XMPlay vs Foobar2000

[stripe]

Just thought I'd give my thoughts on two players that seem to be vying for the same share of users.

Foobar2000:
-better playlist management features, navigability (eg... real mousewheel support, better sorting)
-better playlist display
-better mp3 playback (I think this is the case anyway)
-tagging support
-systray integration
-already more support for different formats (ie... flac and monkeys audio)
-options are all in one place

XMPlay:
-even trimmer and faster
-skins (though i haven't found one i like more than foobar's nonexistant ui)
-support for winamp and sonique plugins (eg... visualization)
-queue song

Both players offer a lot of advantages over Winamp2 and 3 (though there's a tradeoff of course)

stripe

[stripe]

Disregard the part about Foobar2000 having better mp3 playback, I haven't really compared them myself and I don't want this to become a sound quality debate.

stripe

[Guan]

Foobar2000 is getting better and better

I use it more and more frequently for the sound is exelente.

[tigre]

:evil: I've got an idea: Go to foobar2000 forum or even to their IRC Channel and post something similar. But tell me before. It will be fun watching what happens. :laugh:

But seriously: I did some tests a while ago (fb2k 0.43 vs. XMPlay 2.6) on mp3 playback (plain, without any DSPs activated). Basically I've recorded the players' outputs (16bit, 24bit) via NTONYX Virtual Audio Cable with Cool Edit. On very low volume mp3s (-40dB and lower) there is a difference audible, if the recorded signal is amplified. I found out that the dithering noise that is introduced by fb2k is louder than the dithering/quantization noise (I don't know if/what dithering is used) of XMPlay, on the other hand XMPlay starts to sound distorted at very very low volume (~-70dB). IMHO the output quality is equal on 16bit, on 24bit it just doesn't matter, because at this resolution other things like DAC will be the "weak link".

Because XMPlay can use Winamp 2.x input plugins you can't really say fb2k supports more formats, it's rather the other way round.

Anyway, for listening I use fb2k most of the time ATM, because of resampling to 48khz and crossfeed (I <3 my Sennheiser HD 540 ).

[Torkell]

Just to give the other point of view (for XMPlay):

XMPlay *does* have:

• Tagging support (although it is limited)
• System tray integration (for those who did not RTFM, right-click on the minimize button)
• Intelligently arranged options
• Global hotkeys (use them while playing Quake and enjoy your 500+ song playlist)

Oh, if you do post that on the Foobar2000 place, don't forget to post a copy of the log/link to the topic here so we can read it too.

[stripe]

ok so obviously I haven't used XMPlay enough or "R'd" enough of "TFM", but keep in mind that most new users aren't going to pay it more mind that I have.

tigre: I frequent the fb2k forum and there's a reason I posted this here instead. :)

I guess my beef with xmplay is that it seems to have a lot of potential and obviously solid coding, but falls short in a few areas that have kept me from using it. (areas that foobar does quite well, and modplug did well too)

stripe

[ap1978]

Well, the playback of module formats is much better in XMPlay, better than any other player IMHO.