Good Audio Players for WinXP

[Blackrazor]

Hey guys.

I just picked up an external Terratec Phase24 Firewire audio processor for sound playback on my PC. Couldnt be more rapt with it - i'll do a review on it later with a bit more indepth info, but suffice to say the sound quality absolutely annihilates any other sound card i've ever heard in my life, including some quite high end M-Audio and Creative ones :)

However, i've run into one issue. I normally use WinAmp for music playback, but any time i try to do that with an external sound card, it stutters. The music just pauses for a half second every so often, for no reason. Yet, any other sound effects work fine, and if i play the music via Windows Media Player, it works fine, although WMP sounds icky compared to WinAmp.

Does anyone have an idea what could be causing this, and also what other high quality PC audio players there are out there i could look at? WMP works flawlessly but sounds like ass, whereas WinAmp sounds great but stutters :(

And no, its not the sound card, as it works flawlessly in anything except WinAmp. I've checked the CPU usage, and even with the device running at 24bit, 192kHz stereo, CPU usage never goes above 1%, including when WinAmp is mucking up.

[Blackrazor]

To clarify my request for other programs that play music via PC : i never use audio librarys, i never make compilations, or any of that organised stuff. All i ever do, is go into my music folders, find the lossless files i want to play, and play them. Thats it.

So the program i'm after would be as simple as possible, with the best output sound possible.

[JamesB]

Try foobar 2000 - it can be as simple or as complex as you like...

http://www.foobar2000.org/

-- James :)

[paulusx]

I use Media Player Classic. Lets me play DVD's on my PC without software decoder...WMP kicks up a fuss.
Link - http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=82303

[Mevunky]

Originally posted by JamesB
Try foobar 2000 - it can be as simple or as complex as you like...

http://www.foobar2000.org/

-- James :)

Foobar is the only audio player if you want quality, and customisibility to the max.

Foobar Full + Kernal Streaming/ASIO out = The best :D

Also you havent heard sound cards till you have heard the 1212m etc :) by E-MU of course

[Owen Y]

These guys, whom I know, in HK, are onto it, esp Mr drwkng....have a little read thru this (short) thread...

http://www.vt4c.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=1152&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=30

Regards, Owen

[Low Orbit]

Originally posted by Mevunky
Foobar is the only audio player if you want quality, and customisibility to the max.

Foobar Full + Kernal Streaming/ASIO out = The best :D

Also you havent heard sound cards till you have heard the 1212m etc :) by E-MU of course

Hehe. Until I read this thread I was unaware that you could use ASIO (which I've been using since day one for mucking rund with music) through foobar (which I've been using for ages now) - pity I only have a domestic card rather than a pro one. Now I have the ASIO throughput it sounds so much cleaner. Thanks to everyone here for pointing that out.

Cheers, Shane.

[Mevunky]

Originally posted by Low Orbit
Hehe. Until I read this thread I was unaware that you could use ASIO (which I've been using since day one for mucking rund with music) through foobar (which I've been using for ages now) - pity I only have a domestic card rather than a pro one. Now I have the ASIO throughput it sounds so much cleaner. Thanks to everyone here for pointing that out.

Cheers, Shane.

Try Kernal streaming, technically it should be even more pure, does ure soundcard upmix everything to 48k? that will destroy most things :(

Gettng 44.1 bit perfect out is what you are looking for!

[Blackrazor]

Tried foobar. Very configurable, but attrocious to use. Try JRiver Media Centre that was recommended to me by a friend, it supports wave out and ASIO and works brilliantly, but is convenient to use, unlike foobar :) Only probs is it isnt free like foobar is, but you can trial it for free :)

http://www.jrmediacenter.com/

[Low Orbit]

^^ I've reverted back to KS. ASIO it seems was limited to 16 bit :/ Using 24 bit padded to 32 bit floating, no resampling. Sounds pretty good.

Yes BR, foo is a tad hard to configure, but it's the best player I've heard bar none. Pity about my soundcard.

Cheers, Shane.

[Blackrazor]

Its not the configurability, its the day to day usability thats atrocious :)

As for sounding better, JRiver imo sounds identical, especially considering that ASIO means your sound card does all the work anyway... and let me quote the Foobar site ;)

Does foobar2000 sound better than other players?
No. Most of "sound quality differences" people "hear" are placebo effect (at least with real music), as actual differences in produced sound data are below their noise floor (1 or 2 last bits in 16bit samples). Foobar2000 has sound processing features such as software resampling or 24bit output on new high-end soundcards, but most of other mainstream players are capable of doing the same by now.

Anyway, if you like it, go for it. Personally, i think its horrible to use, unweildy to run in the background, and unprofessionally assembled. But its free, so people will still use it i guess, its amazing how good something can be when you dont have to pay for it :D

[Mevunky]

Anyway, if you like it, go for it. Personally, i think its horrible to use, unweildy to run in the background, and unprofessionally assembled. But its free, so people will still use it i guess, its amazing how good something can be when you dont have to pay for it

Errr I feel exactly the opisite.

The fact that I can make foobar look how I want, place anything I want anywhere and generate a totally custom player. Unprofessional?

Horrible to use? you make make it look and feel however you want, so you can make it usable to how you want to use it!

No player I know apart from winamp can do that, and I used winamp for many years but I have had enough of it now.