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Topic: Tell us why have you chosen foobar2000 (Read 181593 times) previous topic - next topic
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Tell us why have you chosen foobar2000

Reply #375 –
I've been using foobar for about 3 years or so now and I would never go back, for all the reasons mentioned above! I recently switched from Windows to Ubuntu linux (which I recommend to anyone and everyone!), and after trying a few media players made for linux had to go and get foobar running on a windows emulator. There really is nothing better!

@keitsi: just noticed your post, seems like someone should do a linux port!

Tell us why have you chosen foobar2000

Reply #376 –
Why I've chosen Foobar?
Because it is repeatedly mentioned as the best audio player available. Plain and simple.


That and now that I've discovered Samurize, I can get around the lack-of-skinability:

Tell us why have you chosen foobar2000

Reply #377 –
One MAIN reason : ASIO and Kernel Streaming OUTPUT. I'm currently testing foobar within a very high-end custom-made Hi-Fi ensemble with active crossover, engineered from the beginning like a studio monitoring system, so "bit-perfect" playback is crucial for me.

In plain stereo mode, foobar's output goes to a VST Host software (Console) where the audio is splitted (treble, mid, bass - this is the active crossover part) via VST plug-ins like IZotope Ozone, before accessing a multi-analog ASIO sound card (Lynx 2B) connected to six amplifiers and two 3-way main speakers.

I guess that's all.

Tell us why have you chosen foobar2000

Reply #378 –
Been using f2k for several years now, mostly as a hi-fi player for SHN and FLAC shows and other personal recordings (along with a few archived reference CDs.)  Bought an iPod Nano when they first came out (for audiobooks) but foo_pod was not quite right at the time so eventually got hooked on iTunes for the library management and podcast support.  Kept coming back to f2k and VLC whenever I had a file with problems or wanted to critically evaluate something through my RME card & quality playback chain.  Years of *nix use and a multiple OS/file format world have trained me to have many tools at hand and to simply use each for the things it is best at, while (mostly) ignoring the weaknesses -- as long as some other tool can meet the specific need at hand.

Fast forward to this month, discovered facets and am diving headfirst into 0.95 and no looking back!

There is nothing in *nix media player land comparable, fingers crossed for some enterprising soul who decides to port...

Tell us why have you chosen foobar2000

Reply #379 –
What made me change to foobar from the beginning was when i bough my new Hi-fi system and realized the really bad sound quality in Winamp.
And there was really no alternative to foobar.

What made me stay with foobar is the configurability, great downloadable configurations and really good plugins.
And not to forget the nice community/user-forum.

Tell us why have you chosen foobar2000

Reply #380 –
I've started using foobar bout 3/4 years ago, and the main reason for that was that I finally could do everyting I wanted with one program (converting, tagging, burning, blind abx, etc), and do it well too, instead of having a util for every function I need. The only other program I use for audio besides foobar is EAC for it's secure ripping to wav, then foobar handles whatever I wanna do with it.

Also the memory use of foobar with my 30k+ collection of mp3/ape/flac files is much better than with other players, winamp crashed regularly, would hog many mb's of memory, and was extremely slowpoke with all my files in the playlist, where foobar deals with it without any problems.

Third, the flexibility and quality of sound reproduction rocks. I find the DSP plugins to be very good, and stuff just seems to sound better than with other players.

Alltho foobar is a great program which I love to use, I still have problems with it on a regular basis, mainly due to it's complexity and because I grew up in the precomputer age. For example, title formatting code is like total jibberish to me (thank god for columns UI), and many of the settings in the preferences menu I don't fully understand.
Also, finding out how to do something I haven't done before with foobar can be quite tedious. The forum gives a wealth of information about the program, but I often find myself reading for hours, while I just wanna know one little thing. It's like finding a single leaf on a tree. One of these days I'd really like to like to read the manual.

This aside, I've been a happy user ever since I first met foobar, and I think I will remain a happy user for a long time cuz you guys know what you are doing. I have confidence that by the time version 1.0 is released, it will be perfect   

Cyberschelm
Life is only as good as it sounds!

Tell us why have you chosen foobar2000

Reply #381 –
It's good quality player,and it's fast and small.
Foobar2k is the best ever~
I like foobar2000 like I luv 2pac.

Tell us why have you chosen foobar2000

Reply #382 –
Foobar2000 is small, fast, basic, has many plugins and above all it can just play anything for small CPU load. It's fun to see Foobar2000 customizable, but I think the not need to install various audio codecs yourself. Able to play any music file for low CPU load, is why I use foobar2000.
Ofcourse the community at self is great community. One who listens, asks and acts. Good job people.
 

Tell us why have you chosen foobar2000

Reply #383 –
I am thinking of switching from Winamp 5.5x because of all the bloat but some things in foobar still don't satisfy me.

1) I want a minimalist view option available as a toggle option. And it should be the default layout. No playlist except for the displaying of the currently played song name/ singer/album/year (filename and/or tag info). No 'File, Edit...' menubar. No title bar.

2) Missing 'Repeat' on play control. Missing 'Shuffle' on play controls. (Shuffle is not the same as Random according to this: http://rateyourmusic.com/board_message/mes...d_board_id_is_1 )

3) Missing timer/negative timer on the play control.

4) Missing option to minimise player to tray icon like Winamp. I don't want real estate on my Windows taskbar taken up by a music player.

5) Not really foobar's fault, but I need similar plugins as shown here for Winamp:

http://www.zophar.net/winamp/

6) Drop the 'Application' from Right click (music file) -> Open with -> 'Foobar 2000 Application'

Tell us why have you chosen foobar2000

Reply #384 –
Quote
1) I want a minimalist view option available as a toggle option. And it should be the default layout. No playlist except for the displaying of the currently played song name/ singer/album/year (filename and/or tag info). No 'File, Edit...' menubar. No title bar.

2) Missing 'Repeat' on play control. Missing 'Shuffle' on play controls. (Shuffle is not the same as Random according to this: http://rateyourmusic.com/board_message/mes...d_board_id_is_1 )

3) Missing timer/negative timer on the play control.

4) Missing option to minimise player to tray icon like Winamp. I don't want real estate on my Windows taskbar taken up by a music player.

5) Not really foobar's fault, but I need similar plugins as shown here for Winamp:

http://www.zophar.net/winamp/

6) Drop the 'Application' from Right click (music file) -> Open with -> 'Foobar 2000 Application'

  Did you even tried using it? (2) and (4) (6) is already built in and you don't have to do anything special to use it at all. of course you can set your play order to 'Repeat' and 'Shuffle' and 'Random' too (for 0.9.5). and (4) (6) can turn on in preference.

(5) There is some plugin for foo that do this too. but maybe not exactly the same.

For (3) you going to have to edit some titleformating string a bit. but it's not that hard.

(1) You have to edit it. but of course it can do this.

Tell us why have you chosen foobar2000

Reply #385 –
i like it because,
  - i can switch playlist so easy.
  - replay gain info.
  - can convert 'everything' that foobar2000 recognize.
  - use tag for display information (so audio tag are very important).
  - easy & simple.
  - gapless & good sound quality.
  - awesome equalizer.
  - customize configure for convert *.exe.
  - easier tagging (i love this feature very much).
  - more importantly it's FREE.

Tell us why have you chosen foobar2000

Reply #386 –
Quote from: hailstorm on
1) "now playing only display"
2) "repeat, shuffle, random playback orders"
3) "timer/negative timer"
4) "minimise to tray"
5) "console music playback"
6) "explorer context menus"

As for 1) and 3) you're using wrong software. Foobar2000 has possibilities to implement all of it in several ways, but it needs some actions from user. But basically it is play-list based player. If you don't like it don't use it.

2) is available
4) is also available for a long time already
5) http://static.morbo.org/kode54/
6) it's registry thing but foobar can do it for you anyway
Sharing delusions since 1991.

Tell us why have you chosen foobar2000

Reply #387 –
From the earliest day, I was a Winamp user. Several plugins and the somewhat configurable layout was enough, and with a life-saving plugin, Dynamic Library (dynamic disk scanning opposed to default Media Library), I could browse my collection (40-50k files) relatively easily. But as time moved on, with the new releases, the whole thing became more and more a cpu/memory hog, sometimes search queries took 2-4 sec, startup/shutdown a lagfest...  This, and the fact that my expectations were raised (album art display is still laughable in WA) so I've had to search for something new

I knew foobar from a few years ago, but back then, it was too complicated to set up properly, and there was a lack of components - but now, with all the great amount of them, easily configurable default ui, etc. foobar seemed a far superior alternative. Lastfm plugin, and the fact that I can use my old Winamp dsp-s (sorry, foobar DSPs are still to esoteric for me) made it even more sweeter.

Nothing is perfect though - here's my list of the sour things in foobar:
  • - I really miss some of winamp's playlist functions - like pressing 'q' on a track, and that track plays after the current one, overruling the playlist.
  • - I miss the shuffle toggle button. Having a 'shuffle play' button is not equal to that, and I don't want to go to the preferences just for that.
  • - there's a great amount of cool components, but the fact that all the UIs are not compatible diminishes this fact... Like I like facets, but would like to get a decent track display... no luck.
  • - still to much scripting is needed. I know foobar is not for the average joe, eg. should I really bother all that much to get a decent track display? the documentation is, well, there, but it's hard to find. A foobar newbie still has to crunch trough tons of forum posts.
  • - pre-made configs are hard to install... why not use a simple compressed click-and-install format (which can be edited after decompressing)?
All in all, foobar is an excellent player, and unbelievably fast - I think the problem with it is the same with linux (which was also not intended for the masses) - functionality is there, but a lot of people won't have the nerve and ability to give that much time to solve it. The new default ui is a great step into the right direction. I only wish developers would start to code more and more components for it.

Tell us why have you chosen foobar2000

Reply #388 –
Quote from: poisonborz on
1. I really miss some of winamp's playlist functions - like pressing 'q' on a track, and that track plays after the current one, overruling the playlist.
2. I miss the shuffle toggle button. Having a 'shuffle play' button is not equal to that, and I don't want to go to the preferences just for that.
3. still to much scripting is needed. I know foobar is not for the average joe, eg. should I really bother all that much to get a decent track display? (...)

1. The function "add to playback queue" does this. Set it to "Q" in the keyboard config.
2. Right-click somewhere near the play controls, then add the "playback order" toolbar.
2. I did it, and my life's been all better ever since.  Though, as you say, it's not for the "average joe". I think of it as a music player for people who know what they want and how they want it. For anyone else, MediaMonkey should probably cut it.

Tell us why have you chosen foobar2000

Reply #389 –
It's the Swiss Army Knife of Audio codecs.

Tell us why have you chosen foobar2000

Reply #390 –
I have used Foobar exclusively for 3 or 4 year snow.

I am not a power user, I just like the clean sound and the multiple playlists.

I used to use Winamp and used to get upset with it cos you did not know the name of the playlist you were playing. So I love Foobars tabbed playlists.

I used to ask Winamp for this feature, but they spent all their time on Skins, which are a bit of fun, but not really essential.

I have hardly ever used any of Foobars Options and like others on here I wish they would write a manual and also the various user interfaces are getting confusing.

Regards

Digby

Tell us why have you chosen foobar2000

Reply #391 –
Hi,

I don't like to develop any sentimental sense of loyalty towards any software. I like to try new things and for the last four years I have tried each and every new version of  any mainstream and high-end audio player I was able to localize on the web (it's my hobby!), and there are many audio and media players indeed.

I have to say that, after thousands of attempts of leaving foobar2000 aside, at the end of the day, by any or other reason -many reasons in fact- I find myself again with foobar2000. So it has survived till now as the first one on my estimation, and that means something.

Ys,
Rozzo

Tell us why have you chosen foobar2000

Reply #392 –
Because in foobar you can set file buffering in advanced > decoding.
I never understood why other software players didn't do this automatically. This is way better than for instance winamp that accesses my hard disc every other second. And it has the added advantage that one can delete a track from disk while it's still playing from ram (massive timesaver) which is a blessing when sorting a lot of music.

Tell us why have you chosen foobar2000

Reply #393 –
Foobar is the only player I have tried that allows me easy flexibility to define, display and manipulate  tags in a way appropriate to classical music.

Tell us why have you chosen foobar2000

Reply #394 –
Still upgrading from 8.2 or .3.
~4 years non power user
Stumbled onto .9.5 today as I needed to convert flac to mp3 and 8.2 couldn't handle it and wouldn't accept new lame 397 command-line switches.  FB2k 9.5 handles it just fine.

Oh, thanks for the new Default UI and Quick Setup, nice to see Album Art without programming the UI.
EAC095pb5, LAME3.98, freedb, flac 1.2.1, fb2k 0.9.5

Tell us why have you chosen foobar2000

Reply #395 –
First of all – it’s high quality sound.
Second - SDK, if you have good programming skill in C++, there is no problem to add some functionality.

Tell us why have you chosen foobar2000

Reply #396 –
I choose Foobar a few years ago when looking for a Flac player. I liked that it was a simple, clean player, that was not a commercial product, that people were free to develop plugins for.

I still have no idea how to use it, or catalogue anything, or have a cool looking player like so many.... but for the new year that is my goal.

Keep it up Foobar!!

Cheers!

Tell us why have you chosen foobar2000

Reply #397 –
I love Foobar2000 because it plays music without getting in the way. It's a surprise how many players fail to do just this.

1) Full Unicode Support
2) Replaygain
3) Masstagger / File Utils / String Formatting
4) keyboard-centric
5) ... and with 0.9.5, the lovely default UI.

Tell us why have you chosen foobar2000

Reply #398 –
Hi all, first post on this forum. Been reading stuff here to get foobar working, I really appreciate all the time people put in this player and its community.

I started using Foobar2000 because I heard people saying it was such a great player. Although I was content using WinAmp Lite, I decided to give it a shot. When I got it working just right after hours of reading forum posts and tutorials and a lot of trial and error (my, that's a lot of ands in one sentence) there simply was no way back.

Tell us why have you chosen foobar2000

Reply #399 –
Well I'd like to use foobar (I really like the way it handles *.cue files) but there is no support for a dynamic library (meaning the id3 tags are stored in a seperate file). I'd like to keep my files untouched. Other than that it looks like the perfect player. I'll be using Amarok 2.0 when it comes out since that supports everything I need in a audio player.