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Sunday, January 17, 2010

foobar2000

If you're looking for a free and highly flexible audio player, nothing beats foobar2000. It may not be as popular as Winamp or MediaMonkey, but it is the choice of many audiophiles out there. Why? It's wide range of DSPs available allows it enhance its output, add functionality, support exotic file formats, give some eyecandy, and many more. Its the Firefox of audio players.


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Yes, the default interface is ugly. If you prefer something prettier, I'd recommend you to search at deviantART for foobar2000 themes. You'll be surprised. However keep in mind that its certainly not the easiest audio player around, especially with custom themes. But once done, it looks so good you can actually brag about it.

Enough talking about the looks, the part that kept me hooked to this audio player is just one: Noise Sharpening DSP. Try it, and you'll notice the difference in quality, even if you're not an audiophile. You'll need to copy the extracted file to foobar2000's components folder, and enable it in the preferences menu. It's worth the trouble :P

3 comments:

  1. I don't think it's "the Firefox of audio players" as you claimed since it's closed source and not as customizable as Firefox. If you're talking about the Firefox of audio players then I'd say it is Songbird which is not only open source but also based on Firefox itself. Imagine Firefox as a standalone audio player with its functions can be extended by Firefox-like extensions, that's how to describe Songbird. Now that is what I call "the Firefox of audio players".

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  2. I'm just saying it in terms of customizability, not in terms of open/closed source or being able to surf the net along with Firefox extensions. Just semantics, anyway.

    For the browsers, Firefox is the most customizable. For audio players, I can't find a more customizable one than foobar2000 itself.

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  3. well for me customizability should be based on the availability of 3rd party plugins/extensions, which in this case Winamp & Audacious (thanx to the LADSPA developer community) outnumbered everything.

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