Which PC based digital player sounds best ?

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Re: Which PC based digital player sounds best ?

Postby Gino » Thu Sep 19, 2013 6:06 am

Just when I was liking Foobar2000. I have a JDS Labs ODAC (rca outputs) coming so I might just give that a spin.
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Re: Which PC based digital player sounds best ?

Postby donunus » Thu Sep 19, 2013 9:19 pm

gheetar wrote:For me it's Media monkey, best for huge music library, mobile syncing and also has built-in wasapi (exclusive mode). I will never go back to foobar,jriver and itunes anymore :D


winamp also has wasapi by the way... a really customizeable one at that http://maiko.elementfx.com/
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Re: Which PC based digital player sounds best ?

Postby donunus » Thu Sep 19, 2013 9:21 pm

Oh, I almost forgot. Also try musicbee. It is a nice free player that looks very good and is less buggy than mediamonkey. It also supports wasapi.
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Re: Which PC based digital player sounds best ?

Postby donunus » Thu Sep 19, 2013 11:44 pm

I got in the mood and installed the other players on my PC. Right now I am comparing foobar with latest wasapi event mode vs winamp with maiko wasapi in exclusive mode with all boxes checked except for all resampling. Looks like I have a new winner. Winamp sounds less forced than foobar. It is more liquid sounding and I am enjoying the music more. Playing the same songs on foobar make the sound a little "hot" and bass seems a little harder and maybe even a bit distorted. Upper mids on foobar are also a little peakier and less relaxed. Winamp sounds less colored overall against foobar and Jriver as well. JRiver against winamp and foobar sounds slightly more congested making it seem bassier due to the slight congestion. Jriver is however less grainy than foobar. Winamp has the grainlessness of JRiver without the congestion. Winner and Winamp with Maiko so far... Lets see whats in store for us next.

Next up... Musicbee
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Re: Which PC based digital player sounds best ?

Postby donunus » Fri Sep 20, 2013 12:00 am

the porcupine wrote:AFAIK, almost all players should sound the same. At least that's what the developer of Foobar2000 and everyone over at hydrogen audio are saying.

They say that because they can't hear the differences LOL(Or some people refuse to listen for differences). I mean why would people that haven't met for example have a common agreement as to how the different players sound. For example, I hear JRiver vs Foobar and their sonic differences the same way as Gino. It can't just be placebo can't it that we agree even though we are not even listening on the same systems?

Let's see if Gino tries winamp using the maiko wasapi plugin and hear the same things that I do. Surely then, it would make the possibility that there is no sonic difference between players even less likely.
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Re: Which PC based digital player sounds best ?

Postby donunus » Fri Sep 20, 2013 12:45 am

Musicbee. hmm I can't quite pinpoint much more to the sound of musicbee than saying that it is very similar in dryness factor with foobar. It isn't as vibrant and liquid as winamp yet it also doesn't have that extra zing that foobar has. It just sounds fine and inoffensive so to speak. I have to listen to more music to see if winamp's vibrance is unnatural or if musicbee just lacks transparency vs winamp.
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Re: Which PC based digital player sounds best ?

Postby donunus » Fri Sep 20, 2013 2:01 am

Listening to mediamonkey now. This player seems to have a better soundstage than the other players but after longer listening it seems that this extra space may be due to some recession in the upper bass causing it to sound a little more like the sound is more spacious/further away.

Now, I also realized that the vibrancy of winamp seems to be caused by a slight peak around the center of the mids maybe around 1khz making the upper mids seem more relaxed even though it is not actually the case. It is a simple case of frequency masking. This listening session made me realize that foobar is still more neutral than winamp. Now the last battle will be foobar against musicbee for the final battle of the night.
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Re: Which PC based digital player sounds best ?

Postby donunus » Fri Sep 20, 2013 3:23 am

Alright, my conclusion for the night is that foobar is like a more aggressive version of musicbee. Musicbee is nice for just relaxing with the music. It's inoffensive compared to foobar yet has a similar dry sound. Let me add that the dryness seems to happen when the ears are used to the extra vibrancy of the winamp sound. I think Foobar is the most technically correct sounding among these three.


Rankings:
1= Foobar2000/WASAPI Event Mode. Slightly more aggressive than musicbee or the other players but seems a little less airy and vibrant vs Winamp. Long term listening makes this sound best though. It seems to be the most complete sounding among all the players.
2= Winamp w/maiko WASAPI exclusive mode. Has an extra vibrant and detailed quality to it maybe due to a slight midrange peak.
3= Musicbee/wasapi event mode. Smooth and balanced. Not as detailed as winamp but easy on the ears without being congested.
4= Tie between JRiver and Mediamonkey. Jriver may be more audiophile sounding smoothness wise while also being a little too dull for me but Mediamonkey has a cool spaciousness and definition that makes it fun to listen to even though it may sound less "proper" so to speak.
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Re: Which PC based digital player sounds best ?

Postby JoeyGS » Fri Sep 20, 2013 10:27 am

Agree with you don ....... same experience here. (Though I opt to go Linux based OS and vortex box OS (Fedora) plus Sqeezepad remote player .... there's no turning back) If ever I would go back to Windows based OS, foobar is for me
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Re: Which PC based digital player sounds best ?

Postby donunus » Fri Sep 20, 2013 10:31 pm

Linux is great. I love the sound of the audio players there. GTstreamer stuff usually sound thicker ive noticed like Gmusicbrowser for instance. GMB sounds thicker than audacious which sounds more transparent to me yet slightly less bassy. I forgot which players came out on top in the end overall to me when I tried everything before. Audacious or example sounds nice but is it a pain to not be able to load huge libraries of music. Foobar in windows is totally cool with that however. Right now I put in 20k plus songs on my pc and foobar never hangs because of that unlike so many linux media players. I never tried doing the customized real time kernel and jack though.

JoeyGS, Have you tried listening to mac music players beside a windows and linux system by the way? Macs sound more similar to Linux than windows to me. They have a certain richness that windows lacks. I'm not sure which one is more transparent but I feel that Linux and mac has sort of a more tubelike feel to the sound vs windows when playing off the same dac. Hmm do you think this is placebo? Mac and Linux players also sound slightly different from each other just like in windows but i feel that going from OS to OS gives a more of a difference in sound vs comparing player vs player on the same OS.
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Re: Which PC based digital player sounds best ?

Postby donunus » Tue Sep 24, 2013 8:32 am

I tried using ASIO instead of wasapi and I now prefer JRMC over foobar. This could be placebo though or maybe asio is bitperfect and truly bypasses the mixer while wasapi is not really bitperfect hmm. The differences between foobar and jriver have lessened to a point where I am no longer sure if there really is a difference. Only my gut feeling prefers JRiver. Maybe the memory playback makes it slightly better. Not sure anymore. ASIO is great!
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Re: Which PC based digital player sounds best ?

Postby donunus » Wed Sep 25, 2013 11:45 am

Just upgraded from jrmc18 to 19 and now I like JRMC best... and this is using wasapi. It seems to fill in the mids and makes foobar slightly hollow in comparison.
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Re: Which PC based digital player sounds best ?

Postby timber715 » Wed Sep 25, 2013 4:00 pm

donunus wrote:Just upgraded from jrmc18 to 19 and now I like JRMC best... and this is using wasapi. It seems to fill in the mids and makes foobar slightly hollow in comparison.

If you have a dsd capable dac you can make it sound another level (maybe two) better...
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Re: Which PC based digital player sounds best ?

Postby boombastig » Wed Sep 25, 2013 4:19 pm

My friend just arrived from Singapore and he bought the ff: digital gears:
iFi iDac
iUSBpower
iGemini cables

Was wondering what could be paired with these gears as a music server for a decent digital set up. Not the expensive types sana since I lean towards analog at this point. More like naubos na budget ko sa analog rig ko. Hehehe
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Re: Which PC based digital player sounds best ?

Postby donunus » Wed Sep 25, 2013 11:07 pm

boombastig, any laptop and a good media player like foobar or Jriver will do.

Back about my comparisons between foobar and Jriver, I think I have discovered the biggest reason for the difference in their sound. When changing wasapi on foobar to 32 bit making it the same as the setting on JRiver... I can hardly hear a difference between them. If there are differences, it could be placebo but the thing is they are now really almost identical if not already exactly the same. Well, maybe Jriver is still slightly bassier. i'm not so sure anymore though.

Oh and about the ASIO I was talking about on my previous posts, I was talking about ASIO4ALL which is actually kernel streaming with an ASIO wrapper.
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Re: Which PC based digital player sounds best ?

Postby timber715 » Thu Sep 26, 2013 2:42 am

If I am not mistaken, jrmc19 now has asio built in and that you can use mc19 as an asio driver....
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Re: Which PC based digital player sounds best ?

Postby donunus » Thu Sep 26, 2013 8:07 am

You can use it as an asio driver yes. It comes out even on foobar. The weird thing is asio didn't come out as an option on JRiver itself LOL. Unless the reason why it didn't come out was because I already have asio4all. I don't really know the reasoning.
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Re: Which PC based digital player sounds best ?

Postby boombastig » Thu Sep 26, 2013 7:32 pm

donunus wrote:boombastig, any laptop and a good media player like foobar or Jriver will do.

Back about my comparisons between foobar and Jriver, I think I have discovered the biggest reason for the difference in their sound. When changing wasapi on foobar to 32 bit making it the same as the setting on JRiver... I can hardly hear a difference between them. If there are differences, it could be placebo but the thing is they are now really almost identical if not already exactly the same. Well, maybe Jriver is still slightly bassier. i'm not so sure anymore though.

Oh and about the ASIO I was talking about on my previous posts, I was talking about ASIO4ALL which is actually kernel streaming with an ASIO wrapper.


Thank you sir. Will try it out.
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Re: Which PC based digital player sounds best ?

Postby JoeyGS » Fri Sep 27, 2013 6:23 am

If you can get a fanless system, that would be best.

For an of the shelf system, the mac mini is recommended with SSD for the hard drive. You can also assemble an intel system also with a fanless processor and a fanless power supply with the appropriate CPU casing

boombastig wrote:My friend just arrived from Singapore and he bought the ff: digital gears:
iFi iDac
iUSBpower
iGemini cables

Was wondering what could be paired with these gears as a music server for a decent digital set up. Not the expensive types sana since I lean towards analog at this point. More like naubos na budget ko sa analog rig ko. Hehehe
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Re: Which PC based digital player sounds best ?

Postby timber715 » Fri Sep 27, 2013 3:41 pm

JoeyGS wrote:If you can get a fanless system, that would be best.

For an of the shelf system, the mac mini is recommended with SSD for the hard drive. You can also assemble an intel system also with a fanless processor and a fanless power supply with the appropriate CPU casing

Joey, have you made the comparison betweena mac mini and your windows server?
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