Windware CEO blog

I’ve tried several applications in different output methods just to see what sounded good. I always disable any of the sound enhancers to avoid getting the source mangled.

iTunes with Direct Sound

Sounds fairly vivid and clear, even though it does go through Windows mixer. The configuration can be changed through the QuickTime setting in the Windows control panel.

iTunes with Windows Audio Session

It did upgrade the sound somewhat compared to Direct Sound mode. It sounds good enough to be used as the main audio playing application.

Foobar with WASAPI / ASIO

Having ASIO4ALL lets Foobar (and others) to play the audio through ASIO interface even if the hardware does not support it, but while they technically do the same thing, I felt ASIO to sound tiny better than WASAPI. Both of them can do exclusive mode but the Foobar’s taste of sound (which is plain and pure) wasn’t for my liking. (Both output plugins can be found at the foobar plugin page.)

Winamp with Maiko WASAPI plugin

This was interesting as the author explicitly does not allow exclusive mode but made the plugin to sound as good as possible using shared mode and it did sound good, but unfortunately I never liked the Winamp’s interface and usability.

J River Media Center with ASIO / WASAPI plugin

I always keep my music as Apple Lossless aka ALAC file type just because I mainly use iTunes on computers and iPhone for mobile audio need and J River does not natively support ALAC but having DC Bass source will enable support for ALAC (via filetype option) and it does sound unique than other players that it is clear but stronger at the same time. Interface is not so bad, but never had much reason to use over iTunes. (This is a shareware with demo version available.)

MediaMonkey with adionSoft WASAPI plugin

I didn’t expect that a player I never heard of until recently played definitely the best out of the bunch. While somehow the ‘Maiko’ plugin never worked on it (MediaMonkey supports Winamp plugins to some extent), it definitely sounded better for me than iTunes.

Windows Media Player with DC-Bass Source filter

The sound wasn’t really anything to note of.

VideoLAN

Once again, the sound wasn’t anything too interesting. This one supports ALAC out of the box.

SMPlayer

This is a MPlayer package aimed to have easy to use interface and to a surprise this actually makes great sound since I thought both VLC and MPlayer use similar if not same open source codecs. (Maybe the codec doesn’t matter but the output engine of the player?) This does play ALAC out of the box with a few caveats that it cannot play 96000 kHz/24 bit audio (CD quality audio are 44100 kHz / 16 bit) and cannot select the ALAC files unless I pick to choose all file type extension in the file open dialog. (It neither reacts to pick by folder.) Since this is not really a music player, it comes with minimal play list capability.