mp3 on the computer

ANother vote for Winamp. I still use the old version, last release, 2.95 and am very happy with it.
 
Foobar2000v.1.1 is my player. and I've tried Winamp & Media Monkey. I prefer Foobar 2000. No one here is talking about upsampling much?
 
I loved Winamp for a long time but I've become a proponent of foobar2000 which also plays FLAC without needing any additonal plugins and has an iTunes-ish interface (so does songbird but that is straight garbage with any sort of large amount of music) but it remains very fast and responsive with regards to your music library. It's easy to create playlists on the fly which is a big deal for me. I used to use the winamp queue feature (and foobar has something similar) but making a playlist on the fly works a little better for me.
 
I'm surprised no one has mentioned MediaMonkey. I think it's a decent sounding player that has a lot of features and plugins and can play back files as high as 96kHz. As far as sound quality goes, well yes different encoders and decoders do have an effect on the sound because even though mp3, for instance, is a standard, there is no standard a developer needs to go by in creating his encoders and decoders as long as the file maintains the mp3 playback standard. Many hi end media players ( McIntosh, Meridian, Sooloos, etc ) will develop their own encoder / decoder for their players, as well company's like HD Tracks, etc. How much of a difference in sound do they make? I can say that it is a noticeable and easily percievable difference - at least on my gear. To me iTunes will distort and clip the tracks very easily ( no eq or plugins activated ). But MediaMonkey will give more freedom to the music before the distortion kicks in. The separation also seems a bit wider and deeper in MediaMonkey than in iTunes, but I guess this should come as no surprise given all the negative user comments floating all over the Internet about iTune's sound quality.
That said, I believe there is a difference, but can easily be masked by other things in one's system such as DAC's, how their PC is connected to their stereo, the capability of one's playback system, and of course, one's own hearing capability. Remember, even though all CD players must meet strict engineering designs in CD playback, we all know that CD players do sound different ( not just due to mechanical influences, but electronic too such as mentioned DAC's, error correction, software, etc ). MP3 encoders / decoders are no different.

Jimmy
 
Foobar2000 here too, because you can see and decide what it does with your music, great asio support, lightweight and a brilliant simple library. I would call it "pro" stuff along the free music-players.
 
Basicly ...I think they all sound the same....but.....Musicmatch has an 'add-on' that works wonders for MP3s...it's called DFX........and you can get a free version that gives limited use...and it works fine for me... I dont need to crank all the controls anyway.......


clik for DFX



If you like ...you can open up the jukebox....Clik on options...scroll to 'Add new features.....then clik on sound enhancments...then 'try DFX now'.....it will initiate a download....and install.....


Let us know how you like it.....

You should try Breakaway audio enhancer. It's pretty good for the bass "sake"
 
Foobar2000 here too, because you can see and decide what it does with your music, great asio support, lightweight and a brilliant simple library. I would call it "pro" stuff along the free music-players.

I've been using foobar2k for I believe this year makes a solid decade now! takes a bit of adjusting the interface to get it "prettier" doesn't look sleek like many others but I thought winamp got way too bloated years back and added too many bells and whistles I didn't care about. foobar plays music and does it well all while having one of the if not the smallest footprints of any big media management/player - can do a huge variety of tasks via plugins (convert audio, tagging, etc).

i've been recommending it to friends for years now also. great program and for free? amazing. I'm a fan.
 
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