Foobar, audio conversion and compression

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Foobar, audio conversion and compression

Postby Noel_14 » Tue Jun 14, 2011 7:11 pm

Sorry for the ignorance. What is Foobar? I've read that some media tank or digital music player support Foobar network audio stream decoding. What does it mean?

Cheers
Last edited by Noel_14 on Thu Jun 16, 2011 1:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: What is Foobar?

Postby desmo » Tue Jun 14, 2011 7:35 pm

I use Foobar as an MP3 player in my PC. It's supposed to sound better compared to some popular software music players, I guess due to it's simplicity. I'm sure there's more to it than that. :)
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Re: What is Foobar?

Postby rtsyrtsy » Tue Jun 14, 2011 8:11 pm

When I asked myself this question many moons ago, a relevant answer (to me at least) that I came across was this:

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/content/Fun-Foobar

And here's one that covers Foobar and its alternatives:

http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread/493678/a-better-sounding-alternative-to-foobar2000-or-a-musing-in-the-realm-of-bit-perfect-streaming
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Re: What is Foobar?

Postby donunus » Tue Jun 14, 2011 8:15 pm

Foobar also has some nice features instead of bloatware that audiophiles don't generally use. It comes with file conversion features, cue splitting, abx testing, you can put crossfeed, vst effects, ipod integration, cd burning etc...
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Re: Foobar, audio conversion and compression

Postby Noel_14 » Thu Jun 16, 2011 1:27 pm

With all the audio conversion and compression available (APE, FLAC, MPC, OGG, TTA, etc etc) which for you guys is the best? :(

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Re: Foobar, audio conversion and compression

Postby donunus » Thu Jun 16, 2011 1:36 pm

For lossless I vote FLAC. It is the fastest to encode and decode and they have good compression rates. Second only to the most highly compressed APE but not nearly as slow.

For Lossy and ipod use, I vote nero aac. The files at around .85 VBR(more or less 350kbps) are insanely close to the original in sound and measurement when you look at a specrum display on adobe audition.
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Re: Foobar, audio conversion and compression

Postby m_shoe_maker » Thu Jun 16, 2011 8:40 pm

:fubar: <---- This smiley is "Fubar".
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Re: Foobar, audio conversion and compression

Postby Noel_14 » Fri Jun 17, 2011 2:33 pm

donunus wrote:For lossless I vote FLAC. It is the fastest to encode and decode and they have good compression rates. Second only to the most highly compressed APE but not nearly as slow.

For Lossy and ipod use, I vote nero aac. The files at around .85 VBR(more or less 350kbps) are insanely close to the original in sound and measurement when you look at a specrum display on adobe audition.


Can you reco what settings to use for FLAC? Should I use the highest compression?

Thanks again :)
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Re: Foobar, audio conversion and compression

Postby donunus » Fri Jun 17, 2011 6:19 pm

Since computers these days are pretty fast na, level 8 is what i would use to save space. Anyways, the sound will be the same. The only difference between 5 and 8 is the time to compress and decompress being slower on 8
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Re: Foobar, audio conversion and compression

Postby Dodie » Sat Jun 18, 2011 4:07 am

m_shoe_maker wrote::fubar: <---- This smiley is "Fubar".
Foobar is the bar of foo along tomas moratoo :lol: :lol:
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Re: Foobar, audio conversion and compression

Postby donunus » Fri Nov 16, 2012 6:15 pm

Noel_14 wrote:
donunus wrote:Can you reco what settings to use for FLAC? Should I use the highest compression?

Thanks again :)

If you have the hard drive space, Flac uncompressed may be better. It would be like wav with superior tagging capability. Some people have heard differences between uncompressed flac and compressed. I myself haven't tested it though so it may be better to try the different flac settings on your system to see if you yourself can hear if there is a difference or not. Theoretically there shouldn't be any difference but you know with audio, theories aren't always right.
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