Which soft CD player is perfect for Xonar STX card?

AMITNOIDA

Active Member
Joined
Feb 18, 2009
Messages
719
Points
28
Location
Noida
I have Xonar Essence STX card. Which Soft CD Player I should use in my PC to get the best out of my soundcard?
 
I have Xonar Essence STX card. Which Soft CD Player I should use in my PC to get the best out of my soundcard?

Do you mean to play on the PC or to rip music? Either way the days of the CD Writer are way past gone. Get a DVD Writer instead. You will need it to rip DVDs and burn DVDs to backup too. Nothing like a Blu-Ray Writer though for the PC, but it's still expensive, especially in terms of the media.
 
Thanks Moserw. Perhaps I couldn't express my requirement properly. I have DVD writer already. My question is for playing ACD/DVD which player (eg. WinDVD, PowerDVD etc.) is the best?
 
Thanks Moserw. Perhaps I couldn't express my requirement properly. I have DVD writer already. My question is for playing ACD/DVD which player (eg. WinDVD, PowerDVD etc.) is the best?
Foobar is highly recommended.
By the way, are the standard dvd r/w roms we use good enough for music playback?
 
Foobar is highly recommended.
By the way, are the standard dvd r/w roms we use good enough for music playback?

Thanks Iaudio. Is Foobar dowloadable easily? Normal DVD r/w ROMs with good soundcard with good DAC (like Xonar essence STX) should produce decent result. I have checked with my Sennheiser HD 515 headphone, it's very clear and crisp. The small beats/strokes of sounds are all clearly and distinctly listened. But in comparison to professional Audio CD players, the DVD r/w ROM + Xonar STX combo may not be of that quality. But definitely PC has much versatile utilitities and VFM compared to professional CD player. Experts can comment better.

For me PC is first and audio is a sweet and enjoyable extension.
 
Thanks Moserw. Perhaps I couldn't express my requirement properly. I have DVD writer already. My question is for playing ACD/DVD which player (eg. WinDVD, PowerDVD etc.) is the best?

Foobar2000/XMPlay are both good and find a place and mention on my PC. Do check out regarding cPlay on this forum, it's a great player and works great, in fact the best I've come across for PC playing, but it's limited to WAV/FLAC formats only.

Coming to playing off the PC DVD/CD Drive, a strict no-no. Rip the contents onto your HDD (get a new one if required, they're cheap) and play off the PC, but not off the CD/DVD drive. PC drives revolve faster than the drives found in CDP/DVDP and hence more wear and tear if used for playing media.
 
Foobar2000/XMPlay are both good and find a place and mention on my PC. Do check out regarding cPlay on this forum, it's a great player and works great, in fact the best I've come across for PC playing, but it's limited to WAV/FLAC formats only.

Coming to playing off the PC DVD/CD Drive, a strict no-no. Rip the contents onto your HDD (get a new one if required, they're cheap) and play off the PC, but not off the CD/DVD drive. PC drives revolve faster than the drives found in CDP/DVDP and hence more wear and tear if used for playing media.

thats a good point.
Thanks for telling about cplayer, will check it out. Yes I forgot to mention xmplayer, its very light application. However, afaik it doesnt play flac!:mad:

you should get a 1TB hdd:D, so that you can store all your bd rips and and flac files in peace!
 
thats a good point.
Thanks for telling about cplayer, will check it out. Yes I forgot to mention xmplayer, its very light application. However, afaik it doesnt play flac!:mad:

you should get a 1TB hdd:D, so that you can store all your bd rips and and flac files in peace!

cPlay absolutely rocks. Do check it out. XMPlay plays just about everything, FLAC and even APE files. Just get the required plugins for XMPlay.
 
hey Amit, did you finalize your speakers/ amp?

regards

Not yet mate. My headphone is being used for the time being. I have shortlisted the following three brands/model:

PSB Image B25
Usher S520
Dali Ikon1 or Lektor2

I have yet to take audition. Now busy with my sons various competitive exams after Class XII.
 
Foobar2000/XMPlay are both good and find a place and mention on my PC. Do check out regarding cPlay on this forum, it's a great player and works great, in fact the best I've come across for PC playing, but it's limited to WAV/FLAC formats only.

Coming to playing off the PC DVD/CD Drive, a strict no-no. Rip the contents onto your HDD (get a new one if required, they're cheap) and play off the PC, but not off the CD/DVD drive. PC drives revolve faster than the drives found in CDP/DVDP and hence more wear and tear if used for playing media.

Thanks Moserw again. Can you tell me how to RIP the contents of CDs to Flac files. HDD capacity is not a problem, I have one 500 GB, if required I can add one 1 TB also. In cPlay will it be possible to select the Flac files as per my choice sequence and do play them one after another with single command?

Anyway, you have rightly cautioned me against playing off the PC DVD/CD drive.
 
Thanks Moserw again. Can you tell me how to RIP the contents of CDs to Flac files. HDD capacity is not a problem, I have one 500 GB, if required I can add one 1 TB also. In cPlay will it be possible to select the Flac files as per my choice sequence and do play them one after another with single command?

Anyway, you have rightly cautioned me against playing off the PC DVD/CD drive.

Amit ji, You can use EAC exact audio copy to rip your cd to wav and LAME to code it to flac.
here you go,
Download Exact Audio Copy
 
Thanks Moserw again. Can you tell me how to RIP the contents of CDs to Flac files. HDD capacity is not a problem, I have one 500 GB, if required I can add one 1 TB also. In cPlay will it be possible to select the Flac files as per my choice sequence and do play them one after another with single command?

Anyway, you have rightly cautioned me against playing off the PC DVD/CD drive.

As others have said EAC is the best for ripping. cPlay will only play one album that too based on the CUE file. It's very limited and does not allow queuing of files and other such stuff. Yet it's the main player on my PC and for others too who've tried/used it. The reason is because the SQ it gives is way beyond anything else you would've heard. People will put up with most/all of its shortcomings simply because music will sound so good on your system and no other player/combo will give that kind of quality.

Read this thread completely. In it you'll find links for cPlay, but do read it completely... http://www.hifivision.com/home-theater-pc-htpc-media-pc/3703-music-pc-ca-dacmagic.html

I'm sure once you've heard cPlay you'll not want to go back to anything else. It's that good. Just takes a little effort to setup, but the sound you'll hear coming out of your PC will be worth it.
 
Excuse me if I was rude on the phone. You are quite senior to me. I am just 32 years old :)

regards

Not yet mate. My headphone is being used for the time being. I have shortlisted the following three brands/model:

PSB Image B25
Usher S520
Dali Ikon1 or Lektor2

I have yet to take audition. Now busy with my sons various competitive exams after Class XII.
 
As Moserw said, foobar or xmplay are good. However with foobar you get the added advantage of experimenting with resamplers. I would recommend foobar with SoX resampler. This would be a good alternate to have with cMP which has SRC resampler.

Also xmPlay plays pretty much anything. It is the best player out there if you are concerned about file size and memory usage etc. Very efficient. However cPlay is at a different level - audio quality wise.

Moser - there is a utility available which will let you create playlists for cPlay, which I found out. Let me try and find the link again. Its quite good - a Java application.
 
Can we use sox on older foobar? I use foobar 9.5.2. Hate to change it as i like the fooava skin esp. the cover play.
 
Last edited:
vortex

cool im waiting for that utility to for Cplay
then i can junk foobar/Xmplay etc!

please do post your findings
 
Back
Top