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Topic: Tell us why have you chosen foobar2000 (Read 177299 times) previous topic - next topic
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Tell us why have you chosen foobar2000

Reply #475
I am a new foo bar user... I am amazed.  I was looking for a program to use on my HTPC that I could control with my phone and allow it to play over the rcvr while the TV was off.  This worked great using Foobar, Remote for win phone 7, and I had to load up 2 other utilities but it works AWESOME.

Where is the Donate Tip jar?

Tell us why have you chosen foobar2000

Reply #476
It does the important things perfectly, the useful things well, and the unnecessary things not at all.
Very well-stated. 


Tell us why have you chosen foobar2000

Reply #478
I am also brand new to foobar2000 after freeing myself from iTunes but still needing my music encoded in ALAC.
I have followed what few (dated) tutorials I can find and I have things up and running without having lost a single song and I was finally able to remove iTunes and most of the bloatware from my PC.
I still have a great deal to learn if I want to see my album artwork, install new skins, or just feel as if I am smart enough to have this program on my computer.
Little by slow, I am confident I will get at least halfway to mediocre.
I am trying not to attract attention to myself as one of those who doesn't use search before asking questions.  We'll see how long I can make that last.

Special appreciation to Hydrogen Audio, and Jon Cairns for all the information that has proved so helpful.

Tell us why have you chosen foobar2000

Reply #479
I must say the interface wasn't exactly love at first sight, but once I started to use it I got to love it. I really appreciate the interface now: simple, fast and properly useful.

I'm amazed by all things that can be done with it, and how well they work. There were two things I wanted it to do, but there was no built-in functionality, neither a plugin for them. Not a problem! There's an SDK, with which I created the functionality I wanted.

It has a simple, yet fast and powerful, library manager, WASAPI exclusive support, gapless playback, it can play from cue files, encode, play DVD-Audio, tag, can be controlled from my iPhone/iPad, and lots more! (some of the listed things I like come from plugins).

foobar2000 is in a way the cherry on top, especially once you have spent some money in sweet toys (sweet toys are still sweet toys, but not the same without this delicious cherry).

Tell us why have you chosen foobar2000

Reply #480
+ Plays many formats
+ Gapless playback
+ Shows embedded lyrics

- English language GUI only
- ugly interface

Tell us why have you chosen foobar2000

Reply #481
I can sum it up in one word: titleformatting.

It is so powerful and pervasive throughout every functionality in the core foobar as well as the extensions.

From file operations to library managers and playlist viewers to upnp to artwork display to tag display to many other things, it is pure genius.

Tell us why have you chosen foobar2000

Reply #482
Foobar2000 - LEAN, MEAN AND CLEAN


I prefer foobar2000 because:
  • it is a dedicated audio only player with native support for many codecs
  • I have an external audio interface that uses asio drivers and I can configure that easily in Foobar2000 and the configuration remains stable. This is very imporatant to me.
  • I like the way Foobar2000 has good time-saving tools for automising tagging from filenames
  • It took some time to understand how to modify the layout, but now I can have a library that looks the way I want it.
  • The ability to add components
  • a great DSP manager (this enables me to use my favourite EQ, dynamic compression, and a host of effects, in real time too - great for DJs)
  • A useful tool with advanced features that matter
  • No irritating "bells and whistles" features

'nuff said! 

Tell us why have you chosen foobar2000

Reply #483
For its versatility thanks to available plugins and because I can make it just as I want it to be.

Tell us why have you chosen foobar2000

Reply #484
I originally got it so I could do some AVS graphics programming. I was put off by some things, but
eventually figured it out. It's a great "roll-your-own" program thing (in a world of clone your own
developers). It's too bad there's not more "project" programs like this one. OOP languages bore
me to tears and many of the concepts seem bizarre (at beast).
Foobar2000 enables the end user to get beyond such things, have some fun, make something
for themselves that can't be ruined by scratching the screen with a rock.
It's great!

Tell us why have you chosen foobar2000

Reply #485
Quick startup time, low on resources, clean and simple UI, and also plenty of features none of which slows it down.

Tell us why have you chosen foobar2000

Reply #486
I want something simple yet powerful / Configurable. I Don't want to watch Movies or Podcasts or have coffee made for me by most of the other programs.
I want one program that plays back audio well, no tagging. One program can't do everything and others lose focus on the original goal.

Tell us why have you chosen foobar2000

Reply #487
My answer:

I choose Foobar for three reasons:

1. Customisation
For me, Foobar’s capacity for customisation is by far its biggest appeal. As a professional graphic and interactive desiger, I am passionate about way graphical interfaces look and function. So with Foobar I love not only being able to change the way everything looks, but to write my own scripts for how my music is organised and displayed. It’s wonderful! Though despite the potential to “pimp” the interface with fancy gimmicks and plugins, I prefer things simple and neat.

2. Control
Foobar offers so much control over my music collection, with advanced capabilities for both searching and editing tags. I feel completely in control over my music collection and feel there is nothing I can’t do.

3. Speed
I also love how blindingly fast Foobar is. I must have well over 100 thousand files in my music collection, yet I can access and edit their information instantly. It’s almost scary how responsive the program is! While the actual updating of large numbers of files may inevitably take some time (accompanied by a handy progress bar), the controls themselves never ever lag or say “hang on while I think”. I feel strongly that it would be a terrible shame if the program ever became bloated and slow.

So, when you combine Foobar’s high level of customisation, control, and speed, what you end up with is just a massive amount of control and power over one’s music collection.

I love Foobar. It could possibly be the greatest Windows program I have ever used, in terms of the balance it strikes between the capabilities it offers and how lean its coding is. I would like to take this opportunity to thank and commend all the developers on what is a truly wonderful program.

The only (slight) negative I can think of is a fairly steep learning curve to get from a complete newbie to having a fully customised Columns UI interface (I had a lot of questions along the way). I keep thinking I’d like to write a beginner’s guide but I never get round to it! (Sorry!)

I also feel Columns UI is so useful and so ubiquitous that it should be integrated into the core program. This would also help beginners as they wouldn’t have to go looking for this plugin in order to make what I consider very basic customisations to Foobar’s appearance; also, by only having one set of interface controls (instead of two sets) it would make the program neater and less confusing. But of course I appreciate the need to keep Foobar’s core code to a minimum.

Tell us why have you chosen foobar2000

Reply #488
+ File Management / Conversion: Probably why I first discovered foobar2000. Quick to mass tag edit, rename and replaygain files. So easy to then convert to other formats via conversion presets. Can even query to find files not tagged to my liking.

+ Playlist management: I like to randomize playback of my large collection, not hearing the same thing twice. Could never seem to get this with other players I tried since nothing is remembered between sessions, or there wasn't even shuffle. With the playback statistics component and the powerful playlist query language I can set my playlist to have true shuffle, not playing a song again until all other songs have been played. I can even set it to play my 5 star rated songs more often, my 1 star items never, and keep it from playing my wife's crappy music.

+ Format support: I also probably started using foobar2000 when Vorbis came out, it might have been one of the few players to support it. In general it seems you can get Foobar to support more formats than other players.

+ Rock solid: Not sure I can even remember foobar dying on me.

+ Direct operation: I like how you can directly load files into a playlist from wherever to operate on them. There is no "stupidity" layer like iTunes that tries to manage your music files for you as best as it sees fit but just gets in your way because it's so arbitrary and impossible to understand or use. Just yesterday I used foobar to convert a pile of FLACs to AAC that I could load on to an old iPhone we gave to our daughter. I spent half a day trying to get iTunes to recognize those AACs off the network drive they were on so I could transfer them over to the iPod. No luck at all getting iTunes to find them. Installed foo_dop and 10 minutes later I have the AACs playing on the iPhone. Can't begin tell you how much I loathe iTunes/iPod and Apple, foobar seems like the opposite of that, which is why I love it.


- My biggest gripe is that I open foobar2000 up once my machine boots, and don't unload it until I am forced to reboot, which can be months. Usually my machine gets done in by a power failure or hard crash before that even happens. That means months of statistics gathered by the playback statistics don't get saved, among other settings. I've just installed foo_jesus and we'll see how that goes. This is one area where I think I'd like to see that built directly into foobar though so it more proactively saves settings (or even has an obvious way to do so manually).

- Not open source: This isn't a problem at all right now, and i fact I'm sure it makes foobar a better piece of software. In the future I'd like to migrate to Linux and I'd hate to see foobar not follow me there. I also wonder where foobar will be 10 years down the road if the author was unfortunately hit by a bus or something. I'd just hate to see foobar become obsolete in the future if the source is never made available before support for foobar ends.

Tell us why have you chosen foobar2000

Reply #489
Can't begin tell you how much I loathe iTunes/iPod and Apple

I feel exactly the same!

I’ve used Apple computers every day for the last 17 years (sadly everyone uses them in my industry) and I cannot stand them. They dumb everything down and everything seems like it’s designed for babies. Everything is white and glossy, like “baby’s first toy”. I’m no Microsoft fan either, but at least with a PC you can build your own machine nice and cheap and YOU are in control of your hardware and you can set up Windows how you like it. A Mac condescends and oppresses the user. Fine if you’re not interested in customising your machine, but a nightmare if you want to feel some degree of control. Apple’s showcase and crowning glory for their poor design is their mice. Each new design of Apple mouse is more hideous, uncomfortable and impractical that the last. They are vile.

As for iTunes, I’ve never seen it in action, but I’ve heard enough to never want to install it.:

  • If you want to buy a song from iTunes, there’s no online version—you HAVE to install their software—which cannot be uninstalled!
  • Yes, the software cannot be uninstalled. I know because I have tried countless times to uninstall iTunes from Macs and in every case the Mac will ALWAYS remember it had iTunes installed, regularly bringing up “updates” for the program you have supposedly removed. Even if the program is gone, I do not consider it an uninstallation if the Mac keeps nagging me to install updates for it.
  • I heard that for a while iTunes planted some kind of virus in your music that restricts the way it’s played or copied, for “copyright reasons”. This is horrifically oppressive and unforgivable, even if they have now changed their mind on this.
  • Apparently iPods only work in conjunction with iTunes. If you want to set up an iPod to another player, you have to go down the route of custom plugins and hacks. Apple forcing users of their hardware to use it only in conjunction with their own software is unforgivably oppressive.
  • I have just looked to find a picture of the iTunes interface. As I fully expected, it is hideous and looks like Mac OS X. Just that interface fills me with dread. Knowing Apple pretty well, I have little doubt that they would not allow you to customise the appearance of their player, either. That would be too much personal freedom and might harm their incessant, obnoxious branding!


Given how much I hate Apple, and how much I love Foobar, I think it really is fair to say that Foobar represents the exact opposite of Apple.

Re: Tell us why have you chosen foobar2000

Reply #490
I can't put my finger on it. It just seems to sound better than EAC and VLC. I also saw my DAC and headamp use it during their manufacturing/QA process.
My audio stream: *.FLAC or *.MP3 or *.ACC or *.ALAC >> PC >> (Foobar + VLC + iTunes) >> ModiMB >> SYS (<< Satellit 750 multiband radio) >> Loki >> Magni3 >> (MDR7510 + HD6XX) >> aural pickups w/ tinnitus ( = St. Lawrence Seaway SCUBA) >> CNS

Re: Tell us why have you chosen foobar2000

Reply #491
Hi,
I have been using Winamp since 2011, which is when I had my first computer. It was just very popular then (at least in my country).
However, I noticed that the client crashed quite often at random times. Version 5.8 was lighter than the last official 5.666, but it did not change the fact that the program crashed at random moments. Not to mention the fact that the software just stopped being updated regularly and a new version comes out on average every 4 years. Also, not all of the file formats I used were playable by Winamp. E.g. opus format. There is a plug-in for it, but it can't handle all files.
I did 3 approaches to the foobar. One in 2018, the other in 2019 and finally at the end of 2021. My friend recommended it to me and now I know that I chose it well.
The interface is fine, as minimalist as I like. First of all, it is light, it fires up much faster than winamp. And it handles all my opus files perfectly.
I used to regret the fact that there is no Polish language for foobar, but I'm used to its English interface and it's fine.
And I made keyboard shortcuts similar to those in Winamp.
Another thing is a more accessible playlist for screen readers. In Winamp, this list was available, but I had little ability to manipulate it.
The only thing I miss in foobar is seeking for AAC files and AMR support. There is a plug for this, but it does have some problems. EG there are strange noises when seeking such a file. Winamp had no problems with that. But I wrote about it to the component developer.
When it comes to raw AAC, you can wrap such a file in an mp4 container, but for me it is not a solution to the problem. It's like covering the weeds in the garden instead of tearing them up.
I still use Winamp for raw AAC and pack other files into m4a.
And one more important thing. We can make foobar portable and not Winamp.
That's it for the moment.
If I remember something, I will let know.

Re: Tell us why have you chosen foobar2000

Reply #492
The big ones for me are what Foobar2000 (FB2K) does which VLC doesn't (which is why I abandoned VLC):

  • VLC is a Swiss Army Knife for media files including video, so is bloated and slow to start up when all you want to do is play MP3s (FB2K is lightweight unless you load it up with extensions);
  • VLC insists on caching cover art and displaying from the cache, and preferring image files it finds over the image I have deliberately embedded in the MP3 (FB2K can be configured to prefer embedded);
  • VLC can't be made to stop playback after each track in a playlist (FB2K can be configured to stop).

Those are the reasons I went looking for something else, and I made a shortlist based on reviews.  What attracted me to try FB2K in particular were:

  • Playback Speed control with a resolution of at least 1% (actually 0.01%!);
  • Customisable user interface;
  • Open source, with an active developer and user community.

...and since then I've been bowled over by the way I've been able to tailor the UI and the functionality to my needs and desires.  It's a steep learning curve, but worth it.  Bonuses:

  • Tempo control independent of pitch (unlike Playback Speed), in real-time with no audible loss in quality (amazing);
  • Replay Gain.

I don't see much likelihood I will invest more time and effort migrating to something else again, unless forced to do so by circumstances.  FB2K does everything I need, and most of what I desire, and the few minor niggles have a chance of being corrected in time.
It's your privilege to disagree, but that doesn't make you right and me wrong.

Re: Tell us why have you chosen foobar2000

Reply #493
Rectification. Foobar2000 is not open source. :) Core is a closed source. But, components may already be open source.

Re: Tell us why have you chosen foobar2000

Reply #494
Rectification. Foobar2000 is not open source.
I'm sure you're right, but I think a review site suggested it is so that still had a bearing on my short-listing.
It's your privilege to disagree, but that doesn't make you right and me wrong.

Re: Tell us why have you chosen foobar2000

Reply #495
I used Foobar a number of years ago, for some reason, moved to JRiver.  I decided to try Foobar again a few weeks ago when I realized the amount of SACD recordings I have not listened to since I switched.  I will not be switching back, come to really appreciate the speed and flexibility Foobar offers.  I think the audio quality is better with Foobar, I can play all my SACD files, will not be switching back.  

Re: Tell us why have you chosen foobar2000

Reply #496
I love Foobar2000 for Kode54's videogame music components..
They allow me to listen to old video game music sound files.
SNES (.spc), Sega Genesis(.vgm/.gym), PlayStation 1&2(.psf/.psf2), and etc..
^_^