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[Torkell]

I'm still sceptical, considering that the only time you should get any noise is after or in the DAC on the sound card, at which point the output method used by XMPlay is irrevelant. And last I knew, XMPlay used waveOut for output.
Of course, if the sound card internally runs at some other sample rate than what you're feeding it, then the quality of the resampler can make a big difference. If you go digging in the Multimedia settings in Control Panel you can change the quality of the system sample rate convertor, which presumably is the one used by waveOut and kmixer.sys

But that's just sceptical old me, who only has a Creative 5.1 digital feeding a pair of IBM speakers. I take it you're using shielded cables from the sound card as well?

[Roj]

>Signal latency is crucial in a pc

Only to a musician.

>pc is a noise-making, buzzing source.

If you buy junk for a sound card and speakers, then yes.  Otherwise it isn't.

>I only care about sound quality from a pc as a source,

Then why are you using it to play mp3s?  oggs?  Anything lossy?

>and to improve it, for me and the people i sold
>expensive hifi equipment.

I've got a friend who has his PC with a Turtle Beach Santa Cruz hooked to a Rotel receiver and B&W speakers.  I have another friend with a M-Audio revolution hooked to an Anthem / Adcom / Energy Veritas 15K audio system.

Neither use ASIO.

Neither subscribe to the theory of ASIO being crucial for audio quality because... 

...Neither use Creative Labs products for which ASIO is necessary to improve the sound due to Creative Labs

1)  shoddy hardware (ever look at the design of a CL card?  it's a jumbled abortion)

2)  poor DSP (this hasn't changed in several generations of their products) and

3)  poor resampling algoithms (it's better than the days of the Live! but still not up to the competition)

I'm sorry but you don't have a point regarding ASIO and I doubt you'd hear the difference with a competent sound card.

Bottom line:

If you're getting noise, buy a better soundcard.

[cbc]

Well gosh, My setup is XMP->MAD->BBE Sonic Maximizer plugin->Creative Audigy2 NSX USB->Yamaha A-1000 in. amp (CLass A)->Hales Design Revelation3s/KEF Q-10/Mirage sub.
 While I did recently add an ASIO driver, I hear no discernable improvment  in sound quality when using it, so this particular Creative product must be some miracle baby, or something! 

[Tsorovan]

* Tsorovan laughs

[Jace]

Possiblity to define a hotkey for 'previously played random song' would be a nice addition.
And still stressing the point of getting a title formatting variable for artist name and song title taken from a .cue file.. Then my live would be complete.

[DeFrog]

y0.
To the wishlist i've got two small things that would be useful for a couple of us i hope. the first is that it would be great if You could set the action to be done after ENTER or dubble-click and after the Add to XMPlay-list. The second is that the shortcut key to the above mentioned could be set manually.
i hope these aren't just features i haven't found yet. if they are please let me know.
thanks and best regards.
keep up the good work

[Pike84]

I don't truly understand the first part of your post (what is this "action" you mean?), but you can define shortcut keys for most of XMPlay's functions, and also make them global (will work even when the player is not in focus). Check them out in "Options and stuff"->"Shortcuts".

[DeFrog]

I meant that in totalcommander if you rightclick (or left depending on your settings) on a supported file a popup appears and you can select Add to XMPlay-list. Now i'd like to set that if i just press enter or doubleclick then xmplay appends to playlist and starts playing but if i choose the popup and select Add to... then it only appends.
The other is if you select a directory then the option Enqueue in XMPlay appears and has the same 'm' shortcutkey as Rename.

[Torkell]

Dunno about that... but here's a feature I've thought of:

When you play a mod/s3m/it/xm, the default setting for amplification is almost always not the best one (some need more, some need less). So how about an option which automatically saves the final amplification when in auto-amp or fade-in mode (not dynamic)? As the final setting will be the highest that does not clip at any point.

[Tsorovan]

On that note, I've always had some gain problems with some XMs... usually if they're using few channels, and I'm not using auto-amp at all (that stuff is unbearable)... please let me know if someone knows what I'm talking about, so I know I'm just not making shit up and can investigate deeper into what problem I'm actually am having, if any.

[Roj]

Well gosh, My setup is XMP->MAD->BBE Sonic Maximizer plugin->Creative Audigy2 NSX USB->Yamaha A-1000 in. amp (CLass A)->Hales Design Revelation3s/KEF Q-10/Mirage sub.
 While I did recently add an ASIO driver, I hear no discernable improvment  in sound quality when using it, so this particular Creative product must be some miracle baby, or something! 

Yeah - their external DAC must actually work in half-assed fashion, something completely unheard of for a Creative Labs audio product.

I haven't heard the external Audigy beastie but I have heard the internal Audigy 2 and Audigy 2ZS.

The politest thing I can say about the audio quality  of either of those Audigy cards for music is that They Stink compared to my M-Audio Revo.  The best analogy I have for the sound is:

Take two pieces of paper towel (don't squeeze the Charmin), soak them thoroughly and then drape one over each speaker and you get the sound the cards produce.

I also have to say that given the number of sound warping weirdnesses you're sending your music through *before* it even reaches your amp, I'm surprised you hear ANY realistic detail at all.

Oh and by the way:

Hi ~C~

[cbc]

thus spake Roj:
"I also have to say that given the number of sound warping weirdnesses you're sending your music through *before* it even reaches your amp, I'm surprised you hear ANY realistic detail at all."

"Sound warping weirdnesses"?

XMP?
MAD?
 BBE?

hmm..for someone who himself uses 2 out of the same 3...
"Realistic detail"? these *are* mp3s, yah know...

[Roj]

"Sound warping weirdnesses"?

XMP?
MAD?
 BBE?

hmm..for someone who himself uses 2 out of the same 3...
"Realistic detail"? these *are* mp3s, yah know...

I use ONE out of the three:

XMP with its built in BASS decoder.

...and of the other two the one I take exception to is the BBE ("oooh, what pretty sound - do I detect an Aural Exciter?").

By your logic, since the sound is already debauched, let's finish the job and *really* ream it out, am I right?

[Brian]

MAD doesn't function with XMPlay, as Ian made clear in another thread some time ago. If an mp3 local file or stream is opened, the native decoder always kicks in. Check the info window, which tells you which decoder is active. The only exception to this is with the mp3PRO plugin, which kicks in on files or streams in that format.

[Pike84]

The politest thing I can say about the audio quality  of either of those Audigy cards for music is that They Stink compared to my M-Audio Revo.  The best analogy I have for the sound is:

Take two pieces of paper towel (don't squeeze the Charmin), soak them thoroughly and then drape one over each speaker and you get the sound the cards produce.

I don't know if this is supposed to be some kind of a troll, or if you're just having a very heavy placebo effect with these cards.. But no, I wouldn't use that kind of an analogy. I have an Audigy 2, and I think it sounds very good. Here's an expert review about Revo with some comparison to Audigy 2: www.digit-life.com. While it does say that the sound quality of Revo is superior to A2, it also points out that the difference isn't very big and can only be heard with some high quality audio equipment. Well, perhaps you have that kind of gear and can actually hear the difference, but I think you're still exaggerating the difference heavily.

[Tsorovan]

I agree it was silly, however, he has a point in that the Audigy is the weakest link in that signal chain (if disregarding the BBE plugin which no sane person should be using).

[Knurek]

I wouldn't mind seeing different pan separation options for different filetypes. Like in Deliplayer (separate 4 chn modules/multi-channel modules/stream types sliders).

[cbc]

@ Pike84
exactly my point. In this case "uninformed opinions" are just that. Roj is known far & wide for loving to have the Last Word. 
After hearing the difference in noise levels between a PCI card & a USB card, I would never go back to inserting an audio device in the middle of that electrical cacaphony again.
@Brian:
My bad - you are correct about the MAD not working in XMP. Or being needed really as the XMP decoder sounds great.

[Torkell]

I have to ask - does it actually matter?

[rawhed2]

Suggestion:
How about an option to make the pattern data smooth scrolling?
XMPLAY is great keep up the good work, new release soon please I hope