Home |
Search |
Today's Posts |
#1
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
|
|||
|
|||
Recommend software for audio playback under Win XP?
Hi Folks,
A quick question; I was wondering if anyone can help me with the subject line? I know I could Google but there seems to be a depth of knowledge here that out-strips what I'm likely to have to spend many hours sifting through with a web search. I'm poor (invalid on wefare - the mighty have fallen due to the smallest of freak accidents) but have three sound systems in three different rooms of my home. In my bedroom (where I have to spend a bunch of my time - bad back....) I have a fairly old and basic (but 'clean') surround system that is mostly used for A/V duty but also sounds great in stereo mode. With the lights out at night it sounds as good as any 10K+ system I owned before my fall - it's amazing what you can put together cheaply with enough time on your hands to troll through internet listings - and knowledge to pick out the pearls. In the lounge I have the 'standard stereo' - reasonable quality CD player and integrated amp playing into self-refurbished Gooodmans Magnum SL speakers. It sounds good enough to not sound 'wanting', I don't feel the need to replace any of it and it would be hard to better it on my budget However it's in the office / living room / kitchen space where I spend most of my listening time. I have the amplification and speakers sorted so that it sounds actually *too* good. At times when I'm using it for background music I find myself getting distracted from whatever task by the music - even at low volumes. I don't have many people visit but the few who are 'hi-fi aware' have been stunned by the fidelity - usually I hear comments like 'better than my main system'. The problem though is the source material. As it spend most of it's time as background music I have a laptop playing several thousand tracks on random - with a CD player connected also for times when I want to do some more critical listening. I'm hapy with the hardware - I have a few IBM-era ThinkPads and use one of those as a dedicated sound server. They are 'clean' enough that they were (and still are) popular as DAWs. The software I've been using is WinAmp played through StereoTool. I'd like the sound to be as true to source as possible but find I need to use StereoTool for it's volume auto-leveling abilities. Before I started using it I found that, as the source files are diverse - both in genre and format (mp3, FLAC, wav...) - the volume was constantly fluctuating between tracks from too quiet to too loud. However my problem is with WinAmps 'random' engine. It seems that, from my fairly large collection I constantly hear the same ~20% of tracks. I need freeware as times have got tougher of late - what audio gear I have now will likely have to see me out. Can anyone advise me of suitable software? My main needs are fidelity, 'auto-leveling' between tracks without compression and a good random mode. The CPU available is a Pentium M running at 2GHz with 2GB of RAM running Windows XP from a 320GB internal HDD with a 2TB USB HDD attached. Thanks in advance. -- /Shaun. "Humans will have advanced a long, long, way when religious belief has a cozy little classification in the DSM." David Melville (in r.a.s.f1) [Sent from my OrbitalT ocular implant interface.] |
#2
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
|
|||
|
|||
Recommend software for audio playback under Win XP?
On 27 Sep 2013 10:06:16 GMT, "~misfit~"
wrote: snip I need freeware as times have got tougher of late - what audio gear I have now will likely have to see me out. Can anyone advise me of suitable software? My main needs are fidelity, 'auto-leveling' between tracks without compression and a good random mode. The CPU available is a Pentium M running at 2GHz with 2GB of RAM running Windows XP from a 320GB internal HDD with a 2TB USB HDD attached. Thanks in advance. Foobar2000 (freeware) has a steep learning curve but besides being very powerful and flexible (manages a 150,000 track library on a 6 y/o Dell XPS here without breaking sweat) also implements Random/Shuffle, and Replaygain which is 'auto-levelling' done properly ie reversible and without compression. http://www.foobar2000.org/ |
#3
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
|
|||
|
|||
Recommend software for audio playback under Win XP?
"~misfit~" wrote in message
... Hi Folks, A quick question; I was wondering if anyone can help me with the subject line? I know I could Google but there seems to be a depth of knowledge here that out-strips what I'm likely to have to spend many hours sifting through with a web search. I'm poor (invalid on wefare - the mighty have fallen due to the smallest of freak accidents) but have three sound systems in three different rooms of my home. In my bedroom (where I have to spend a bunch of my time - bad back....) I have a fairly old and basic (but 'clean') surround system that is mostly used for A/V duty but also sounds great in stereo mode. With the lights out at night it sounds as good as any 10K+ system I owned before my fall - it's amazing what you can put together cheaply with enough time on your hands to troll through internet listings - and knowledge to pick out the pearls. In the lounge I have the 'standard stereo' - reasonable quality CD player and integrated amp playing into self-refurbished Gooodmans Magnum SL speakers. It sounds good enough to not sound 'wanting', I don't feel the need to replace any of it and it would be hard to better it on my budget However it's in the office / living room / kitchen space where I spend most of my listening time. I have the amplification and speakers sorted so that it sounds actually *too* good. At times when I'm using it for background music I find myself getting distracted from whatever task by the music - even at low volumes. I don't have many people visit but the few who are 'hi-fi aware' have been stunned by the fidelity - usually I hear comments like 'better than my main system'. The problem though is the source material. As it spend most of it's time as background music I have a laptop playing several thousand tracks on random - with a CD player connected also for times when I want to do some more critical listening. I'm hapy with the hardware - I have a few IBM-era ThinkPads and use one of those as a dedicated sound server. They are 'clean' enough that they were (and still are) popular as DAWs. The software I've been using is WinAmp played through StereoTool. I'd like the sound to be as true to source as possible but find I need to use StereoTool for it's volume auto-leveling abilities. Before I started using it I found that, as the source files are diverse - both in genre and format (mp3, FLAC, wav...) - the volume was constantly fluctuating between tracks from too quiet to too loud. However my problem is with WinAmps 'random' engine. It seems that, from my fairly large collection I constantly hear the same ~20% of tracks. I need freeware as times have got tougher of late - what audio gear I have now will likely have to see me out. Can anyone advise me of suitable software? My main needs are fidelity, 'auto-leveling' between tracks without compression and a good random mode. The CPU available is a Pentium M running at 2GHz with 2GB of RAM running Windows XP from a 320GB internal HDD with a 2TB USB HDD attached. The *standard* audio player for Windows users with a technical interest is probably FooBar2000. Tons of plugins including automatic gain leveling. Download it from the author's web site: http://www.foobar2000.org/ |
#4
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
|
|||
|
|||
Recommend software for audio playback under Win XP?
Somewhere on teh intarwebs Arny Krueger wrote:
"~misfit~" wrote in message ... Hi Folks, A quick question; I was wondering if anyone can help me with the subject line? I know I could Google but there seems to be a depth of knowledge here that out-strips what I'm likely to have to spend many hours sifting through with a web search. [snipped] The *standard* audio player for Windows users with a technical interest is probably FooBar2000. Tons of plugins including automatic gain leveling. Download it from the author's web site: http://www.foobar2000.org/ Thanks Arny, I'll give it a look. I used to use Foobar when it was version 1.0 and it fitted on a floppy disc... -- /Shaun. "Humans will have advanced a long, long, way when religious belief has a cozy little classification in the DSM." David Melville (in r.a.s.f1) [Sent from my OrbitalT ocular implant interface.] |
#5
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
|
|||
|
|||
Recommend software for audio playback under Win XP?
Somewhere on teh intarwebs allen wrote:
On 27 Sep 2013 10:06:16 GMT, "~misfit~" wrote: snip I need freeware as times have got tougher of late - what audio gear I have now will likely have to see me out. Can anyone advise me of suitable software? My main needs are fidelity, 'auto-leveling' between tracks without compression and a good random mode. The CPU available is a Pentium M running at 2GHz with 2GB of RAM running Windows XP from a 320GB internal HDD with a 2TB USB HDD attached. Thanks in advance. Foobar2000 (freeware) has a steep learning curve but besides being very powerful and flexible (manages a 150,000 track library on a 6 y/o Dell XPS here without breaking sweat) also implements Random/Shuffle, and Replaygain which is 'auto-levelling' done properly ie reversible and without compression. http://www.foobar2000.org/ Cheers Allen. As I just replied to Arny I used to use (and recommend) Foobar a decade ago, back in the days when it fitted on a 1.44MB floppy disc (although I wrongly stated it was version 1.0). I must have given away a box of discs worth of copies to friends. (Internet was mainly dialup here then and not everybody had access.) Somewhere along the line I also tried an implimentation of Replaygain but couldn't get it to do as advertised. In fact I went from that old version of Foobar2000 to WinAmp (which had a tinge of irony as I used to champion Foobar as being better than WinAmp) so that I could use Stereo Tool ( http://www.stereotool.com/ ). I've just downloaded the latest version of Foobar and a Replaygain plugin and will spend some time tinkering with it. Thanks, -- /Shaun. "Humans will have advanced a long, long, way when religious belief has a cozy little classification in the DSM." David Melville (in r.a.s.f1) [Sent from my OrbitalT ocular implant interface.] |
Reply |
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Forum | |||
Recommend audio player | Car Audio | |||
Recommend software for MIDI based song recording | Pro Audio | |||
FA: audio education - Playback Platinum David Moulton audio lecture series CDs (vol #1, #2, and #3) | Pro Audio | |||
DVD audio playback software | High End Audio | |||
Looking for signal processing software for playback | Pro Audio |