Media player for the PC (XBMC -Jriver- foobar - media monkey)

thejck

Has anyone tried these different players or done a comparison between a few to see if one sounds better than the other as far as music is concerned?

I currently use foobar with the WASAPI driver to achieve bit perfect output to my DAC but I am thinking about switching to something that has a better music collection DB and browse feature aka XBMC where I can browse from across the room plus maybe control with a remote or my Android.
I currently can control foorbar with my android and I have played with XBMC but I wanted to see if its worth the money to try jriver or MM.

any thoughts?

Does any sound better if they are all using the WASAPI driver or do they impart some of their own coloring on the music?

heiney9

Media Monkey is my standard and works flawlessly and has a plethora of features.

H9

Fongolio

I've been using J River for about a year. They keep adding new features with updates and it will upconvert audio if so desired. Between J River and foobar I'm happy.

thejck

Why would you want to upconvert audio? Doesnt that defeat the purpose of trying to achive bit-perfect?

Between the 2 players have you heard any Difference?

@H9 Is MM only for audio?

heiney9

thejck wrote: »

@H9 Is MM only for audio?

As far as I know. I've been using it for about 3 years. If they have added video capabilities I am not aware, I don't really follow all the breaking news in regards to MM.

http://www.mediamonkey.com/

It now appears is may have some video capability. You'll have to poke around the site

H9

EndersShadow

XMBC works decently for most video files, and also streams FLAC. I have installed XMBC but havent play with it extensively.

I use Media Monkey on both my desktop to stream to my office setup, and also on my laptop (via HDMI OUT) to my Integra downstairs. I have taken the laptop with me elsewhere (dcmartinpc's house) for demo use and it worked great there with media monkey (although we used a HRT media streamer).

kappclark

heiney9 wrote: »

Media Monkey is my standard and works flawlessly and has a plethora of features.

H9

Mediamonkey is rock solid...I have the library on an Ubuntu laptop, but library is less than 50GB, so a walk in the park for M.M...

Just curious - does it use MS SQL ?

Toolfan66

J River for me with no problems..

Toolfan66

Fongolio wrote: »

I've been using J River for about a year. They keep adding new features with updates and it will upconvert audio if so desired. Between J River and foobar I'm happy.

Upconvert?? Hmmm I don't recall it doing this..

thejck

Larry is that you? What happened to your name?

Toolfan66

Yep it's me!!

strider

Download the J Rivers demo, it's free and has all the features that the pay version has, IIRC. I used it for a bit, went back to Foobar, will probably go back to J Rivers when I've got a dedicated HTPC up and running.

coolsax

I use Media Monkey.. really like it a lot... very easy to use

inspiredsports

Post #11 wenzizi reported as spam for removal

Tbone289

I'm still using Winamp Pro with the Maiko WASAPI output plugin. I just really like how the media library works in Winamp, and I haven't found anything that matches it, even with numerous modifications. Foobar is great for conversions, but I've never been able to get the library to work just so.

I've tried J. River and, while I like it, I think it's a bit bloated with unnecessary bells and whistles. I prefer to keep my music and video media players simple and separate.

Face

J. River, anything else is a toy.

FTGV

Face wrote: »

J. River, anything else is a toy.

My prefered flavour of KoolAid as well.

thejck

has anyone with better ears than mine actually tried to see if there is an audible difference between foobar and jriver when using wasapi?

Also I presume from what I have read is that using WASAPI vs ASIO puts you miles ahead. Anyone tested between those 2?

heiney9

Media Monkey is hardly a toy :rolleyes:

H9

drselect

thejck wrote: »

has anyone with better ears than mine actually tried to see if there is an audible difference between foobar and jriver when using wasapi?
Also I presume from what I have read is that using WASAPI vs ASIO puts you miles ahead. Anyone tested between those 2?

I recently upgraded to MM v4 which allows you to use either WASAPI or ASIO. I am still using ASIO but may try to running a test to compare the two Also I think you asked earlier about video, MM v4 does have video capabilities but I have not used them yet.

thejck

i have been perfectly happy with using foobar all these years. Now I discovered the LIbrary mode that xbmc has along with the android remote to browse the lib and I want.

I know jriver has this as well. Plus I wont have to use a seperate player for video and audio as i do currently. I have downloaded jriver and am going to give it a try. I might give Media monkey a shot to see if I like that interface better.

Fongolio

Toolfan66 wrote: »

Upconvert?? Hmmm I don't recall it doing this..

Go into DSP studio where you can change sampling rate and bit depth. Sample as high as 192 khz and bit depth to a staggering 64 if desired. J River runs internally at 64 bit already.

As for why someone would want to....many of the very high end DAC's have options for upconverting 44,100/16 bit to higher resolutions. Results vary with some sounding better, some sounding worse, but it is for sure no longer a bit perfect file you're listening to once upconverted.

thejck

Woudnt that defeat the purpose. After all the direct show driver "upconverts" to 48 that sounds like crap. Why would this be any better?

Fongolio wrote: »

Go into DSP studio where you can change sampling rate and bit depth. Sample as high as 192 khz and bit depth to a staggering 64 if desired. J River runs internally at 64 bit already.

As for why someone would want to....many of the very high end DAC's have options for upconverting 44,100/16 bit to higher resolutions. Results vary with some sounding better, some sounding worse, but it is for sure no longer a bit perfect file you're listening to once upconverted.

thejck

both jriver and xbmc were doing this last night. After I scanned some music to the library, it took one album "singers and songwriters" that had disc A and B and split it up so that each individual song in those disk's showed up as seperate albums.
Anybody seen this before?

thejck

is there a way to organize the music without having to use id3 tags on the files itself? I have all my music in flac and i dont really want to use tags to alter the flac files.

heiney9

thejck wrote: »

is there a way to organize the music without having to use id3 tags on the files itself? I have all my music in flac and i dont really want to use tags to alter the flac files.

No

and you have a misconception about ID3 tags. They DO NOT alter the music or file at all. They are embedded in the metadata and there is no way to manage the digital files without proper ID3 tags.

heiney9

Why don't you want to use ID3 tags? What harm do you think it's doing by doing so?

H9

thejck

heiney9 wrote: »

Why don't you want to use ID3 tags? What harm do you think it's doing by doing so?

H9

the EAC guide that I followed when backing up the CD's stated that adding the ID3 tags to the flac file make it so that they are never restorable in case the need should ever arise where I would loose the CD and need to restore it from the flac files.

PrazVT

the EAC guide that I followed when backing up the CD's stated that adding the ID3 tags to the flac file make it so that they are never restorable in case the need should ever arise where I would loose the CD and need to restore it from the flac files.

Uh no. ID3 tags don't have any impact on converting the audio back to wav and then burning it to CD.

I've been using J River myself. WASAPI + playback in RAM -> W4S DAC-1 sounds great. Once I configured all the video / audio codecs and turned on GPU support, I've found J River to a great player for my 1080p / AC3 .m2ts movies.

It may be bloated with features, but it's a fast program. No slowdowns or anything on my machine.

heiney9

thejck wrote: »

the EAC guide that I followed when backing up the CD's stated that adding the ID3 tags to the flac file make it so that they are never restorable in case the need should ever arise where I would loose the CD and need to restore it from the flac files.

I don't understand what that means. I've made lots of cd's from FLAC files before w/o any issues. Maybe you could provide a link so it's in some sort of context.

H9

kappclark

heiney9 wrote: »

Media Monkey is my standard and works flawlessly and has a plethora of features.

H9

I am very pleased with Media Monkey - very fast lookups..