What media player to people use?

[mattyt1991]

So currently I use Spotify premium fpr casual listening and discover and like to buy CDs of albums i really like. Is it advisable to use any particular player? Will be ripping to flac and listening via a dragonfly red dac on my pc. Do the players do anything to the files to make them sound different? I just want them left alone and sent to my dragonfly!

[elira]

foobar2000, JRiver, or if you have money you can use Roon. As long as the player connects directly to the DAC there shouldn't be any difference, ideally what you want is to sent the data intact and some players use the windows mixer which is not ideal.

[Volbet]

I use Foobar2000. Not so much for the sound quality, but simply because it's versatile and extremely customizable. And if you want to ensure the cleanest possible signal path, then install the WASPI plugin.

[paddy-stone]

Yeah, another vote for foobar, but also MPC-HC is good too.

[emosun]

i just use vlc

[TopWargamer]

Photoshop

[FredFred]

VLC

[FredFred]

1 hour ago, TopWargamer said:

Photoshop

you use Photoshop to watch videos and listen to music?

[TopWargamer]

2 minutes ago, FredFred said:

you use Photoshop to watch videos and listen to music?

I keep my Walkman around for my fire mixtapes too.

[Jimkirk363]

I use Potplayer.  Find it much better than VLC.

[kokakolia]

12 hours ago, elira said:

foobar2000, JRiver, or if you have money you can use Roon. As long as the player connects directly to the DAC there shouldn't be any difference, ideally what you want is to sent the data intact and some players use the windows mixer which is not ideal.

I would recommend Foobar 2000 to everyone. It's just the perfect program to play MP3s (or FLACs or whatever...) and unlike iTunes or Windows Media Player it doesn't screw up your tracks with auto-updates and it doesn't slow down when you have a library of 20,000+ songs. 

 

However, the customization part and advanced features are pretty daunting if you're a basic user who just wants to play tunes'. Also, it doesn't come with an MP3 encoder out of the box (so to speak...). So you have to download the LAME encoder for Foobar and install it (if you want to rip CDs to MP3). If you rip CDs to FLAC then ignore everything I said and just install Foobar 2000 ASAP. 

[Guest]

2 hours ago, kokakolia said:

I would recommend Foobar 2000 to everyone. It's just the perfect program to play MP3s (or FLACs or whatever...) and unlike iTunes or Windows Media Player it doesn't screw up your tracks with auto-updates and it doesn't slow down when you have a library of 20,000+ songs. 

 

However, the customization part and advanced features are pretty daunting if you're a basic user who just wants to play tunes'. Also, it doesn't come with an MP3 encoder out of the box (so to speak...). So you have to download the LAME encoder for Foobar and install it (if you want to rip CDs to MP3). If you rip CDs to FLAC then ignore everything I said and just install Foobar 2000 ASAP. 

I noticed Foobar was more intuitive for me than EAC (for ripping CDs). @Volbet mentioned the WASPI (?) add-on. Going to try it...

[GamerDude]

I use foobar2k myself, I find it pretty intuitive though the initial setup for DSD playback can be a little bit of a pain. Main usage is just playback of my DSD, FLAC, WAV, and MP3's.

[Guest]

Another foobar2000 +1

Super modular player.

[aezakmi]

WMP

 

Because, why not? I think the Groove player is awful from the UI to the obscene amount of memory it uses, not to mention the huge popup every time you hit the next or previous buttons, and most of the alternate players kinda require a degree in programming just to create or find the library (not the playlists)

Plus it has some weird visualizations

[Volbet]

7 hours ago, PrometheanCat-1970 said:

I noticed Foobar was more intuitive for me than EAC (for ripping CDs). @Volbet mentioned the WASPI (?) add-on. Going to try it...

Here's a link if you need it: http://www.foobar2000.org/components/view/foo_out_wasapi

 

Be aware that it's a bit tricky to setup and it will block all other sound sources running on your PC, which can lead t some weird issues. 

 

10 hours ago, kokakolia said:

However, the customization part and advanced features are pretty daunting if you're a basic user who just wants to play tunes'. Also, it doesn't come with an MP3 encoder out of the box (so to speak...). So you have to download the LAME encoder for Foobar and install it (if you want to rip CDs to MP3). If you rip CDs to FLAC then ignore everything I said and just install Foobar 2000 ASAP. 

Well, you could always download themes from other people. At least that'll give you a good start:

Here's a buch of them,

 

Also, Foobar2000 does come with a LAME encoder in it's encoder pack.

The patent expired last year and since then it's been a part of the encoder package

[mattyt1991]

Tbh from a customization point of view I am not really bothered at all! All I want is to store the music and for it to sound really good with my nice new DAC. Do you think wmp or groove would do this or would foobar sound noticeably better?

 

Roon also intrigues me for music discovery, quite expensive though...

[Dackzy]

I also use foobar 2k. It is a great player, that you really can make your own.

[Guest Generallee]

No one has mentioned AIMP yet ? You cannot beat a UI like this

 

[Danielx64]

In the old days I used to use winamp, now I use use WMP and ITunes

[Guest]

3 hours ago, Generallee said:

No one has mentioned AIMP yet ? You cannot beat a UI like this

 

It’s BEAUTIFUL.

 

in its own horrifying way.

 

I’m just jealous my PC would lock up because of its GUI.

[Guest Generallee]

2 hours ago, PrometheanCat-1970 said:

It’s BEAUTIFUL.

 

in its own horrifying way.

 

I’m just jealous my PC would lock up because of its GUI.

Well the media player is only the "stereo" skin, the other crap is some other software I wouldnt install for the life of me

[NinJake]

Foobar ftw.

[DnFx91]

iTunes

 

honestly, its the only media player that can scale properly to a 4k monitor. Foobar is eye torture at high DPI