Best sound settings for Winamp5?

L

lil layzie

Gawd
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Jan 7, 2004
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I was just curious what would be the best Input & Output (DirectSound, waveOut?) plugin to use with Winamp 5?

I have the Audigy2 ZS Platinum sound card and the Logitech Z-680's.
 
actually, here.

ASIO output plugin for Winamp 5.

Otherwise, I would say DirectSound, especially on 2k/xp.
 
What is the ASIO plug-in supposed to do?

I tried it, and it does nothing. I have and Audigy 2 ZS....
 
Using the plugin, in conjunction with the ASIO 2.0 drivers supplied by your soundcard, allows it to output at up to 24-bit/192 kHz to the card's Cirrus Logic CS4382 DAC for superior sound quality. Using DirectSound or Waveout, you will be limited to 16-bit/48 kHz by Windows. Is this a big deal? For your setup, no.
 
The ASIO plugin+driver also allows you to bypass the windows Kmixer, which resamples audio at the OS level. The foobar kernel streaming output option (as well as ASIO if availible with your hardware) does as well.

The Audigy2 ZS may not resample 16/44.1 content in hardware if Creative is to be believed.
edit: Which is good!
 
I also find that setting Winamp's equalizer to the Full Bass/Treble preset results in better sound. It sounds (to me) as if the output has better range this way.
 
Hmm...
I've messed with the plugin settings, and have had no luck. I've tried both the dll and .exe versions of the plug-in.
My s/c apparently supports ASIO, but it refuses to work.

I'll just stick with waveOutSSRC and some equalizer settings nearly identical to the Full Bass/Treble one....

foobar2000 isn't appealing to me, as I require several different Winamp-specific input plug-ins, and the Library is handy.. Using two music apps in place of one is simply too inconveniencing...
 
Rehevkor said:
I also find that setting Winamp's equalizer to the Full Bass/Treble preset results in better sound. It sounds (to me) as if the output has better range this way.
Click to expand...

Messing with Winamp's equalizer is bad, all it's doing is modifying the sound so it doesn't sound like it should.
 
I used to like Winamp for simplicity's sake. However, it loads so damned slow on my PC. Having heard foobar, I now swear by it. Foobar owns Winass.
 
Harkamus said:
I used to like Winamp for simplicity's sake. However, it loads so damned slow on my PC. Having heard foobar, I now swear by it. Foobar owns Winass.
Click to expand...

Load time doesn't bother me, since I load it once or twice per day at most, and it stays open. It's not like I'm loading it 200 times an hour. Also the amount of ram it uses is of small concern, considering it uses about 17-23 of my 768 megs. :eek: It's 0-6 percent of processor time isn't worth worrying about, either. My keyboards media keys also function with it (I really have absolutely no idea if foobar2000 can or cannot do this).

Duck-BOT said:
Messing with Winamp's equalizer is bad, all it's doing is modifying the sound so it doesn't sound like it should.
Click to expand...

As evil as it might be, I actually use Creative's equalizer. I use headphones, so a little tweaking is necessary, otherwise everything sounds too muffled.... the lower and higher freqs aren't loud enough... It may not sound as it should, but it sounds how I prefer it to sound, and that's a Good Thing.

I am a bit disappointed I can't get ASIO to work, but oh well. The sky won't fall.

The input plug-ins are absolutely nessecary, so I can't switch even if I wanted to....

For me, there's little reason to switch, but I think we've strayed far enough from the original topic...
 
Sonique said:
how do u install that ASIO plug-in?
Click to expand...
From what I can tell, you extract the appropriate dll from the bin directory to your Winamp plugin directory, and don't extract the directory paths.
I tried both normal and SSE versions, to no avail. Hopefully you'll have better luck.
 
You extract the DLL into the Plugins directory of Winamp. This is why they usually have an installer which you only have to point to the winamp directory usually.

Anyway, I personally greatly prefer the MAD input plugin to decode MP3s with. It internally decodes with 24-bit precision instead of the 16-bit that ALL the others use. It can dither the audio to 16-bit or 8-bit even (and supposedly this is higher quality than the normal decompressors even dithered, I wouldn't know, my soundcard does 24-bit) the only catch is that if you output in 24-bit then it won't get along with other plugins. They won't do anything at all, though at least there are no errors, and the equalizer doesn't work either. Winamp just wasn't made for 24-bit audio internally. Nonetheless, it works pretty well, and I personally found the quality much higher though I'm no audiophile, so I can't really say more than just that I like it better. (BTW, they make this for Foobar2000 I think.) If you are interested, look on Winamp's classic plugins site (will work with Winamp 5 just fine, but not with 3 -- but 3 is a peice of crap that they shouldn't have made anyway.) The plugin is called IN_MAD. You can install it, then go to it's configuration and enable it, or, what I do is rename the IN_MP3.DLL to something like IN_MP3.DL_ so Winamp won't use it and rename IN_MAD.DLL to IN_MP3.DLL. This way it avoids the troubles normally caused by the way the plugin tries to replace the default plugin. This part is optional though.

While it's nice to output at 96KHz (most quality soundcards can go up to 96, few up to 192 really) or 192KHz @ 24-Bit, internally decoding at 24-bit is better quality than resampling if you ask me. Even if you do loose the 96KHz or 192 if you do it.
 
Duck-BOT said:
Messing with Winamp's equalizer is bad, all it's doing is modifying the sound so it doesn't sound like it should.
Click to expand...

Well it sounds far better to me, so maybe what you think it should sound like differs from what I think it should sound like :p
 
Well, so far, from all the experimenting I've done. I ended up using the MAD plug-in for the input (Set it to sample 24 bits) and DirectSound for the output, set my EQ for the winamp to Full Bass & Treble and it sounds better than before I guess. I'm not an audiophile or anything so I can get by on these settings.

I tried Foobar, but I wasn't used to it as how I'm used to Winamp. It just wasn't for me. I tried the ASIO plug-in and I couldn't get any sound to come out like glutto posted above.

Oh well, thanks for all the suggestions. You can keep em coming if there are more. :cool:
 
Does the EQ actually work for you? I never got any kind of audio processing to work after setting MAD to output in 24-bit audio. EQ, DSP, or output...
 
Rehevkor said:
Well it sounds far better to me, so maybe what you think it should sound like differs from what I think it should sound like :p
Click to expand...

That's not what I meant. Sure people have their tastes when playing with equalizers, but plain and simple, it makes the music sound not like it's supposed to.
 
Well, the EQ on the Winamp makes a difference even after I install the MAD plugin. I can tell the difference with it on or off and to me, Full Treble & Bass sounds the best. Even if it's not suppose to sound like that, it doesn't bother me and it's the setting I use to get the best sound (IMO) to come out of my computer speakers.
 
ok i'm a bit confused about this MAD plug-in.. i replaced the origional in_mp3.dll file with this one (renamed it to in_mp3.dll as suggested by nazo) i set it to 24-bit in the settings.. and i'm using the directsound output.. but i was reading on the official site and it says it doesnt work with directsound.. i'm confused..
 
Yes. I had the same thing. Many people are reporting that it does indeed work, so my guess is that the issue was that older versions of DirectSound couldn't handle audio at higher than 16-bits. I think that would kind of make sense considering Microsoft... Of course, if all else fails, just use plain old wave output (raw audio, not .wav file, though that works too.)

Anyway, I don't know. I guess play around both with 16-bit output and 24-bit. It's supposed to be higher quality even at 16-bit they claimed. I just don't like the idea of dithering the audio when I don't have to. Still, if you like playing around with plugins like that ASIO, then you need 16-bit. (I forgot when I asked before about the EQ working, but I'll bet that it was set to 16-bit audio for that.) I wish the winamp people would fix the system to be able to process 24-bit audio too now that more and more people are using it...


BTW, about EQs, they can actually be used to compensate for the differences in the audio setups. The only way I know of that anyone can have the same setup is if they have something certified such as THX (who has this on their PC?) which is really the only one I know of off of the top of my head that is supposed to be certified to be exactly the same. Of course, most of us (me included I admit) will just use the full bass and treble options to get audio that sounds clear to our non-audiophile ears while still having satisfactory bass that you can feel. And to those audiophiles who are making faces at this, remember, it's all about perception. If you perceive it to be good, it is -- just so long as you don't try to force everyone else to use the same things (eg all the people who insist that 128Kbps MP3 is "cd-quality" which even I can tell isn't close to true...)
 
Nazo said:
Anyway, I personally greatly prefer the MAD input plugin to decode MP3s with. It internally decodes with 24-bit precision instead of the 16-bit that ALL the others use. It can dither the audio to 16-bit or 8-bit even (and supposedly this is higher quality than the normal decompressors even dithered, I wouldn't know, my soundcard does 24-bit) the only catch is that if you output in 24-bit then it won't get along with other plugins.
Click to expand...
Last time I checked, the Santa Cruz is 20bit card? :confused: Oh, and Directsound outputs 16bit...
 
Irons82 said:
Last time I checked, the Santa Cruz is 20bit card? :confused:
Click to expand...
Marketing hype does tend to confuse people specially when it serves no useful purpose. ;)



Irons82 said:
Oh, and Directsound outputs 16bit...
Click to expand...
Are you sure about that?
Cause I thought the SSRC output plugin solves that whole issue.
But then again I don't use Winamp for a reason so.......
 
Irons82 said:
Last time I checked, the Santa Cruz is 20bit card? :confused: Oh, and Directsound outputs 16bit...
Click to expand...

Maybe it's 20-bit internally or something. I'm talking about what it will play back. Even if it is 20-bit internally, it's better to have the audio start out at 24-bit than at 16-bit. BTW, in my testing and playing around with various audio editors and the few games that can go past the very basics, I was able to do everything from 8-bit to 32-bit and even IEEE (floating point or whatever, I forget) at 96KHz. Maybe not super-special, but more than good enough for me. At least it's not a creative labs card, resampling the heck out of everything in an obvious way. I can't hear it if it is anyway, which is more than good enough for me (in fact, it seems clearer than all previous cards I had -- which, admittedly were either cheap or *shivers* creative labs.) My point being that I can play back anything any normal program can throw at this card. Anyway, personally, regardless of what you heard, you apparently don't have one yourself or didn't test it thoroughly if I don't misunderstand the way you worded that. I, however, am using it to listen to music and watch anime every day (don't you just love how the clearer the sound is, the easier it is for your ears to pick out the lovely sounds of the artifacts that they insist on leaving in there? I need a SBLive for anime...) d-:

BTW, why do people act like DirectSound is the only output method? I mean, really. If it IS so bad and doesn't work with things like MAD, then why not just use the alternatives? Does waveout also output 16-bit? Regardless though, we were discussing input, not output really. They wouldn't say MAD doesn't work with directsound if they simply mean that it will go down to 16-bit, because many people are using 16-bit with it anyway. They would instead say you needed to use 16-bit audio with directsound (well, technically they have 8-bit mode too. I feel sorry for anyone who has to use that.)


Oh, and a little tip. It sounds like more is better, but don't bother to enable 32-bit mode in the MAD decoder. It just does 24-bit and adds padding for compatibility reasons, so it's some tiny amount of resources needlessly wasted for nothing. I do wonder what sort of device absolutely MUST work at 32-bits though... This is merely what they said on their website.
 
Nazo said:
Anyway, personally, regardless of what you heard, you apparently don't have one yourself or didn't test it thoroughly if I don't misunderstand the way you worded that. I, however, am using it to listen to music....
Click to expand...
Yeah, I use the Live! Value :(. By the way, since you seem to be so knowledgable, could you post for me a short guide of how to setup winamp properly? Which plugins to use and where to get them from and the settings for the plugins? Thanks :)
 
could you post for me a short guide of how to setup winamp properly? Which plugins to use and where to get them from and the settings for the plugins?
Click to expand...

I bet if you were to use the search you could find the one you posted about a year ago. :eek:
Oh, wait.
Maybe that explains why you need one. :D
lol

But that is a good idea for a sticky.
 
Irons82 said:
Yeah, I use the Live! Value :(
Click to expand...

Oh NO!!

:confused:

revo.JPG


:D
 
zachary80 said:
Oh NO!!

:confused:

http://s92403764.onlinehome.us/hardforum/revo.JPG[IMG]

:D[/QUOTE]
Revo headquarters, hahaha, who's that gay looking guy?
Click to expand...
 
The Santa Cruz has a 20bit DAC for overhead and marketing purposes but is 16 bit word internally only.
Outputting in analog with 24 bit precision is therefore pointless because the card is incapable of actually doing so. Dithering with noise shaping can improve the sound by modifying the waveform using results from the 32 bit precision (in foobar's case, 24 in MAD) calculations of the decoder that wouldn't otherwise be incorporated.
Using MAD with a 16 bit card like the TBSC is pointless unless you like the dither effect, which I can understand (but foobar's noise shaping + dither is better).

Cause I thought the SSRC output plugin solves that whole issue.
Click to expand...
SSRC resamplers just resample to 48KHz (or target) so the card can't do it and screw it up in the process (Creative).

X86Dude Moderator
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Oh *$%&%!!!!
Head for the hills!
Hide the Gerbils! :D
 
Why don't more people use otachan's in_mpg123 plugin instead of MAD with winamp? I've seen at least two articles so far that have demonstrated it's the better of the two mp3 decoders.
 
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