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Foobar2000 - configuration
Table of contents:
Introduction
Foobar2000 is the best PC player for Audio and has outperformed the well-known Winamp as example. Foobar2k supports natively various formats, lossless and lossy.
Then foobar2000 offers some nice additional features like
Transcoding e.g. Lossless to MPC with automatically keeping tags
Switch settings on the fly during listening
ABXing 2 tracks etc. (ABX is a scientific method, which proves, if the listener is able to distinguish 2 slightly different songs, mostly used for finding out, whether an encode with specified settings of a lossy codec can be distinguished from the original wave.)
Here is a prebuilt foobar2000 version ver. 0.8 made by Case, take this, if you are too lazy to search for the plugins from the foobar page.
Configuring Foobar2000: The Core
Press -> Foobar2000 tab -> Preferences
A window pops up:
-> Foobar2000 tab-> Preferences -> Core
In the field of : Restrict incoming files to:
Add as example: *.flac (separated from other file extensions by ';' , be careful, no empty spaces are allowed !)
Here a complete example line, (which includes already various formats) for copy & paste:
*.mpc;*.mp+;*.mp2;*.mp3;*.ogg;*.wav;*.ape;*.wv;*.flac;*.ofr;*.shn
Playback: 16/24 bit, Select ReplayGain mode on/off, Dither ?
In picture above you see a typical configuration, if your soundcard can decode or pass through 24 bit signals. Then you should disable dither.
Here you can select your desired ReplayGain mode, too, or disable ReplayGain at all.
In picture above you see a typical configuration, if your soundcard can decode or pass through 16 bit signals as maximum bit depth. Then you should enable dither. If you have good hearing, you could try to ABX original wave files, undithered, with strong ATH noise shaping, with soft ATH noise shaping… (such a test setup needs an exact preparation, see www.hydrogenaudio.org)
Here you can select your desired ReplayGain mode, too, or disable ReplayGain at all.
Output method:
A preferred method is DirectSound, if available with your soundcard.
As example here are 2 soundcards inside this PC, Creative SoundBlaster-PCI (16bit stereo) and the way better quality soundcard Terratec EWX 24/96 (with digital & analogue each in & out).
So, now it depends on your goal, which device you select, whether you want to feed an external Amplifier / decoder with pure digital music, like Harman Kardon AVR 5000 or Denon 1801 as some older examples,
or if you want to feed an external analogue amp like Denon PMA 1060 as very old example.
The digital amps should be connected by e.g. optical cable with soundcard, and then select EWX 2496 Wave S/PDIF as output.
Analogue amps would prefer EWX 2496 Wave Analog.
And similar for various soundcards etc. etc.
Foobar will show you the possible devices.
You have another general possibility as alternative: Primary Sound Device / driver of windows.
Then you can switch in windows sound settings the devices, if you have the choice of several soundcards or outputs, digital or analogue.
But: With Foobar2000 and Direct Sound, you can switch output device on the fly during playing.
Yes, foobar2000 offers you most settings to switch on the fly without restart. Now you recognize, why foobar is the best.
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