3rd party plugins and components to make it look and function like anything you can imagine. You may have to get your hands dirty with some DiY in order to make the more intense customizations work, though.  
    
  So, find one that supports ASIO or Wasapi, and then narrow it down to one with a user interface you like. I can't imagine paying for a media player, though. What features do the paid ones offer?


----------



## joe_cool

Quote: 





vcrhifi said:


> I'm not sure what to make out of The Absolute Sound's articles on computer audio. In part three, they claimed through their testing that "Flac sounded worst than Wav." I'm still trying to figure out how this logically would make sense. Anyway, I don't want to to derail this thread, so I will leave it at that.


 

 If you read some of the available info, it might be logical. http://www.cicsmemoryplayer.com/index.php?n=CPlay.SoftwareInducedJitter
   
  I noticed the wav/flac differential when using foobar2000 before I knew why or how. I tried to do some testing using Foobar's ABX Comparator, but guess what? The files to be compared are first converted to "wav" format and stored in memory. So whether you compare flac, wav or whatever, you are actually comparing wav to wav.
   
  In my experience, converting flac at runtime (playtime) causes problems. So does hard-drive access and other computer processes (network, video and usb, etc.).
   
  On this computer, I get the best sound using cicsPlay (cPlay). It converts tracks, stores them in memory, and then starts to play. Flac decoding is not a problem during playback.
   
  On another partition, I have optimized Windows XP SP2 for use with cPlay and cMP. There, cPlay sounds better, and cMP running with cPlay sounds better still.
   
  This is an easy thing to try for yourself. You need cPlay, ASIO, a playback system (headphones or speakers) and some high-quality material. CD quality (44.1 kHz sampling rate, 16 bit samples, stereo) can sound very good if the source material is up to the challenge.


----------



## Willakan

I would not so much take that article with a pinch of salt as upend several salt cellars over it and then throw it into the Dead Sea.


----------



## JumpNChute

Might just be repeating what has been already said but FLAC doesn't necessarily sound as pure as it should.  Where WAV is lossless UNcompressed FLAC adds a compression, which cannot be done without sacrificing sound in one way or another, if temporarily (as is the case with FLAC).  Its why a WAV file of a song is so much bigger than a FLAC of the same song.  As was mentioned earlier the FLAC CAN actually be temporarily converted into a WAV for playback, but it doesn't necessarily have to be.  A good program will do that (which it looks like cPlay might be a good choice). 
   
  Just from personal experience I like PotPlayer as my general music player and MediaMonkey as my library manager.


----------



## El_Doug

FLAC's compression can indeed be "undone" - that is the very definition of lossless compression!  no sound is "sacrificed" whatsoever!!! 
   
  the compression is similar to that of a zipped computer file - patterns in the code are used to shrink the file, but are 100% reconstructed when opened.  This is why a zipped text file does not lose any sentences, and why a music file compressed with FLAC does not lose a single bit of musical information
  
  Quote: 





jumpnchute said:


> Might just be repeating what has been already said but FLAC doesn't necessarily sound as pure as it should.  Where WAV is lossless UNcompressed FLAC adds a compression, which cannot be done without sacrificing sound in one way or another, if temporarily (as is the case with FLAC).  Its why a WAV file of a song is so much bigger than a FLAC of the same song.  As was mentioned earlier the FLAC CAN actually be temporarily converted into a WAV for playback, but it doesn't necessarily have to be.  A good program will do that (which it looks like cPlay might be a good choice).
> 
> Just from personal experience I like PotPlayer as my general music player and MediaMonkey as my library manager.


----------



## Timestretch

Quote: 





el_doug said:


> FLAC's compression can indeed be "undone" - that is the very definition of lossless compression!  no sound is "sacrificed" whatsoever!!!
> 
> the compression is similar to that of a zipped computer file - patterns in the code are used to shrink the file, but are 100% reconstructed when opened.  This is why a zipped text file does not lose any sentences, and why a music file compressed with FLAC does not lose a single bit of musical information


 

 El Doug has it right. Go and .zip or .rar a text document of a Shakespeare play if you like. Watch the file size decrease. Now, when you unzip it and unpack it back out to the original size, you might notice that not a single sentence or word is missing.    
    
  This is the same as flac vs wav.   
    
  Moreover: storing files in RAM doesn't change the sound, but if you like to do that, you can do that in the advanced options of Foobar2000: -> preferences -> advanced -> playback -> full file buffering up to (Kb): (insert some gigantic number which is larger than your largest file).  This will store the full file for playback in RAM, and is unrelated to the 50-10000ms buffer in playback options that is sent to your playback device. Essentially this just ensures no hard-drive activity interfering with playback. (as if it would anyway, unless you were defragging your music drive while using it, but that's besides the point).


----------



## JumpNChute

Quote: 





el_doug said:


> FLAC's compression can indeed be "undone" - that is the very definition of lossless compression!  no sound is "sacrificed" whatsoever!!!
> 
> the compression is similar to that of a zipped computer file - patterns in the code are used to shrink the file, but are 100% reconstructed when opened.  This is why a zipped text file does not lose any sentences, and why a music file compressed with FLAC does not lose a single bit of musical information


 

 Exactly.  That's why I said "if temporarily (as is the case with FLAC)."  I guess I could have been more clear.  SQ in a FLAC is temporarily reduced while the file is in FLAC form to allow for compression, but as you said everything is still there and if a good program simply uncompresses it first you will find the full quality.  I think the issue is if  aprogram tries to uncompress a FLAC on-the-fly. 
   
  Reading my earlier post again I could see how even I would think I was saying the opposite (that FLAC loses quality).  My bad.


----------



## Willakan

I don't think thinking of FLAC as reducing sound quality, which is then un-reduced upon playback, makes any sense. It just stores the same data in a more efficient way.
   
  Anyone who claims differences between FLAC and WAV files on playback is *wrong*. I will bet my entire life savings and my left testicle on them failing to distinguish the two under controlled conditions. Yourself included.


----------



## JumpNChute

Its all in the player.  Any difference at all is entirely due to the player's incompetence.


----------



## ChipnDalebowl

Foobar plays FLAC fine...and for free too. Why would you pay for something when the freebies do the job equally as well? :rolleyes:

Those that say WAV is not equal to FLAC in terms of sound quality are pulling your legs....


----------



## Dradder

Just to be fair, my understanding of pkshan's position regarding his oddball version of foobar2000 (which doesn't play FLAC files) is not that he's claiming there's an audible difference between FLAC and WAV files, but that whatever putative benefits come from his player's methodology somehow rule out it being able to process FLAC files. It's difficult to be sure about this, as my understanding of Chinese is even more fragmentary that pkshan's English language skills, but I believe that it has something to do with stripping as much code out of the player as possible, which is why his version doesn't do a lot of other stuff (tagging, etc.) that regular foobar does. As to whether someone will hear an audible difference with pkshan's foobar variant, that's a moot point -- I like pkshan's player, but I'll be the first to admit that any difference between it and regular foobar is _extremely_ subtle and well within the margin of being ascribable to the placebo effect. As with so much of this stuff, YMMV.


----------



## alv4426

I like songbird... its purple; purple is cool


----------



## ChipnDalebowl

Didn't know anyone was allowed to modify foobar except for Peter and his developers. ^^


----------



## tmars78

Quote: 





willakan said:


> I don't think thinking of FLAC as reducing sound quality, which is then un-reduced upon playback, makes any sense. It just stores the same data in a more efficient way.
> 
> Anyone who claims differences between FLAC and WAV files on playback is *wrong*. I will bet my entire life savings and my left testicle on them failing to distinguish the two under controlled conditions. Yourself included.


 


  I would too. In fact every song I have ever had in flac and converted back to wav is exactly the same as when only ripped as wav. Oh, and WMA lossless was the exact same as both of those. Using Audacity you can check this yourself. It'll let you listen to the differences, and all I have ever gotten was complete silence.


----------



## vvrinne

Is the player actually even remotely interesting as far as sound quality is concerned? The whole thing in computer audio IMO is to bypass everything you can and just send the purest possible signal to the DAC (hopefully an external device). I don't really see the actual player software doing anything at all. You should be using WASAPI to bypass any internal mixers and just send the bit audio out of the computer. If you are doing this then what is the player even doing? I'm not an expert in the internals of audio players but I would be very surprised indeed if most of them did not use an external library to decode the FLAC file. WASAPI is a windows feature so basically the player is only doing the plumbing. Many players (like winamp) don't even handle the WASAPI integration themselves.
   
  Personally I prefer JRiver Media Center but I cannot believe that using any other player would affect the sound I am hearing from my FLAC files being passed to my DAC through WASAPI in any manner. So my 2c: use any player you like the features of. If you are listening to FLAC files and utilizing WASAPI the player will not affect the sound quality in any way.


----------



## Dradder

Quote: 





vvrinne said:


> Is the player actually even remotely interesting as far as sound quality is concerned?


 
   
  If you're referring to pkshan's crazy little foobar variant, IMO the answer is yes. What the heck, it's free -- if you try it out and you believe you hear an improvement, great; if you don't hear any difference, that's fine, too. Not really a big deal, one way or the other.


----------



## vvrinne

Hmm no I wasn't actually referring to anything in particular. No doubt there are a million things that the player CAN do to make the music sound different in some manner  Just generally if the idea is to hear what is stored in the file then I don't see the actual player doing anything other than the plumbing and providing the user interface. Personally I do utilize the crossfeed feature in my JRiver player, which I guess is an example of the player doing something. I've heard people have been getting some interesting (even good) results by utilizing some VSD plugins as well. Anything that does something that you end up hearing as an improvement can't be too bad


----------



## andrewberge

Foobar does the plumbing, the electrical and makes you a sandwich.
   
  It's a music library. It's a playlist manager. It's a tag editor. It's an audio converter (it can also extract and convert sound from most videos).
  Oh, and that's without plugins.
   
  The most popular players today can do much more than just open and decode your files.
  But maybe all you want is the stupid leak fixed, then just hire an ordinary plumber. Whether or not you need all the extra is up to you.


----------



## YoengJyh

I am using SongBird, Recommended by Bowers & Wilkins.
   
  Today i just found out that iTunes is more artificial if compared to Songbird, which gives me more natural sound.
   
  Try it, free and it could play 24 bits songs.


----------



## geneticaurora

Ive gotta say that River media player is certainly the best I was unsure at first but after allot of listening I discoverd less distortion clearer dynamics in both bass mid treble.


----------



## Enverex

Are people still spouting this nonsense about FLAC sounding different or "lowering the quality"? If it sounds different then there's something wrong with the player you're using or you've corrupted the file.
   
  If you don't believe that the FLAC file is identical to the original, open up both the original and the FLAC version in an editor (such as Audacity) and compare them. You'll find they are BIT IDENTICAL.
   
  That magazine is clearly either written for by idiots, or trying to create drama from nothing to sell more copies, maybe a bit of both.
   
  Regarding JumpNChute's earlier comment. FLAC doesn't "temporarily reduce the quality". It never does anything to the quality, at any point. It encodes it just like any other lossless compression format (7zip, RAR, etc) and reconstructs it perfectly afterwards. It's not a "lower quality version" when compressed, it's not audio data AT ALL when it's compressed, it's purely encoded data and no-longer RAW WAVE (just as a RAR file won't be a lower quality version of your Word Document or Spreadsheet when compressed).
   
  For anyone else that feels the need to say something silly, please see - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lossless_data_compression - first.
   
  Oh, and to answer OP's question: Foobar2000.


----------



## nopphong

i don't know why you are fighting about wav and flac.Because tread owner ask about what is the best flac player and i come to this tread to read what is the best Flac player !!
   
  could you please stop off tropic reply thank you.
   
  I have problem to install foobar so i come here to find out about another player but could not find one.
  so any one please continue in tropic reply please.
  thank you


----------



## OJNeg

Quote: 





nopphong said:


> i don't know why you are fighting about wav and flac.Because tread owner ask about what is the best flac player and i come to this tread to read what is the best Flac player !!
> 
> could you please stop off tropic reply thank you.
> 
> ...


 
   


 What problem did you run into trying to install Foobar2k? Are you running Windows?
   
  Foobar really is one of the best audio players around. There are plenty of themes out there and you can customize almost anything to suit your tastes. I suggest you give it a shot.


----------



## CashNotCredit

Honestly, apart from plug-ins, there is literally no sonic difference between these players. Looking at how Media Players work, we can conclude that no player "sounds warm" or "sounds natural", unless things are being added.

 You get a bit-perfect stream from Windows, without running ASIO, if two conditions are met:

 Your volume in Windows is set at 100% and you control volume with your amp
 You are only running sound from one application at once. This can be done by muting the other applications you aren't listening to.
   
  Everything else is placebo. The only real point of ASIO is to reduce latency, which is really only important to music production, to my knowledge.

 So, in short, pick the one that meets your needs best. I love MediaMonkey because it's really easy to use. WinAmp and Songbird are pretty cool too. foobar has a lot of love because it's so versatile.

 None of them sound better than any other ones, and all of them (even iTunes) can have a bit-perfect stream by meeting the two qualifications, at least to my knowledge.


----------



## Leobrioschi

You just have to decide on how big a deal library managing and playlist making is for you.

 Foorbar2k is what i use, My library managing consist of Subdirectories divided by artists, then by albuns, and then the music files. I've set foobar to sort my music using the directory tree so it's fine with me.

 If you make many playlists, maybe you should look somewhere else... songbird feels like itunes a lot, i've used it before. 
 other than that, just make sure it's not very heavy on your pc (some music players are so bloated that i feel some hiccups and lockups that's why i'm mostly with foobar) 

 anyway... http://flac.sourceforge.net/download.html#extras_players_windows
 (i've seen people that like the quintenssential player also)


----------



## nopphong

Quote: 





ojneg said:


> What problem did you run into trying to install Foobar2k? Are you running Windows?
> 
> Foobar really is one of the best audio players around. There are plenty of themes out there and you can customize almost anything to suit your tastes. I suggest you give it a shot.


 

 i have problem while install foobar 1.1.3 on winxp it said c runtime error some thing.... but now i found older version 1.0.3 i can install it and working ok.
  somehow it can't work with new plugin.
  i would like to try another program to compare the sound quality and usage of another program.did you have another recommend?
  thank you.


----------



## ROBSCIX

I have used a few different players over the years but as my collection has grown I find my needs have changed.  Lately I have been using Album Player.  It is not a free player but it is a very powerful package.  For a free player foobar is pretty good but it can scare off people new to players as it needs some configuration to look the best.


----------



## jmarsiglio

Just use a free one that you like the UI of. I prefer WinAmp.


----------



## HeatFan12

jmarsiglio said:


> Just use a free one that you like the UI of. I prefer WinAmp.





Foobar & Winamp indeed!

J., now that you brought up Winamp, have you experienced recently the seek bar not moving? The last couple of days, two of my machines are experiencing this. It stays at 0:00. I have the newest version and have not updated the program, it just started doing this 2 days ago. Looked for solutions but to no avail.


----------



## Ghaunty22

Can someone explain why FLAC sounds quieter in Foobar than WMPvista? MP3's sound the same.
   
  Some FLAC's sound almost same but some were quieter.


----------



## EnOYiN

ghaunty22 said:


> Can someone explain why FLAC sounds quieter in Foobar than WMPvista? MP3's sound the same.
> 
> Some FLAC's sound almost same but some were quieter.




Maybe you've got replaygain on in foobar?


----------



## jmarsiglio

Quote: 





heatfan12 said:


> Foobar & Winamp indeed!
> J., now that you brought up Winamp, have you experienced recently the seek bar not moving? The last couple of days, two of my machines are experiencing this. It stays at 0:00. I have the newest version and have not updated the program, it just started doing this 2 days ago. Looked for solutions but to no avail.


 
  Sorry, my desktop that I use winamp on is in boxes currently but I'll let you know in a few days (if you haven't figured it out by then, hehe).


----------



## pepemosca

+1 on *foobar2000*.


----------



## pepemosca

*** Delete please ***


----------



## bigicy

I use winamp as it comes with native FLAC support.
   
  I believe Vox is a good player for Mac OS X, unfortunately I don't have a Mac to test this program.
   
  My friend has the SanDisk Sansa Clip+  mp3 player which comes with flac support. He says it is a very good mp3 player.


----------



## AN0INTD

Quote: 





vcrhifi said:


> I personally use foobar2000. It "free" so you can try it and see how you like it. It also allows a lot of customizations if you like to tweak.
> 
> http://www.foobar2000.org/


 

 I just downloaded from this site and got Malware (Mystart:Incredibar toolbar)....awesome! 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





  I think I clicked on an advertisement and not the actual foobar DL link.


----------



## chewy4

^^yeah you gotta be careful with fake download links. An ad blocker usually takes them out. Foobar's site is legitimate though.
   
  Quote: 





cashnotcredit said:


> Honestly, apart from plug-ins, there is literally no sonic difference between these players. Looking at how Media Players work, we can conclude that no player "sounds warm" or "sounds natural", unless things are being added.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


 
   
  Kind of an old post, but this is not neccessarily true, there are some other variables.
   
  I get aliasing in Winamp if I don't use the wasapi plug-in. I'm not talking about subtle or anything that has any chance of being psychological, there is a high pitch sound when playing both higher and lower frequencies. It's extremely noticable and distracting.
   
  I have no idea what the cause of this is though... also happens in Chrome.
   
  But problems like this aside, they are pretty much the same yeah.


----------



## feds27

Foobar


----------



## RonaldDumsfeld

Foobar2000 is a very competent media player and for free it's hard to beat. I found it's playlist management a bit quirky at first.
   
  Recently I have been using Native Instruments Traktor a lot.
   
  It combines the convienience of a standard media player with the involvement and hands on fun of playing vinyl.
   
  The browser and playlist sections works just like any other similar tool with the added bonus of crates. This is like flipping through the albums in the rack of an old fashioned bricks and mortar record shop and recognising the tunes you want via a quick glance at the cover artwork. Works surprisingly well.
   
  Plus you have the additional optional bonus of being able to change the pitch and/or key, jump in and out more or less on the beat, add EQ or effects, loop etc etc. It's interactive and engaging.
   
  Traktor used to be expensive but has now fallen in price to something similar to other paid for audio apps. In fact you get a copy 'free' with any NI harware. £80 gets you an excellent two stereo channel output DAC, the Audio 2 and a full version of Ttraktor.
   
  Check out the deno if you think you might be interested.
   
http://www.native-instruments.com/#/en/products/dj/traktor-pro-2/?r=509cfb4056f83&page=1975
   
  Don't be put off by the seeming complexity - it's actually easier to use and more intuitive than Foobar.


----------



## Happy Camper

I used Foobar for years but never used for management. I've started trying different players the last year and am currently trying Musicbee. They use either Wasapi or ASIO. I won't say there is a sound difference between JRiver but one is free. It was recommended by Audio Note and I've not found much bad in it. I'm currently introducing more music in my library and will soon start managing so I'll find out how good it is. I'd love to find a program that will take the highest bitrate of duplicates and dump the rest.


----------



## Destroysall

I use foobar2000 for FLAC files, and it plays them wonderfully. The other great thing about foobar2000 is that it is almost entirely customizable in terms of appearance.
   
  Destroysall.


----------



## Musastic

+1 for foobar2k, clean media player


----------



## PanamaHat

> I use winamp as it comes with native FLAC support.



Me too. It's neat and easy to use without having to modify it a lot. It also has a nice media convertor


----------



## ChipnDalebowl

Two of the best FLAC players I've come across are foobar2000 and xmplay.


----------



## recepky

for FLAC you HAVE TO use cics memory player,
   
  I have a mid-fi system in my room: technics suv620 stereo amplifier- bose 401 speakers- and def. tech. prosub 800, I can clearly hear the difference between CPLay and other players.
   
  with CPlay I prefer to use SoX resampler, ( you can set it in the settings of the Cplay ) with 96kHz resample.  Sounds like music is coming from a real audio CD Player. CPlay sound better because it has a special jittter correction algorithim in it, so it will use some of your CPU power.


----------



## korzena

Quote: 





musastic said:


> +1 for foobar2k, clean media player


 

 Exactly, especially the CLEAN playback in comparison to other players.
  +1 foobar2k


----------



## ru57y

Quote: 





vcrhifi said:


> I personally use foobar2000. It "free" so you can try it and see how you like it. It also allows a lot of customizations if you like to tweak.
> 
> http://www.foobar2000.org/


 
  i swear by it. 
  I tried Vox for the Mac, but nothing compares to Foobar2000. Just need a better DAC!


----------



## avm1

http://vv.uka.ru/aplayer.zip
  It's free. Just unpack to any folder and run. It has  readme in English. It has minimalistik interface, but belive me, it's much better than foobar.


----------



## Dradder

Actually sounds quite nice, but I'm not finding an English language Readme file, and the online info is less than useful. Is there some way of setting preference, output, etc. on this Aplayer program?


----------



## avm1

Sorry, I thoght there is an english readme (.
  You can edit APlayer.ini file using notepad. Set English=1 and save the file. Than you'll have an English iterface. See the last string below.
  Also I can reccomend to translate readme.txt using web transators.
   
  After I have found Apleer, I can't listen Foobar!
   
  [APlayer]
 Covers=Covers;Artwork;Scans;Pictures;Images;Photos;Cover;Art;
 Balloon=1
 ViewFiles=0
 FlagContinue=1
 TimeOut=0
 FlagWide=1
 FlagTrackbar=1
 SelectedPlugIns=16383
 OutputPlugin=out_wave.dll
 PictureTime=20
 Volume=63
 UseCUE=1
 UseM3U=0
 English=1


----------



## avm1

I forgot... Right click on the player window and you'll have some menus.


----------



## Dradder

Thanks; got it. More I listen to it, the more I like this Aplayer program. Is there some way of running it with WASAPI? Can't seem to find it in the right-click menus.


----------



## thehumantornado

+1 for foobar.  not sure if i missed it, but didn't see mention of wasapi output plugins available for it.  
tried a couple and they can be slightly quirky, but worth the effort i'd say
   
http://www.foobar2000.org/components/view/foo_out_wasapi


----------



## dBz-

You can get a plug in for Windows Media Player which will allow you to play FLAC files through it.
  I don't know where to purchase it but you can download it free through BitTorrent here: http://thepiratebay.se/torrent/3959874/FLAC_CODEC_FOR_WINDOWS_MEDIA_PLAYER_._rar_._andtr666666_...


----------



## Mp0wer

There is also a guide to play Flac in wmp 12


----------



## avm1

Sorry, I use XP and ASIO.


----------



## avm1

Quote: 





dradder said:


> Thanks; got it. More I listen to it, the more I like this Aplayer program. Is there some way of running it with WASAPI? Can't seem to find it in the right-click menus.


 
   WASAPI output plugin is out_maiko.dll.   Extract it to a root player folder  from add_plugins.zip in EXTRAS folder.


----------



## Makiah S

Quote: 





andrewberge said:


> Another vote for the free and incredibly versatile foobar.
> 
> You might want to look into dBPoweramp or even Winamp as well. Both are pretty popular, both have free and paid versions.


 

 Yar I have J-River and well I never use it... FooBar just works so great!
   
  I do have one question what do I need to get FooBar to work with a DAC... I hear people say you need the Wasapi plug in and well I have it, so once you have the plugin how do you activate it and allow it to transfer the bits to the dac e.e


----------



## Makiah S

How do I run FooBar with the Wasbai plugin... I installed it but well not sure if it's working xD


----------



## Mrtn77

Quote: 





mshenay said:


> How do I run FooBar with the Wasbai plugin... I installed it but well not sure if it's working xD


 
   
  Go to "Preferences / Output" and select whatever Wasapi mode you want ("event" or "push") on the "Device" option.


----------



## Makiah S

Quote: 





mrtn77 said:


> Go to "Preferences / Output" and select whatever Wasapi mode you want ("event" or "push") on the "Device" option.


 

 I have it set to Out Wasapi Mode Push, and there is sound... what exactly is Waspai doing when it does that... I do not have a DAC as of yet, but I ofc plan to use an O2 dac, how would I get the O2 to work with FooBar...


----------



## Dradder

Great, thanks. Seems to work fine. Very much enjoying this quirky little APlayer. Has a very rich bass quality, lots of detail.


----------



## chrislangley4253

Quote: 





mshenay said:


> How do I run FooBar with the Wasbai plugin... I installed it but well not sure if it's working xD


 
   
  It won't make any difference anyways man.
   
  Quote: 





mrtn77 said:


> Go to "Preferences / Output" and select whatever Wasapi mode you want ("event" or "push") on the "Device" option.


 
  Yup
  Quote: 





mshenay said:


> I have it set to Out Wasapi Mode Push, and there is sound... what exactly is Waspai doing when it does that... I do not have a DAC as of yet, but I ofc plan to use an O2 dac, how would I get the O2 to work with FooBar...


 
  all wasapi does is make it difficult to pause your music and watch a youtube video. The windows mixer is bit perfect. There is no need for wasapi.


----------



## Roller

Quote: 





chrislangley4253 said:


> ...
> all wasapi does is make it difficult to pause your music and watch a youtube video. The windows mixer is bit perfect. There is no need for wasapi.


 
   
  Correction, Windows Vista/7/8 mixer can be bitperfect, but from the moment concurrent streams are active, it no longer is bitperfect.


----------



## avm1

Quote: 





dradder said:


> Great, thanks. Seems to work fine. Very much enjoying this quirky little APlayer. Has a very rich bass quality, lots of detail.


 

 And the sound is very "transparent". I'm glad that you uderstand how good it is!


----------



## Blotto80

Used foobar for years, just switched to Jriver. I use ASIO so I can pause and watch video, I do most of my listening while I surf so WASAPI is kind of inconvenient.
I find the sound quality between foobar and Jriver to be pretty similar but the organization in Jriver is far superior. I tried to get a cover art layout in foobar with facets but it was way too slow over the network.


----------



## chrislangley4253

Quote: 





roller said:


> Correction, Windows Vista/7/8 mixer can be bitperfect, but from the moment concurrent streams are active, it no longer is bitperfect.


 
  Thanks, I wasn't aware, but that makes sense.

 That being said... would you ever have concurrent streams going on while actively listening? The only time I have a concurrent stream would be while I'm gaming and listening to music. But, maybe someone else can chime in where this might be a problem. Wasapi just straight up doesn't let you have concurrent streams. It's not a bad failsafe, but kinda redundant and a pain IMO.


----------



## Roller

Quote: 





chrislangley4253 said:


> Thanks, I wasn't aware, but that makes sense.
> 
> That being said... would you ever have concurrent streams going on while actively listening? The only time I have a concurrent stream would be while I'm gaming and listening to music. But, maybe someone else can chime in where this might be a problem. Wasapi just straight up doesn't let you have concurrent streams. It's not a bad failsafe, but kinda redundant and a pain IMO.


 
   
  You make a good point there. However, do note that having a Youtube video open, even if it's stopped, is a stream on its own.
   
  I personally find DirectSound to work just fine, but I use a higher quality resampler, along with VSTs, so bitperfect isn't usable for me on most scenarios. And gaming is certainly a scenario where bitperfect audio playback can't be used.


----------



## chrislangley4253

Quote: 





roller said:


> You make a good point there. However, do note that having a Youtube video open, even if it's stopped, is a stream on its own.


 
  Good to know!


----------



## RonaldDumsfeld

I good solution to the above problem is to buy one of those semi-pro audio interfaces with more than one stereo pair output.
   
  So you can O/P using one set of drivers to your speakers, say foobar via WASAPI, and default all the rest to your headphones via another O/P pair.
   
  It's a really handy facility sometimes. Not expensive either.


----------



## Makiah S

Quote: 





blotto80 said:


> Used foobar for years, just switched to Jriver. I use ASIO so I can pause and watch video, I do most of my listening while I surf so WASAPI is kind of inconvenient.
> I find the sound quality between foobar and Jriver to be pretty similar but the organization in Jriver is far superior. I tried to get a cover art layout in foobar with facets but it was way too slow over the network.


 
  I have J-River and I noticed that FooBar Waspai... screws my Video Game Sounds up... which makes me rather angry so I might switch to jRiver... although I like FooBar because it doesn't use to much memory, it's such a small program <3...but maybe I'll use jRiver more...
  Quote: 





ronalddumsfeld said:


> I good solution to the above problem is to buy one of those semi-pro audio interfaces with more than one stereo pair output.
> 
> So you can O/P using one set of drivers to your speakers, say foobar via WASAPI, and default all the rest to your headphones via another O/P pair.
> 
> It's a really handy facility sometimes. Not expensive either.


 
  That's interesting to


----------



## chrislangley4253

Quote: 





mshenay said:


> I have J-River and I noticed that FooBar Waspai... screws my Video Game Sounds up... which makes me rather angry so I might switch to jRiver... although I like FooBar because it doesn't use to much memory, it's such a small program <3...but maybe I'll use jRiver more...
> That's interesting to


 
  ... disable Wasapi


----------



## Roller

Quote: 





chrislangley4253 said:


> ... disable Wasapi


 
   
  Exactly. DS can also be made bitperfect, but with none of the bitperfect output methods' issues.


----------



## StudioSound

Quote: 





roller said:


> Exactly. DS can also be made bitperfect, but with none of the bitperfect output methods' issues.


 
  Doesn't DirectSound still go through an Int > Float > Dither > Int conversion even if you have volume at 100% and are set to the same sample rate as your music? (Windows 7/8)


----------



## AnAnalogSpirit

.


----------



## Roller

Quote: 





studiosound said:


> Doesn't DirectSound still go through an Int > Float > Dither > Int conversion even if you have volume at 100% and are set to the same sample rate as your music? (Windows 7/8)


 
   
  If output format matches file format, no conversion occurs. But even in the event it's mismatched, everything happening on 32 Float bypasses any potential degradation.


----------



## L36i

I use winamp, but foobar2000 is a good choice as well. I tend towards winamp since i like it more visually wise vs foobar2000.


----------



## Makiah S

Quote: 





chrislangley4253 said:


> ... disable Wasapi


 
  Yes I already figured that out a long time ago.. thanks though <3
   
  On another note... my pc flipped out today and my GPU ran EVERYTHING at half fps while me Sound was like TERRIBLE... reset the thing and it worked again... IT BE THE CURSE OF CYBER MONDAY... I pissed off the Technology gods some how e.e
   
  non the less... I've yet to try jRiver... not sure if I will e.e any one have any reason why it's WAY better than FooBar :O. I do like how clean my FooBar is btw
   
  LOOK
   
   


Spoiler: Warning%3A%7Bicture


----------



## Roller

Quote: 





mshenay said:


> Yes I already figured that out a long time ago.. thanks though <3
> 
> On another note... my pc flipped out today and my GPU ran EVERYTHING at half fps while me Sound was like TERRIBLE... reset the thing and it worked again... IT BE THE CURSE OF CYBER MONDAY... I pissed off the Technology gods some how e.e
> 
> ...


 
   
  JRMC has the advantage of playing video. Sound quality wise, it has no advantage whatsoever.


----------



## chrislangley4253

Quote: 





mshenay said:


> Yes I already figured that out a long time ago.. thanks though <3
> 
> On another note... my pc flipped out today and my GPU ran EVERYTHING at half fps while me Sound was like TERRIBLE... reset the thing and it worked again... IT BE THE CURSE OF CYBER MONDAY... I pissed off the Technology gods some how e.e
> 
> ...


 
  Nice, mine is uber simplistic.. I never sit there looking at it, so it doesn't really matter. Mine is strictly utilitarian.
   
   
   
   


  
  Sometimes I break out an EQ on the bottom there, when I want to use it. But I don't really like how it looks. I wish I could color it blue.


----------



## Traddad

[Hijack alert] What's a good all round player with Flac capability that lets you build play lists, play several albums/artists on shuffle, has good (enough) sound and is simple and clean.   I know Foobar will be a top answer, but I'd really like a "plug and play" player that I don't have to configure from scratch. 
   
  I've been away from Foobar for a while, but I remember dumping it for Media Monkey because I grew tired of having to build it.  [/Hijack alert]


----------



## chrislangley4253

foobar

 No, seriously foobar. I can upload my setup if you want it.


----------



## chewy4

Quote: 





traddad said:


> [Hijack alert] What's a good all round player with Flac capability that lets you build play lists, play several albums/artists on shuffle, has good (enough) sound and is simple and clean.   I know Foobar will be a top answer, but I'd really like a "plug and play" player that I don't have to configure from scratch.
> 
> I've been away from Foobar for a while, but I remember dumping it for Media Monkey because I grew tired of having to build it.  [/Hijack alert]


 
  Have you tried Songbird?
   
  It has a really nice and clean interface, and I've never had problems with any filetype on it.
   
  I used to use it all the time, but I ended up ditching it for Winamp, since Winamp has the best visualizer. Also the Winapple skin looks nice on it(every singe other one is ugly imo).


----------



## Traddad

Quote: 





chrislangley4253 said:


> foobar
> 
> No, seriously foobar. I can upload my setup if you want it.


 
  I may take you up on that.   I liked that it was configurable, but hated having to configure EVERYTHING!!!


----------



## ImperialX

Quote: 





traddad said:


> [Hijack alert] What's a good all round player with Flac capability that lets you build play lists, play several albums/artists on shuffle, has good (enough) sound and is simple and clean.   I know Foobar will be a top answer, but I'd really like a "plug and play" player that I don't have to configure from scratch.
> 
> I've been away from Foobar for a while, but I remember dumping it for Media Monkey because I grew tired of having to build it.  [/Hijack alert]


 
   
  Really, there isn't anything that's as good as Foobar.


----------



## chewy4

Quote: 





imperialx said:


> Really, there isn't anything that's as good as Foobar.


 
  Unless you want decent library management. Which in that case, there really isn't anything as bad.
   
  Foobar is only good if you actually use the extensions for it. For someone who wants to just play music normally with ease, it's a bad choice.


----------



## ImperialX

Quote: 





chewy4 said:


> Unless you want decent library management. Which in that case, there really isn't anything as bad.


 
   
  Which is why I use iTunes. I care about library management.


----------



## chrislangley4253

Quote: 





traddad said:


> I may take you up on that.   I liked that it was configurable, but hated having to configure EVERYTHING!!!


 
   
  http://www.mediafire.com/?571ci574vwizi4v

 My foobar2k config


----------



## Traddad

Quote: 





imperialx said:


> Really, there isn't anything that's as good as Foobar.


 
  I'm sure that's true....but sometimes you just want to sit in a chair, not build it.  I seem to remember there was a site somewhere where you could download complete/semi complete packages.  izzatso?


----------



## Traddad

Quote: 





chrislangley4253 said:


> http://www.mediafire.com/?571ci574vwizi4v
> 
> My foobar2k config


 
  Thanks!
  I'll download it tonight and test drive it on my laptop prior to setting it up on the HTPC.


----------



## Traddad

Wow...Foobar is WAY different than I remember.  
   
  Edit to add:
  A) I like the config Chris, Thanks!!!
  B) I do all my library management up front. Everything in album folder within an artist folder.  I've always done it this way.  +- 20K songs.


----------



## layers

Quote: 





chrislangley4253 said:


> http://www.mediafire.com/?571ci574vwizi4v
> 
> My foobar2k config


 

 hi hi just got into FLAC craz recently
   
  was looking ard for a good FLAC player
   
  thx for the config or i wont know what i shld config
   
  the sound form foobar is really good!
   
  EDIT: Not sure I import correctly. is import theme?


----------



## chrislangley4253

Quote: 





layers said:


> hi hi just got into FLAC craz recently
> 
> was looking ard for a good FLAC player
> 
> ...


 
  Yes, import theme. Does it look like mine? If so, you did it right


----------



## layers

Quote: 





chrislangley4253 said:


> Yes, import theme. Does it look like mine? If so, you did it right


 
  how to check? as in same as the config icon pic. then  yep. Thx
   
  Did u adjust the EQ for the player?
   
  CAn notice the diff between mp3 and FLAC


----------



## chrislangley4253

Quote: 





layers said:


> how to check? as in same as the config icon pic. then  yep. Thx
> 
> Did u adjust the EQ for the player?
> 
> CAn notice the diff between mp3 and FLAC


 
  No, there is no eq. If you want EQ click view and then equalizer.

 Take your FLAC and encode it to V0 or 320 using dBpoweramp.. You won't hear a difference. If you can tell the difference right now it's either in your head, or it's an encoding error. I can tell the difference when the bitrate is too low (any lower than 192, 128 is painfully obvious, for example). I can also tell when an mp3 is a few years old (the encoders just weren't as good back then).
   
  Also, you don't have to use dBpoweramp. It's just what I use, because I have it.


----------



## layers

Quote: 





chrislangley4253 said:


> No, there is no eq. If you want EQ click view and then equalizer.
> 
> Take your FLAC and encode it to V0 or 320 using dBpoweramp.. You won't hear a difference. If you can tell the difference right now it's either in your head, or it's an encoding error. I can tell the difference when the bitrate is too low (any lower than 192, 128 is painfully obvious, for example). I can also tell when an mp3 is a few years old (the encoders just weren't as good back then).
> 
> Also, you don't have to use dBpoweramp. It's just what I use, because I have it.


 
  lol your r right the other mp3 file is of lower quality


----------



## remilio

JRiver Media Center is the best software audio player IMHO.


----------



## beaver316

I use Foobar for playback and MusicBee for library management. So what I do is have my library set up in MusicBee, and when i click to play a song it launches Foobar immediately and plays it through there. Best of both worlds


----------



## Makiah S

Quote: 





chrislangley4253 said:


> foobar
> 
> No, seriously foobar. I can upload my setup if you want it.


 
  Yes his set up... is a standard option... the first time you start foo bar you can set it up that way... it's pretty simple!


----------



## Makiah S

Quote: 





beaver316 said:


> I use Foobar for playback and MusicBee for library management. So what I do is have my library set up in MusicBee, and when i click to play a song it launches Foobar immediately and plays it through there. Best of both worlds


 
  I feel you there, I had to do a little work to get my Library set up how I wanted in Foo Bar but I still love the way it organizes things! Plus you guys
   
   
  FOO BAR DOES AUDIO CONVERSION... JUST LIKE DB POWER AMP, so yea it's a GREAT program!


----------



## yochichi

Foobar 2000


----------



## jump3r

foobar2000 v1.2. for my pc. and lossless player for my android


----------



## coachenzo

Which is easier to use Foobar or dBpoweramp?


----------



## swmtnbiker

Another vote for JRiver MC. Great stuff.


----------



## korzena

Quote: 





coachenzo said:


> Which is easier to use Foobar or dBpoweramp?


 
  Don't know dBpoweramp, but Foobar isn't really difficult to use, you just need to get used to it. And it is a great sounding player!


----------



## Anarion

I use foobar but I don't use FLAC. To be honest, I'd rather use WMP if it had WASAPI or ASIO support (I really like the interface though I've configured Foobar to my liking). I use WMA lossless because that works wonderfully on PC (tags, album art, everything) and on my Lumia 920. Mp3tag does awesome job in tagging.


----------



## korzena

Quote: 





anarion said:


> I use foobar but I don't use FLAC. To be honest, I'd rather use WMP if it had WASAPI or ASIO support (I really like the interface though I've configured Foobar to my liking). I use WMA lossless because that works wonderfully on PC (tags, album art, everything) and on my Lumia 920. Mp3tag does awesome job in tagging.


 
  What's wrong with FLAC format for you?


----------



## XxDobermanxX

Foobar2000 & MediaMonkey.....sorry itunes


----------



## korzena

Quote: 





xxdobermanxx said:


> Foobar2000 & MediaMonkey.....sorry itunes


 
  Apple's (itunes') idea of not accepting other formats like FLAC is really a crappy one!


----------



## krugorg

Here I have dBpoweramp to rip CDs, Foobar 2000 with head-fit crossfeed plugin for playback, and iTunes still installed to play nice with my Apple gear and handle library management.


----------



## Anarion

korzena said:


> What's wrong with FLAC format for you?


Well, in case it was not obvious in my post: Windows supports WMA lossless out of the box completely (and so does foobar). Same goes to Windows Phone 8. Also when I add those files to my phone, it generates folder structure automatically based on tags (not really needed since I tag everything anyway). WMA Lossless works better on my Lumia than FLAC ever did on my Galaxy S.

Both are lossless and more or less the same size, WMA just works much better in my case.


----------



## Luchico638

I have to agree with all the users that have foobar. It's probably the best choice. There are also so many plugins and addons that can enhance your experience.


----------



## krugorg

Quote: 





smeckles said:


> The Absolute Sound is currently in the middle of a 4 part series on computer audio and in part 2 (last month) they rated several programs.  Top program (for both CD ripping and playback) was JRiver Media Center.  $50 (but does have a 30 day trial period).  Two additional plug ins CPlay ($free) and JPlay (99 euros, has a hobbled trial package) add a huge amount to JRMC according to the articles.  CPlay is stand alone and minimally featured.  Jplay now rides on top of  the JRMC interface.
> 
> You want the best player, there is one person's opinion.


 
   
  Will have to give JRiver a shot (hadn't heard of Jplay, thanks)!  
   
  I am curious to compare the crossfeed on JRMC versus head-fit on FB2K.


----------



## sebna

Quote: 





chrislangley4253 said:


> No, there is no eq. If you want EQ click view and then equalizer.
> 
> Take your FLAC and encode it to V0 or 320 using dBpoweramp.. You won't hear a difference. If you can tell the difference right now it's either in your head, or it's an encoding error. I can tell the difference when the bitrate is too low (any lower than 192, 128 is painfully obvious, for example). I can also tell when an mp3 is a few years old (the encoders just weren't as good back then).
> 
> Also, you don't have to use dBpoweramp. It's just what I use, because I have it.


 

 You must be joking right? The difference between 320 mp3 and CD Flac is huge and so on is between CD FLAC and hi-rez FLACs.


----------



## Brooko

Quote: 





sebna said:


> You must be joking right? The difference between 320 mp3 and CD Flac is huge and so on is between CD FLAC and hi-rez FLACs.


 
   
  Um ....... yeah .......nah
   
  I take it you've never performed abx?  If you're actually interested in learning what placebo can do - try this ....
   
  Take your favourite CD and rip your favourite track to FLAC (or some other lossless container)
  Take that same ripped file, and transcode it to the lossy version you'd like to test against.  I'd recommend aac256 (if you're running Apple) and mp3 320.  I use dbpoweramp for the transcoding.
   
  Download and setup foobar 2K  Using the abx comparator, compare the two tracks (lossy & lossless).  Make sure you apply replay-gain first to volume match.  Click the 'test blind' box - it's more a of a shock when you see the results.
   
  All this will take about 10 minutes to set-up.  Run 15 iterations on your favourite track.  If you have the 'balls' to do it - post the results.  I guarantee you that you'll fail.  Then you'll realise that you're like the rest of us (ie have normal ears).
   
  There is no massive audible difference between lossless & higher bit-rate lossy if it's transcoded properly.  Do your self a favour - try the test, then stop perpetuating the myth.  And if you really want to educate yourself - try abxing lossless vs aac~200.  That'll really open your eyes.


----------



## drez

Freind of mine passed such a test, personally I have't tested this yet. Personally though I'm pretty sure of what I hear, but certainly it is well worth for each person to test things in their own system with their own ears before making a decision, and ultimately we know that the difference isn't really that huge to lose sleep over. 
For my own decisions I'm happy to live without the "certainty" of an ABX comparison, and I don't personally have a lot riding on whether mp3 sounds different to flac or wav. Ripping to Flac or wav is a good idea regardless of sq difference. If you archive files in flac you may as well listen to them in flac.
If you are after a full featured player with nice UI then it is hard to go past Jriver, if you are trying to squeeze that elusive last 1% sq out of your system then some of these players like JPlay, cplay etc are worth trying at least.


----------



## Anarion

brooko said:


> Um ....... yeah .......nah
> 
> I take it you've never performed abx?  If you're actually interested in learning what placebo can do - try this ....
> 
> ...


Some tracks compress better than others. Massive or not, there is a difference why limit yourself to lossy format?


----------



## Brooko

Quote: 





anarion said:


> Some tracks compress better than others. Massive or not, there is a difference why limit yourself to lossy format?


 
   
  I don't.  I use FLAC on my home system - it makes sense for archiving.  For everything else (my portables) - I use aac vbr ~ 200.  To me it's transparent.
   
  It always makes me laugh though ...... the comments re night and day differences, or even the ones that claim any audible difference between aac256/mp320 and lossless - as soon as you ask for abx testing ....... you get no reply (or you get a quick change of subject).  I'm not debating that at 128 kbps there is audible artifacting.  I am saying that this perpetual myth of people being able to discern differences between aac256/mp3 320 vs lossy (when properly transcoded) needs to stop.
   
  For a portable with limited space - there is no reason not to use aac256.


----------



## scuttle

Quote: 





sebna said:


> You must be joking right? The difference between 320 mp3 and CD Flac is huge and so on is between CD FLAC and hi-rez FLACs.


 
   
  In terms of memory use, yes...
   
  However, no one can really ***hear*** the difference - some people think they can, but that's not the same thing.


----------



## goodvibes

Quote: 





brooko said:


> I don't.  I use FLAC on my home system - it makes sense for archiving.  For everything else (my portables) - I use aac vbr ~ 200.  To me it's transparent.
> 
> It always makes me laugh though ...... the comments re night and day differences, or even the ones that claim any audible difference between aac256/mp320 and lossless - as soon as you ask for abx testing ....... you get no reply (or you get a quick change of subject).  I'm not debating that at 128 kbps there is audible artifacting.  I am saying that this perpetual myth of people being able to discern differences between aac256/mp3 320 vs lossy (when properly transcoded) needs to stop.
> 
> For a portable with limited space - there is no reason not to use aac256.


 
  And if I tell you I've done it and got it right, would you believe me anyway or even comment. Let folks decide for themselves and get off the soap box. That discussion is for the sound science forum and not every thread that mentions format. Not everyone hears alike, has the same kit to evaluate with and your brain playing tricks on you can work either way depending on desire and expectation. Lets try to keep it on topic.


----------



## Brooko

Quote: 





goodvibes said:


> And if I tell you I've done it and got it right, would you believe me anyway or even comment. Let folks decide for themselves and get off the soap box. That discussion is for the sound science forum and not every thread that mentions format. Not everyone hears alike, has the same kit to evaluate with and your brain playing tricks on you can work either way depending on desire and expectation. Lets try to keep it on topic.


 
   
  Wasn't on the soapbox - and I have as much right to comment as you (unless the rules have changed here).  I apologise that I was O-T, but I'd imagine that you (if you actually have abx'd) would agree with me that this "obvious difference" BS has gone on long enough.  As far as variables go (hearing/kit etc) - can't say I agree so much.  Couple on here with excellent ears & kit (Stax) haven't been able to abx 320 either .....
   
  Back O-T .... I use Foobar 2000 - very configurable


----------



## goodvibes

You can be on the soapbox but this is the wrong thread for it. Mods don't like it for a reason as it will consume the topic if you don't drop it. When it comes to lossy, I like CBR 400 aac nero over 320. I can still hear ambiance and reverberation die too quickly in 320. I use Wave at home. Flac, aac and wav on the go. I own Stax, jh13s and various Quad electrostatics and dynamics for transducers. I would never use a computer with a USB DAC as a reference point for an absolute about anything. I was comparing 24/192 pro A2Ds yesterday off an analog master and could repeatedly pick which was which. Both sounded great but if I was using a PC for playback, I'd have been clueless. Just because you personally don't hear something, it isn't proof it's not there and telling others what they do and don't hear is poor form. Mods actually frown on what you're doing in this thread and why I mentioned the sound science forum. This is my last post on the subject here as the last thing i want to do is prolong it.
   
  I also think Foobar is a great choice for PCs.


----------



## JbstormburstADV

Personally, I use foobar only to apply a pre-amp of +5 dB to my songs when I create the ReplayGain values.  I use MediaMonkey for actual playing, especially since I have a Cover Flow analogue installed.  I would REALLY love to use MusicBee, but I can only get up to ~526 songas synched before MusicBee freezes and I have to use Task Manager to close the program.  If anyone can figure this out, I would be appreciative.
   
  Also, I know this is a shot in the dark, but is there a chance that someone came up with a plugin that can work with Album Art Exchange?  I want to re-tag all of my music with universal 600x600 art before I RockBox my iPod Classic, and I really don't have the patience to browse the site as slowly as I am forced to, considering my library is right now at ~2100 songs, and I have to save the file, move it to the album folder, and re-tag using MP3Tag.


----------



## cvision123

In my experience JRiver is one of the best audio player on Windows. Beside the playback quality, it provides one of the best environment for tag editing.

I used to have my whole library in FLAC but the decided to convert them all to Apple Lossless. Although they are not open from the beginning but they are well supported on most platforms. FLAC is an open standard from the very beginning and they are well supported on most platforms except MAC (of course there are ways to come around this). So in the end, apple lossless seems to be a good choice for me since I can play them on Mac, Windows and sometimes Linux


----------



## avm1

Quote: 





avm1 said:


> And the sound is very "transparent". I'm glad that you uderstand how good it is!


 
  Please, try new version  http://albumplayer.ru/AP295b.zip It has more detailed, but still "analog" sound. It has fantastic sound! (If your DAC is able to demonstrate it)
  And they have English version now: http://albumplayer.ru/english.html


----------



## gopanthersgo1

I need a player with a great EQ... is Jriver the best for that? (64 bit EQ)


----------



## cvision123

Yep. JRiver supports EQs very well. In addition you can use DSP for different purposes such as convolution for room correction, sample rate conversion and so on. Like the other high quality playback software JRiver has 64 bit pipeline to keep the quantization error minimal.


----------



## korzena

Quote: 





cvision123 said:


> In my experience JRiver is one of the best audio player on Windows. Beside the playback quality, it provides one of the best environment for tag editing.
> 
> I used to have my whole library in FLAC but the decided to convert them all to Apple Lossless. Although they are not open from the beginning but they are well supported on most platforms. FLAC is an open standard from the very beginning and they are well supported on most platforms except MAC (of course there are ways to come around this). So in the end, apple lossless seems to be a good choice for me since I can play them on Mac, Windows and sometimes Linux


 
  I agree JRiver has great features and functionalities for tag editing. If it sounded as clear/transparent as Foobar it would be my first choice player.


----------



## swmtnbiker

MC18 sounds just as "clear and transparent" as Foobar on my system.


----------



## korzena

Quote: 





swmtnbiker said:


> MC18 sounds just as "clear and transparent" as Foobar on my system.


 
  I've only tried MC17. 
  Must check ver.18.


----------



## gopanthersgo1

korzena said:


> I've only tried MC17.
> Must check ver.18.


They have a trial...


----------



## korzena

Quote: 





gopanthersgo1 said:


> They have a trial...


 
  Yes, just downloaded


----------



## gopanthersgo1

korzena said:


> Yes, just downloaded


Great!


----------



## cvision123

I think JRiver is one of the best player on Windows. It's a good news that they already have pre-alpha version for MAC as well.


----------



## gopanthersgo1

Same


----------



## korzena

Quote: 





gopanthersgo1 said:


> Great!


 
  I quite like JRiver 18 now


----------



## gopanthersgo1

Better than foobar?


----------



## korzena

Quote: 





gopanthersgo1 said:


> Better than foobar?


 
  As for its standard functionality JRiver is a great player - no comparison to Foobar (although one might appreciate the simplicity of Foobar or play with many of its components).
  Sound-wise I am still not sure. I need more time to listen critically. They appear to sound very similar to me now.


----------



## gopanthersgo1

korzena said:


> As for its standard functionality JRiver is a great player - no comparison to Foobar (although one might appreciate the simplicity of Foobar or play with many of its components).
> Sound-wise I am still not sure. I need more time to listen critically. They appear to sound very similar to me now.


Okay, I'm looking at buying Foobar, as I'm only using the free Jukebox software, which doesn't support ASIO, and is a stripped down JRMC14.


----------



## HeadFiend

gopanthersgo1 said:


> Okay, I'm looking at buying Foobar, as I'm only using the free Jukebox software, which doesn't support ASIO, and is a stripped down JRMC14.




foobar2000 is freeware.


----------



## gopanthersgo1

I hate the u.I.


----------



## HeadFiend

It's highly customizable, you can make it look like pretty much whatever you want: http://goo.gl/U02bl


----------



## gopanthersgo1

I've dabbled with the customization some too, but it doesn't have a 64 bit eq and stuff...


----------



## defguy

Quote: 





avm1 said:


> Please, try new version  http://albumplayer.ru/AP295b.zip It has more detailed, but still "analog" sound. It has fantastic sound! (If your DAC is able to demonstrate it)
> And they have English version now: http://albumplayer.ru/english.html


 
  I just tried this out, it may actually sound better than Foobar although my Foobar may not be set up 100%percent correctly. It's very basic but I stuck a DVD-A disc in and it auto played the highest rez stereo version right off the bat which was pretty cool since I've had to jump through a bunch of hoops to get my pc to play these discs.


----------



## midnightdood

Hello. This would be my first post. After listening to both Album Player releases, i felt inclined to give some feedback. In terms of pure audio quality this one has my vote! Post DAC, it is very close, sonically to a NAD 541i which i enjoy (and was what i was hoping to have matched via a pc). On a secondary note, the wasapi driver does not seem to be loaded (i might be doing something wrong here).


----------



## IgorA

Quote: 





midnightdood said:


> After moving the program to my main pc - and running a scan, AVG found the Win32/Heri virus to be embedded (in 2.9.4), in EXTRAS\add_plugins.zip.


 
  There are no viruses in the files of the player. Some antivirus programs falsely detect viruses in the output plugin Maiko WASAPI (out_maiko.dll). You can not use it.


----------



## midnightdood

Thank you for the heads up. I look foward to enjoying the player and its updates.  


igora said:


> There are no viruses in the files of the player. Some antivirus programs falsely detect viruses in the output plugin Maiko WASAPI (out_maiko.dll). You can not use it.


----------



## volumeup

Its a brilliant sounding player!
 After quite abit of testing to setup pc audio, i have found Album player 2.9.5b to be a comfortable cut above the the rest.  It was a clear and immediate difference at headphone level and its playback sounded musical and engaging at speaker output.  My amp and speakers are quite revealing and found that I did not have to ignore sections of music that were recessed, sounding too thin and or lacking in detail (this was my main gripe with most other players).  This is the first comfortable substitute for a decent CD player that i've heard.  I will be trying this player with some of my other interconnects to see how the music plays.
   
  A big thank you to Igor Antonov for putting this out there.
   
  I like it alot!


----------



## kore

i'm using foobar and i like it...


----------



## budlift

FLAC is lossless.  Lossless means just that.  Making a smaller file does not imply loss of information, just more efficient use of storage.  Think of rearranging your closet.
   
  Do you think you can tell the difference between .wav and .flac?  Many people can.  It's called the placebo effect.


----------



## JohnyBGood

How do you guys think OUYA will fair as a stand-alone flac player?  It's going to become a HUGE media player (as shown by the immediate gaming interest on kickstarter) both for people that need one and also for people that had never considered one before.  It comes w/ wireless controller, but you will need a tv to navigate it:
   
  http://www.ouya.tv/


----------



## gopanthersgo1

johnybgood said:


> How do you guys think OUYA will fair as a stand-alone flac player?  It's going to become a HUGE media player (as shown by the immediate gaming interest on kickstarter) both for people that need one and also for people that had never considered one before.  It comes w/ wireless controller, but you will need a tv to navigate it:
> 
> http://www.ouya.tv/


Hmm... it doesn't run windows, so someone will have to make a nice FLAC player with Bit Perfect support at 24/192... Maybe, maybe not, we'll have to see.


----------



## Tangster

Quote: 





gopanthersgo1 said:


> Hmm... it doesn't run windows, so someone will have to make a nice FLAC player with Bit Perfect support at 24/192... Maybe, maybe not, we'll have to see.


 
  So just about everything with AISO or WASAPI support?


----------



## gopanthersgo1

tangster said:


> So just about everything with AISO or WASAPI support?


Pretty much, some programs have less jitter than others, but it's mainly just a UI preference unless you have an insane speaker system or STAX...


----------



## PanamaHat

I'm quite fond of Winamp. It's much easier to customize than foobar  and sounds just as good (maybe missing 1% extra definition that foobar offers)
   
  Edit: And it does gapless playback without plugins


----------



## mat-t

whats the best flac player for a mac?


----------



## PanamaHat

Quote: 





mat-t said:


> whats the best flac player for a mac?


 
  Audirvana


----------



## TrollDragon

Quote: 





mat-t said:


> whats the best flac player for a mac?


 

fidelia


----------



## PanamaHat

Just started using Foobar out of curiosity and because Winamp kept crashing...
  So far foobar is amazing. I did a little comparison to see which could render my .flac files better and foobar wins. It just sounds more.. fluid
  Pretty upsetting because I paid for winamp pro for the advantage or being able to convert .flac to mp3, but apparently foobar does this too.


----------



## sinkr

Foobar2000 is my PC player of choice.  Among its myriad of plugins, you can get lost in the various scriptable ways to customize and extend FB2K's functionality.
   
  Its embedded CUE+ artwork support are what made me switch from Winamp years ago.
   
  For Linux, QMMP offers similar embedded CUE support.


----------



## cvision123

panamahat said:


> Audirvana



It's hard to have a definitive answer to this question. If you stick with Mac then it would be easier to use either AIFF or ALAC. By using these two formats, you can try out a lot of players such as Audirvana Plus, Amarra, Decibel, Fidelia, BitPerfect, Pure Music, ... and use iTunes for library management purpose. When you change to other OS, I'm quite sure that they support AIFF and ALAC very well.


----------



## Romis

I use Foobar2000 with WASAPI and the sound is good, but better sound could be achieved with a good sound card though.


----------



## sinkr

Quote: 





romis said:


> I use Foobar2000 with WASAPI and the sound is good, but better sound could be achieved with a good sound card though.


 
  To me, this goes without saying;  what I've always found interesting is the (non-)effect of upsampling, like the SoX or SRC upsamplers.


----------



## dandelion

So far the best flac player I have used is the aplayer talked about earlier in this thread.
http://albumplayer.ru/english.html aplayer is designed for playing CD's and albums ripped to flac, alac, ape etc with the best possible sound quality. It is lightning fast with no audio glitches even on Windows Vista (notorious for audio dropouts during playback).
  Interface is simple with track list and album art. There is no overblown media library, just a simple, fast access drop down menu.
  Audio quality is excellent.
  For me this is the perfect flac player I have yet to find something I don't like about it.


----------



## xxicrimsonixx

Foobar2000


----------



## PanamaHat

Eventually I'd like to get coax or optical out from my set up, but I use a laptop to stream to my odac. Is there a way to do this? I'm not so sold on usb conversion, but if someone points me to a good one, I may bite.


----------



## sinkr

Quote: 





panamahat said:


> Eventually I'd like to get coax or optical out from my set up, but I use a laptop to stream to my odac. Is there a way to do this? I'm not so sold on usb conversion, but if someone points me to a good one, I may bite.


 
  I run USB exclusively wether it's directly to the device or to an I^2S connection (Empirical Audio I2S Off-Ramp).  I can't find the reference, but George Cardas had an article discussing digital vs. analog, and specifically Toslink, asking the question of why you would want to introduce yet another conversion/deconversion in the stream (presumably introducing jitter).
   
  There may be other factors, such as RF interference or running over long distances, but it's my _opinion_ that Toslink buys you nothing unless you need 192k to your DAC and your USB connection and devices cannot support that.


----------



## planet

JRiver


----------



## xeizo

I like Musicbee very much


----------



## Nec3

This might sound a bit off topic but I'm currently playing through adobe audition, and I'm noticing clearer mids and highs compared to when I play through Foobar2000.. Is there settings that I could improve the quality of Foobar2000? Or am I forever forced to play music through audio editting software..?


----------



## Chodi

If you are playing music in a bit perfect mode through foobar or J River to my ears they sound exactly the same. Once you start using any dsp or using the digital volume control it is a different story. J River handles dsp much better than foobar. To my ears J River stock dsp's or even a custom dsp with J River produce a much more natural result than foobar. Might be the 64 bit internal processing in J River that makes this difference. I am a big fan of foobar for flac playback in bit perfect mode but if you use any dsp J River will produce better results.


----------



## Nec3

$50. Well I guess I'll give it a shot, I'll let you know how it turns out.


----------



## xeizo

I use Linux as my primary music-OS, I use Audacious mostly as it has a good quality built in resampler, as I find a lot of music simply sounds better when upsampling Xonar Essence ST to 192kHz. I also use Clementine sometimes for it's librarian qualities.
   
  But when in Windows I like Music Bee, as I stated above, also because of it's music library qualities and because of a good sounding built in resampler using WASAPI.
   
  Musicbee sounds better than Foobar2000 by default when upsampling I think. But when using the "Foo Dsp Resampler Mod2 0.8.3" based on SoX in Foobar2000 I believe Foobar2000 may have a slight edge. In fact, when using "stereo direct" in the Creative drivers and 192kHz WASAPI with the Soundblaster Z it sounds amazingly close to Xonar Essence ST in sheer sound quality using Foobar2000. I used to prefer uLiliths built in upsampling, but "Foo Dsp Resampler Mod2 0.8.3" is more smooth and gives less listening fatique.
   
  Of course, using those resamplers for upsampling in their respective "best" mode uses a lot of CPU-cycles and is not practically possible to use on all computers, but a Core i7 @ 4.7GHz is hardly bothered at all with upsampling going on and CPU:s are made to be used.


----------



## TrollDragon

So you take CD quality audio @ 16/44.1 and upsample it to 24/192?
Does the audio actually sound better? What fills in the empty space so to speak?

Sent from my HTC Desire HD A9191 using Tapatalk 2


----------



## xeizo

Quote: 





trolldragon said:


> So you take CD quality audio @ 16/44.1 and upsample it to 24/192?
> Does the audio actually sound better? What fills in the empty space so to speak?
> 
> Sent from my HTC Desire HD A9191 using Tapatalk 2


 
   
  The audio file itself doesn't get any better, there's no hidden information to be retrieved, but many modern DAC:s benefit from upsampling because the DAC-chip simply performs better with higher sample rate. Lower noise, lower distorsion, lower crosstalk etc etc. and also it circumvents the need for the sharp filtering needed around 22kHz using 44.1kHz samplerate ie similar to using a very slow filter instead. It all depends on which DAC-chip is used so upsampling itself is not universal. If the chip is not up to it there will be no improvement, it could be worse instead.
   
  edit. the empty space you asked about is filled up with zeros!


----------



## TrollDragon

Thanks for the info.

Sent from my HTC Desire HD A9191 using Tapatalk 2


----------



## xnor

Quote: 





chodi said:


> If you are playing music in a bit perfect mode through foobar or J River to my ears they sound exactly the same. Once you start using any dsp or using the digital volume control it is a different story. J River handles dsp much better than foobar. To my ears J River stock dsp's or even a custom dsp with J River produce a much more natural result than foobar. Might be the 64 bit internal processing in J River that makes this difference. I am a big fan of foobar for flac playback in bit perfect mode but if you use any dsp J River will produce better results.


 
  Having developed plugins myself I can tell you that nothing limits a foobar2000 DSP plugin from using 64 or 80 or even 128 bit floating point processing. Theoretically you can calculate results to arbitrary precision.
   
  Quote: 





xeizo said:


> edit. the empty space you asked about is filled up with zeros!


 
  And then these zeros and the original samples have to be filtered with a steep lowpass similar to the one in the DAC..
  Btw, virtually any DAC does worse at 192 kHz than at 96 kHz.


----------



## Chodi

Quote: 





xnor said:


> Having developed plugins myself I can tell you that nothing limits a foobar2000 DSP plugin from using 64 or 80 or even 128 bit floating point processing. Theoretically you can calculate results to arbitrary precision.


 
  I have no doubt what you say is correct (I've seen your work) but I still contend that J River sounds better with dsp plugins than foobar. I don't pretend to know the reason but I have done extensive listening to both with the same plugins and to my ears J River handles them all better. I also find that without any dsp added the two sound exactly the same given the same settings. I do use dsp so this issue was important to me to sort. For me the winner with dsp was obviously J River. I actually much prefer the simple interface of foobar but with dsp added I learned to live with the complex J River system for the great sound quality.


----------



## xeizo

Quote: 





xnor said:


> Btw, virtually any DAC does worse at 192 kHz than at 96 kHz.


 
   
  Yes, as I said it all depends on which DAC-chip is used and possibly the implementation on the circuit board itself, it's not universal. However the cheap Soundblaster Z seems to benefit from running at 192kHz rather than 96kHz!
   
  edit. also, I guess most USB-DAC:s would struggle with 192kHz even if their drivers support it, so upsampling should either be onboard already or used with a soundcard which has an infinitely faster bus-speed than an USB-device. And as I said, many PC:s have to weak CPU:s so you get high processor use and dropouts in the sound instead.


----------



## Chodi

Quote: 





xeizo said:


> Yes, as I said it all depends on which DAC-chip is used and possibly the implementation on the circuit board itself, it's not universal. However the cheap Soundblaster Z seems to benefit from running at 192kHz rather than 96kHz!
> 
> edit. also, I guess most USB-DAC:s would struggle with 192kHz even if their drivers support it, so upsampling should either be onboard already or used with a soundcard which has an infinitely faster bus-speed than an USB-device. And as I said, many PC:s have to weak CPU:s so you get high processor use and dropouts in the sound instead.


 
  I've got a high end pc (3170) and my dac is using the Sabre 9018 chip (D18). On my system 192kHz is clearly better than 96kHz. I only upsample redbook 44kHz and the difference is positive. On my system if I upsample redbook to 96kHz it loses clarity which suggests the dac isn't happy. At 192kHz it opens up and the soundstage is huge with very specific placement. It's that wrap around, deep layered type of soundstage that is really engaging.


----------



## xnor

That 48 (or 96) kHz can do quite a bit better than 44.1 (or 88.2) kHz is obvious since cheap products use only one clock, but saying that near 200 kHz it performs better would mean that they (deliberately?) made the product perform worse at 96 kHz.
  Lavry Engineering sums it up pretty nicely:
  Quote: 





> Whatever one hears on a 192KHz system can be introduced into a 96KHz system,
> and much of it into lower sampling rates. That includes any distortions associated with 192KHz
> gear, much of which is due to insufficient time to achieve the level of accuracy of slower
> sampling.


 
  Quote: 





> Sampling audio signals at 192KHz is about 3 times faster than the optimal rate.
> It compromises the accuracy which ends up as audio distortions.


----------



## Chodi

Interesting, your quote regarding distortions at 192kHz if true might suggest that the huge soundstage effect I am hearing is a product of those distortions. Since it is well known that many like the distortions presented by various tube amps (myself included) it is possible that this is a positive effect. In my case I simply find that my dac results in a more engaging performance at 192kHz. Of course, all this is just personal preference. I don't doubt that my preference might have different results with a different dac.


----------



## OmarCCX

I like having my MP3 and FLAC library separate.
   
  I really like Winamp, but I only use it for my MP3 songs. I'm now trying Mediamonkey, Musicbee and Helium Music Manager to use for my FLAC library.


----------



## StudioSound

xeizo said:


> it circumvents the need for the sharp filtering needed around 22kHz using 44.1kHz samplerate ie similar to using a very slow filter instead.


This is nothing to do with DAC functionality and is encoded into the audio file itself. If samples above 22kHz were not filtered out before encoding the audio, you would be encoding the resulting aliasing into the file.

The exception is the playback of DSD and DXD files in real-time - native DSD files need a lowpass filter applied to them, because DSD contains a lot of ultrasonic noise, and DXD files are often sourced from DSD masters that _did not_ filter out the ultrasonic noise.

I think this can also be seen in files from places like HDtracks as well.



xeizo said:


> Yes, as I said it all depends on which DAC-chip is used and possibly the implementation on the circuit board itself, it's not universal. However the cheap Soundblaster Z seems to benefit from running at 192kHz rather than 96kHz!


Most DAC chips (apart from the latest DSD-capable ones) should sound better around 96kHz. However some devices may internally resample everything to their maximum rate regardless of what you send it (actually, most probably do this now) so what you might be experiencing is better quality upsampling on the PC (or at least _different_ upsampling) than the device is doing internally.



xnor said:


> That 48 (or 96) kHz can do quite a bit better than 44.1 (or 88.2) kHz is obvious since cheap products use only one clock, but saying that near 200 kHz it performs better would mean that they (deliberately?) made the product perform worse at 96 kHz.


I think the Sabre DACs are operating in the megahertz range internally regardless of what the input is. (they need to be capable of it, because they support native DSD)

What Chodi describes is likely a difference in the way that resampling is handled in his player, or simply placebo.



omarccx said:


> I like having my MP3 and FLAC library separate.
> 
> I really like Winamp, but I only use it for my MP3 songs. I'm now trying Mediamonkey, Musicbee and Helium Music Manager to use for my FLAC library.


I like a player that handles all formats equally well. Few players seem to be decoding lossy formats in 32-bit. JRiver does a great job handling all formats, and has a very powerful database engine running in the background, so you can essentially have it split how your library is handled based on the file types if you prefer.


----------



## Chodi

Quote: 





studiosound said:


> What Chodi describes is likely a difference in the way that resampling is handled in his player, or simply placebo.


 
  I would buy the fact that the player together with a strong computer might produce better resampling results than the dac itself. I am using J River for upsampling and when I performed the same upsampling using sox and foobar the results with foobar were not even close. In fact  no software upsampling was preferable with foobar. So I think you are right that upsampling with the player may well account for my positive results. I can tell you after many years in high end audio what I am hearing is not a placebo. I've been around long enough to know that my results could be influenced by the particular synergy of the software and the components that I am using. Your mileage may vary.


----------



## xnor

Chodi, the resampler built into foobar2000 is good (~135 dB SNR, passband >21 kHz, linear phase) and there's also the SoX resampler plugin which is excellent (very high quality mode improves on the built-in one on every aspect and is highly configurable, in fact it is one of the best resamplers out there).
   
  edit: When I tried measuring J River again I couldn't make it output 32 bit, all it would output was 24 bit samples. Also, I noticed that the filter is extremely steep resulting in a very long impulse response (about 6 times the length of the very high quality SoX filter).


----------



## xeizo

Yes, different _software_ do sound different, it's an obstacle in the search for the perfect sound ... I have a few favorite players and noone is a perfect 10. But Musicbee on Windows is a very good compromise, the players on Linux are inferior as to functionality but on the other hand so do most sound very good as long as one is using ALSA instead of the degrading Pulseaudio. On Linux I switch back and forth between  Audacious, Deadbeef, Clementine and Quod Libet mostly but I try other players as well.


----------



## eljr

So did we decide the best Flac player for windows 8.1?


----------



## StudioSound

xnor said:


> When I tried measuring J River again I couldn't make it output 32 bit, all it would output was 24 bit samples. Also, I noticed that the filter is extremely steep resulting in a very long impulse response (about 6 times the length of the very high quality SoX filter).



 
It's based on SSRC code.


----------



## appsmarsterx

eljr said:


> So did we decide the best Flac player for windows 8.1?


 
  
 there is no such thing as a best player.. foobar, Winamp, JRiver are equally good. if you want improved sound quality, just upgrade your headphone, amp, dac without worrying about these pointless discussions.


----------



## sebna

MQN with MQNLoader, period.


----------



## thejournal

foobar2000 is a superb player..


----------



## rodomo

Foorbar I think it is the best since it has so many features and it is free!


----------



## Audio Reiner

When I make a FLAC-File from a CD I use foobar2000 with the setting "dither=always". I've the Impression the sound has more air, room, space in it.

 Is there anybody with the same or other impressions?


----------



## 4mayday

I can recomend very good free simple player with very high SQ (better than foobar2000 on my setup) - *Album Player *http://www.albumplayer.ru/english.html. 
 It's UI is not as comfortable as in customized foobar2000, but when I want to get maximum sound quality - I use Album Player. Preferrable audio output for my taste - kernel streaming.
 Give it a try - it's worth it.


----------



## 1c3d0g

AIMP wins against all other music players hands down, IMHO.


----------



## A_Man_Eating_Duck

audio reiner said:


> When I make a FLAC-File from a CD I use foobar2000 with the setting "dither=always". I've the Impression the sound has more air, room, space in it.
> 
> Is there anybody with the same or other impressions?


I wouldn't recommend doing this when you are ripping the CD, all you you have done is made an imperfect copy of the CD. Better practice would be rip the CD to FLAC using the standards settings and then manipulate the audio when playing.


----------



## adisib

1c3d0g said:


> AIMP wins against all other music players hands down, IMHO.


 
 Great player, I would recommend.


----------



## chrislangley4253

I still main foobar2k,

 But, I'll be trying out album player and aimp caught my eye too.

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dither

 Dithering is definitely not something you want to enable when you are ripping CD's to FLAC. I highly recommend against it.. It might _sound_ better, but you are no longer getting an accurate rip.. You are getting a dithered rip, ya know?


----------



## gopanthersgo1

I'm using mpd on my windows box.


----------



## JbstormburstADV

I've got MusicBee running on my Windows 8.1 for playing/management while I use foobar to add Replaygain, and I love it, especially since I can do some toying around and end up with a UI similar to that of ITunes.  As for Linux, I've got Banshee running, but I'll take any better suggestions if you have them.


----------



## eljr

appsmarsterx said:


> there is no such thing as a best player.. foobar, Winamp, JRiver are equally good. if you want improved sound quality, just upgrade your headphone, amp, dac without worrying about these pointless discussions.


 
 wow
  
 you are a treat
  
 i guess this is your way of saying all features and comparability is irrelevant to you and anyone more considered deserves your ridicule


----------



## eljr

rodomo said:


> Foorbar I think it is the best since it has so many features and it is free!


 
 here is where i am at
  
 i have a dedicated lap top for music
  
 i use j river
  
 i have a second lap top that i stream music from the dedicated laptop to  
  
 in order to play my flac files i need a player on the second laptop 
  
 should i put j rivers on that as wel or just use the foorbar you recommend?
  
 what's your thought?


----------



## maro73

Hello
 I have been using Jriver for almost 2 years
 Big advantage is the Jremote app , and the fact that it serves music on the home network
 Cheers


----------



## DSlayerZX

JRiver, once you bought it's license, it's good for the entire household.
  
 So why not just install JRiver on your laptop since you are already familiar with it instead of foorbar?
  
 Quote:


eljr said:


> here is where i am at
> 
> i have a dedicated lap top for music
> 
> ...


----------



## squidman

Well didn't bother reading through all the 15 pages of the thread, but will give foobar a shot (was using vlc til now!).  Just picked up the asus phoebus for gaming, to get away from the onboard realteck alc 898 or whatever it is on my z9pe-d8 ws, but stuck with an apparently obsolete v-can mk 1 for my akg k612's.  Still looking for a decent streaming service, the french one requires me to use my vpn, the ors (spotify etc) are at a lower bitrate (320? and expensive too!). I don't really want to pay 20 quid a month or 50 bucks for lossless streaming...(the norwegian alternative)...will let you know how I get on....looks like its' back to the old days of torrenting flacs and playing locally untill it gets a bit cheaper (wow like back in the day with limewire!!)...
  
 edit: limewire was THE BOMB back in the day! before streaming! Have of course moved on many years ago to spotify, but with better cans...blechhh!!! youtube and spotify aren't quite the same...need better source!


----------



## vogelscheuche

Definitly incredible sounding Player for flac is the DJ Software Traktor pro 2 from Native Instruments. With an Xonar Essence and WASAPI is there nothing better I know.


----------



## pauliunas

vcrhifi said:


> I personally use foobar2000. It "free" so you can try it and see how you like it. It also allows a lot of customizations if you like to tweak.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



 


No it's not ""free"", it's FREE.


----------



## crashnburn

jbstormburstadv said:


> I've got MusicBee running on my Windows 8.1 for playing/management while I use foobar to add Replaygain, and I love it, especially since I can do some toying around and end up with a UI similar to that of ITunes.  As for Linux, I've got Banshee running, but I'll take any better suggestions if you have them.


 
 Hmm.. Interesting  THanks.


----------



## voon

I love the MusicBee player. Tons of features and plays just about anything, with lots of useful features built in and relatively hassle free. So +1 to that.
  
 http://getmusicbee.com/


----------



## Headphile32

Using Pono Music World player and find it to be better than Foobar and it also rips CD's into Flacs perfectly. It is a JRiver software with Pono. I am greatly impressed with JRiver now. The playback is quite impressive.


----------



## pauliunas

I honestly don't think it's important. They all use the same FLAC codec in the end... What they do is "ask" the codec to decompress a file and then send the result to your sound card's driver. Some of them have equalizers and other "effects", but in my opinion they all just spoil the recordings. I mean they can be fine-tuned to a specific track or even album to make it sound better, but when playing something else, they might be irrelevant. It's much simpler to just get a better recording - if the original doesn't satisfy you, you can't squeeze out much of it with software. The only thing to consider when choosing a music player I see is the design, and sometimes the way it organizes your music. But usually it's all the same.. You can sort it by artist, album, title, genre, folder structure and make playlists. Nothing special... I use foobar because it's very light, doesn't eat my resources for unnecessary stuff like visualisation andisn't bloated with other things I don't need. In fact, I would like a better design (not this Windows 95 thing), but I don't care about it enough to start looking for a new player.


----------



## Music Alchemist

I usually use foobar2000, because it's easy for me to drag-'n'-drop on-the-fly playlists from my manually-organized folders that I browse instead of using a graphical user interface. (It's ironically easier for me to browse manually my own way rather than being forced to play by the rules of a program.) Plus it's bit-perfect and has tons of plugins to enhance the experience any way you want. There are various players that claim to offer better sound quality even though the free ones are already bit-perfect, and some users indeed perceive an improvement. One example is JPLAY. I sometimes use the free trial of JPLAYmini, which is a minimalist player that looks like a text file and writes the entire track or playlist to memory before playback. To my ears, though, there is little or no difference. Whenever I perceive a difference, it's not significant enough to be sure it's genuine, and the measurements substantiate the notion that it doesn't sound any different. One player that definitely does sound different is HQPlayer. It applies DSP (read the PDF that comes with the free trial to learn about it and why the designer feels it's better, and click here to see the settings I used) that somehow makes music sound more realistic to me, with an "urgent" sense of dynamics. However, it's expensive and the interface is atrocious.


----------



## Music Alchemist

pauliunas said:


> I would like a better design (not this Windows 95 thing)


 
  
 There are many awesome skins for foobar2000. You can make it look however you like. I just use the default, though.


----------



## pauliunas

music alchemist said:


> There are many awesome skins for foobar2000. You can make it look however you like. I just use the default, though.



 


Oh thanks... didn't know that  will definitely look for something more metro-ish


----------



## antikryst

anyone try foobar2000 mobile? the windows universal app on windows 10?
  
 I'm travelling right now... wont be back home for a couple of weeks so I don't have a DAC with me to check it out properly.


----------



## 2xKetabol

I wanted to try it but it seems like it needs more development. At least that is what I think after reading a few reviews in the Play Store. I use Musicbee on pc now and I like it a lot more than foobar tbh. Simply because it is way more intuitive for me at least.


----------

