For Those Who Thought Foobar2000 Looks Plain

[hydra]

@haisakat, I'm not 100% sure if this will work, but maybe @baijuxavior (I think he has experience with this) can also comment:

Since all the Foobar controls can be mapped to keypresses, if you install Eventghost, you might be able to use a HP MCE Remote to control Foobar.

 

[musicbee]

More Foobar skins...

I did not like The Dark One personally...

Foo Silk - Excellent integration with Last.fm. The best I've come across.

Foo Placebo - Minimalistic but very colorful.

Foobar Ipro - Slick.

Abcisse PUI - Shows album art view.

Foo Slan3 - Elegant a bit minimalistic.

 

[bhagwan]

6moons audio reviews: JPlay

If anyone was interested;;;

 

[musicbee]

Computer Audiophile's detailed version - Computer Audiophile - JRiver Media Center 17 In Detail

 

[hydra]

^^ BHAGWAN's link is to a review of JPlay. The reviewer seems to be also be using JPlay with a JRiver front-end.

 

[s_sachin]

Quoted From the review

If youve yet to get on the computer bandwagon, think of the differences between playback programs as equivalent to those between CD transports. iTunes is a mass-market Blu-Ray or CD player. JPlay might be a CEC TL0. Windows Media Player is akin to one of those no-name Blu-Ray players you see at Wal-Mart for $50. Its that big of a difference. In a way playback software has replaced spinning silver disc transports

Interesting ...

 

[musicbee]

Quoted From the review

If youve yet to get on the computer bandwagon, think of the differences between playback programs as equivalent to those between CD transports. iTunes is a mass-market Blu-Ray or CD player. JPlay might be a CEC TL0. Windows Media Player is akin to one of those no-name Blu-Ray players you see at Wal-Mart for $50. Its that big of a difference. In a way playback software has replaced spinning silver disc transports

Interesting ...

I have tried both and with JRiver I did not find any improvement over Foobar and JPlay was too complicated to fool around with so I just gave up. But then I've optimized my Foobar with additional plugins & settings and maybe the reviewer was using Foobar with a plain vanilla installation and it did not sound that great out of the box?

 

[technobhatt]

I have tried both and with JRiver I did not find any improvement over Foobar and JPlay was too complicated to fool around with so I just gave up. But then I've optimized my Foobar with additional plugins & settings and maybe the reviewer was using Foobar with a plain vanilla installation and it did not sound that great out of the box?

Musicbee...Thanks for all your earlier posts on detailing Foobar and JRiver.
Could you please post a screenshot of your Foobar skin and Components (File-->Preferences-->Components) screen... Just to check what and all components you have installed into Foobar.
Also, I am amazed to see your music collection, you're contributing a lot to 'Right Now I'm Listening' thread and I am having a keen watch on that !! It's feels great to know about new artists everyday

 

[s_sachin]

I have tried both and with JRiver I did not find any improvement over Foobar and JPlay was too complicated to fool around with so I just gave up. But then I've optimized my Foobar with additional plugins & settings and maybe the reviewer was using Foobar with a plain vanilla installation and it did not sound that great out of the box?

I tried jplay as well and frankly could not find much difference with foobar in the short listen. But the other point that the review comment is making is the "flavours" of transport that a music pc provides with software. Love the PC source

 

[musicbee]

Musicbee...Thanks for all your earlier posts on detailing Foobar and JRiver.
Could you please post a screenshot of your Foobar skin and Components (File-->Preferences-->Components) screen... Just to check what and all components you have installed into Foobar.
Also, I am amazed to see your music collection, you're contributing a lot to 'Right Now I'm Listening' thread and I am having a keen watch on that !! It's feels great to know about new artists everyday

What you need for SQ

Foobar WASAPI - Select in playback output.

SoX Resampler - I run at 192000 Hz, Quality = Best.

Noise Sharpening - I run at 50%. Too sharp will cause listening fatigue as it makes the music bright. XXHighEnd uses similar DSP processing.

RAM-Disk - Right click files > Utilities > Send to RAM-Disk. Right click in the small window that pops up and select play option. Same feature as in JRiver, XXHighEnd, JPlay, etc.

Post this I've not heard improvement over SQ from other players like JRiver, JPlay, XXHighEnd, etc. All of them run on the same principles i.e. RAM playback, WASAPI Event, etc. though JPlay claims to shut down vital Windows services i.e. hibernate the system.

 

[musicbee]

I tried jplay as well and frankly could not find much difference with foobar in the short listen. But the other point that the review comment is making is the "flavours" of transport that a music pc provides with software. Love the PC source

Have to agree. I have ripped all my CDs and have 2 external HDD backups. Its easier to listen to any song or artist without having to hunt for CDs. Also, with PC + Asus Xonar STX + M1 DAC the SQ is not bad.

 

[technobhatt]

What you need for SQ

Foobar WASAPI - Select in playback output.

SoX Resampler - I run at 192000 Hz, Quality = Best.

Noise Sharpening - I run at 50%. Too sharp will cause listening fatigue as it makes the music bright. XXHighEnd uses similar DSP processing.

RAM-Disk - Right click files > Utilities > Send to RAM-Disk. Right click in the small window that pops up and select play option. Same feature as in JRiver, XXHighEnd, JPlay, etc.

Post this I've not heard improvement over SQ from other players like JRiver, JPlay, XXHighEnd, etc. All of them run on the same principles i.e. RAM playback, WASAPI Event, etc. though JPlay claims to shut down vital Windows services i.e. hibernate the system.

Thanks MusicBee... I just wanna make myself aware of every good thing about Foobar...I'm really loving it !
Currently I don't have any high end music setup or DAC...but I'm too gradually making music collection in FLAC...have ripped all my audio CDs to FLAC and courtesy internet ;-)...hope to make a music set-up in coming few months.

 

[musicbee]

Thanks MusicBee... I just wanna make myself aware of every good thing about Foobar...I'm really loving it !
Currently I don't have any high end music setup or DAC...but I'm too gradually making music collection in FLAC...have ripped all my audio CDs to FLAC and courtesy internet ;-)...hope to make a music set-up in coming few months.

Hydrogenaudio Forums - Portal is a good place to hang out for all things Foobar related. Just read their rules... they are very particular about one rule (No. 8).

 

[haisaikat]

Following one of the earlier posts finally got myself the Dark One theme of Foobar. Thanks for posting it

I loved the concept of showing biography from internet about the artists of the song

 

[haisaikat]

guys, can anyone help with a problem? the ajquery template for cpntrolling foobar over http is showing all garbled text from remote computers but on htpc shows perfectly.

 

[technobhatt]

I got a question...I got a question... Out of my frustration !!
I am using Dark One theme in foobar.

1. What is the easiest way to make a playlist in Foobar's Dark One theme ?
All I do is... drag & drop from Library to Playlist view...and it looks quite inconvenient and annoying because the display screen switch between library view to playlist view is not so easy !!

2. When I right click and do 'Add to playlist queue', it seems the easiest way to create a temporary playlist.
Is there a way to see the list of all the songs at one place, which I have added to 'playlist queue' ?

 

[arnprasad]

For the less smart - how does one go about installing it? first time installation help needed.

I installed the 1.1.16 beta which seems to be latest build. Then from the link I installed the Dark one exe file. But when I open foobar it doesnt show the Darkone skin. I just want to see if this displays lyrics for songs played. I have many albums - few ripped myself and few downloaded - is it smart enough to identify and get the lyrics?

 

[technobhatt]

For the less smart - how does one go about installing it? first time installation help needed.

I installed the 1.1.16 beta which seems to be latest build. Then from the link I installed the Dark one exe file. But when I open foobar it doesnt show the Darkone skin. I just want to see if this displays lyrics for songs played. I have many albums - few ripped myself and few downloaded - is it smart enough to identify and get the lyrics?

Yupp....Foobar is smart enough to display lyrics for the songs played !!
See the screen shot below.
There are many plugins for lyrics, but I found "Lyrics Show 3" the best. It gets the synchronized lyrics for most of the songs automatically. If not, you can search manually and add to it.

For the installation, just install Foobar basic version and then copy all the .dll files. I am attaching my foobar installed folder. Just unzip it and look for missing files and copy them in your foobar folders !!
Download it from this link....
Download foobar2000.zip from Sendspace.com - send big files the easy way