windowsXP mp3 players

[Jim Scott]

Does the sound on the various 'free' mp3 players (and I count WMP in this),
winamp, quintessential, jetaudio, ashampoo, zoom etc, depend mainly on the
sound card or does it vary?
I have tested one against the other and cannot tell.
I would rather open a file or a folder not a playlist.
So two questions really a) is there really any difference in sound quality
and b) what are you folks using?

 

[old jon]

Does the sound on the various 'free' mp3 players (and I count WMP in
this),
winamp, quintessential, jetaudio, ashampoo, zoom etc, depend mainly on the
sound card or does it vary?
I have tested one against the other and cannot tell.
I would rather open a file or a folder not a playlist.
So two questions really a) is there really any difference in sound quality
and b) what are you folks using?

Hi Jim. No sound card = No sound. best wishes..J

 

[Querulantus]

I would rather open a file or a folder not a playlist.

1by1 is what you need.

So two questions really a) is there really any difference in sound quality
and b) what are you folks using?

And yes, you need a soundcard. The sound quality will depend on the
decoder and the sound system (incl. the card) used. 1by1 uses WinAmp
plugins for decoding.

http://www.mpesch3.de/

Q.

 

[Jim Scott]

1by1 is what you need.


And yes, you need a soundcard. The sound quality will depend on the
decoder and the sound system (incl. the card) used. 1by1 uses WinAmp
plugins for decoding.

http://www.mpesch3.de/

Q.

I KNOW I NEED A SOUNDCARD!!
That wasn't the question.
Does quality of sound vary with the software or does it totally depend on
the card.
Sheesh!

 

[Mel]

Does quality of sound vary with the software or does it totally depend on
the card.

It's a combination of both, but the codec used plays a big part, as does
the quality of the speakers.

 

[Querulantus]

I KNOW I NEED A SOUNDCARD!!

Good for you.

That wasn't the question.

I know.

Does quality of sound vary with the software or does it totally depend on
the card.

Like I wrote:
The sound quality will depend on the *decoder* and the sound system
(incl. the card) used. 1by1 uses WinAmp plugins for decoding.

http://www.mpesch3.de/

The remainder of the software is not more than an interface and skin
for the decoder.

Q.

 

[old jon]

Does the sound on the various 'free' mp3 players (and I count WMP in
this),
winamp, quintessential, jetaudio, ashampoo, zoom etc, depend mainly on the
sound card or does it vary?
I have tested one against the other and cannot tell.
I would rather open a file or a folder not a playlist.
So two questions really a) is there really any difference in sound quality
and b) what are you folks using?

Sorry if I upset you James, but nobody in newsgroups knows of other peoples
capabilities. I personally love music and play it all the time on my
computer.
I use a Creative Soundblaster Platinum Live (super sound card), in
conjunction
withe a set of JBL speakers. The quality is super. My terse reply was Not
meant to be rude. Am I forgiven now ?. <g> best wishes..OJ

 

[Conor]

Does the sound on the various 'free' mp3 players (and I count WMP in this),
winamp, quintessential, jetaudio, ashampoo, zoom etc, depend mainly on the
sound card or does it vary?
I have tested one against the other and cannot tell.
I would rather open a file or a folder not a playlist.
So two questions really a) is there really any difference in sound quality
and b) what are you folks using?

a) Not a discernable one. The main difference comes in CPU usage for
decoding as some CODECS are more efficient than others. HOWEVER, some
MP3 players have built in grahpic equalisers with presets you can use.
For that reason, I prefer Winamp over WMP as it has better presets.

b) Winamp here.

 

[SLLD]

I am using 1by1 it is great with my mp3's
http://www.mpesch3.de/




">> and b) what are you folks using?

 

[XemonerdX]

I use Foobar2000 (http://www.foobar2000.org/) and XMPlay
(http://www.un4seen.com/). Both are excellent IMHO.

XemonerdX

 

[Jim Scott]

Sorry if I upset you James, but nobody in newsgroups knows of other peoples
capabilities. I personally love music and play it all the time on my
computer.
I use a Creative Soundblaster Platinum Live (super sound card), in
conjunction
withe a set of JBL speakers. The quality is super. My terse reply was Not
meant to be rude. Am I forgiven now ?. <g> best wishes..OJ

Of course.
You just happened to be the second person to say that.
Sorry! (

I suppose my question should have been prefaced by with for a given sound
card and speakers,....
does one of the software mp3 players sound better than another?

 

[J44xm]

["Querulantus"; Fri, 24 Jun 2005 01:35:07 GMT]

1by1 is what you need.

1by1 is beautiful.

 

[El Gee]

Does the sound on the various 'free' mp3 players (and I count WMP in
this), winamp, quintessential, jetaudio, ashampoo, zoom etc, depend
mainly on the sound card or does it vary?
I have tested one against the other and cannot tell.
I would rather open a file or a folder not a playlist.
So two questions really a) is there really any difference in sound
quality and b) what are you folks using?

Codecs play the biggest part, as well as speakers. A good soundcard
with lousy codecs will saound average.

If you are looking for a small, nice player, try ZINF.
http://www.zinf.org/


--
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
El Gee // www.mistergeek.com <><
Know Christ, Know Peace - No Christ, No Peace
Remove .yourhat to reply
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

 

[Helen]

["Querulantus"; Fri, 24 Jun 2005 01:35:07 GMT]

1by1 is what you need.

1by1 is beautiful.

Query: Is something else required for it to work? I downloaded it, tried
it: it only went through the motions..
no sound. Does it conflict with other players that you know of? TIA

Helen

 

[Querulantus]

Query: Is something else required for it to work? I downloaded it, tried
it: it only went through the motions.. no sound.

Strange, it should work straight "out of the box" with mp3 files. For
wav, flac, cda etc. you need Winamp plugins (in_wav.dll, in_flac.dll,
in_CDReader.dll etc.). Have a look at the decoder settings, perhaps
you have to change something there.

Q.

 

[elephant]

My prefered player is the XMPlayer ( http://www.un4seen.com )
My computer came with a somewhat crappy sound card {crystal fusion},
and by attaching my Infinity speakers, I get incredible sound using the
XMPlayer. Deep, solid bass and very crisp highs.

I know I've bragged about the XMPlayer in this group before, so I won't
do it again, but you might want to give it a try. No installation
required and it's small enough to fit on a floppy.

Everyone that I've recommended it to brags about how much better music
sounds as compared to what they were using, including WinAmp.

 

[Jim Scott]

My prefered player is the XMPlayer ( http://www.un4seen.com )
My computer came with a somewhat crappy sound card {crystal fusion},
and by attaching my Infinity speakers, I get incredible sound using the
XMPlayer. Deep, solid bass and very crisp highs.

I know I've bragged about the XMPlayer in this group before, so I won't
do it again, but you might want to give it a try. No installation
required and it's small enough to fit on a floppy.

Everyone that I've recommended it to brags about how much better music
sounds as compared to what they were using, including WinAmp.

Indeed it is impressive and even smaller footprint than 1by1

 

[Matt]

Codecs play the biggest part, as well as speakers. A good soundcard
with lousy codecs will saound average.

If you are looking for a small, nice player, try ZINF.
http://www.zinf.org/

http://mp3decoders.mp3-tech.org/
This seems to be a rehash of the old test site (University pages).

Sone codecs have specific bugs
http://mp3decoders.mp3-tech.org/100hz.html
http://web.archive.org/web/20031207024100/http://www.sulaco.org/mp3/winamp/winamp.html
Now this unlikely to be hit very often in real material, and is fixed
either by using a DECODER that allows the full range of values to 8206
(8191+15) to be used, or
an ENCODER that limits the values to 8191.

As with a few other things, it seems the mark of a really good decoder
is that it doesn't trip up on any of the possible emcoders as the
source.

Within the lossy encoding of MP3, a Decoder is either:

1. Faulty, failing in some major or minor way
2. Mild errors, last bit innacurate or insignificant numbers of
dropped samples at start or end.
3. Standards accurate
4. Improved - eg. 24 bit decode and dither tha 16 bit lsb in
approximation.

Really, given the damage that's already been done by encoding, any
non-broken decoder should do ok.

 

[Jim Scott]

My prefered player is the XMPlayer ( http://www.un4seen.com )

Worked with it (and 1 by 1) for about a week now.
With my sound card it may sound marginally better or it might just be
wishful thinking. It is very small on my screen 1024x768 and the playlist
is so visibly short, so that if I load up lots of files to pick and choose
from I can only see a few of them.
In neither of the two applications can I load folders directly. I know I
can CTRL+A but that doesn't pick up folders in folders.
There are lots of plugins I know, but life's too short.

At the moment I am trying Quintessential's new Beta. It is very much in the
mode of Winamp tho' and the quality seems identical.
Both Winamp and QMP have libraries in their latest versions, but at least
they do not try to force them on you like WMP does.
The quest goes on.