Anything but Winamp...

This is the first time for us to write a review-cum-comparison. Our victims now are some media players and we are talking about emphasizing on the audio capability of those software. We decided to write this article after all of us here grown tired of Winamp. Initially we would include Yahoo Musicmatch and RealPlayer too but in the final editing those two were dropped because the former was way too basic while the latter was way too restrictive in it's freeware edition (and we don't bother to throw in JRiver MediaCenter as that software is a total piece of shareware). Since most of us here can be considered as audiophiles then it can't be helped that we will list out the players from the best to the worst. However, please bear in mind that we are a different breed of audiophiles since we believe in personalization of music, which means we heavily emphasize on sound enhancements.

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1. COWON JetAudio

At first we are a bit reluctant to write a review about this player since it is a 'payware' (OK, it's a shareware). However, after considering that the free version isn't too restrictive then we finally give this a pass, and on top of that it is clearly the winner for the various sound enhancement features that comes with it. The sound enhancement features are so rich that you almost won't need any third party DSP plug-in even with some of them are disabled in the free version. Besides it's not that JetAudio really support third party plug-ins anyway. Luckily one of us are generous enough to sponsor us the full version so we get to listen to the music with all sound enhancement features are enabled in their full glory. Not only that, we pretty much like its volume leveling feature that makes 'inconsistent' music (music that suddenly becomes loud all of a sudden in the middle of listening) become more gentle to the ears. The player seems to come with some sort of a good "bass compression" too that we rarely hear sound distortions on our speakers/headphones, as if it knows what speakers we're using and will automatically 'compress' the bass down a bit to make any resulting distortion due to heavy bass become less noticeable. The built-in 20-band equalizer is also very much welcomed, since so far we only see only iTunes and Foobar2000 that comes with 20-band equalizer like this. To top it off, we managed to tune the low frequencies to the max and we hardly can hear any noticeable distortions, thanks to the "bass compression" feature we mentioned earlier. However, on the negative side, it comes with very limited presets but luckily users can create and save their own presets or even download them from the internet if they're too lazy to create them on their own. JetAudio has become so mature since now that it features a nice media library, although the drag&drop feature may not compatible with some other players (i.e. dragging&dropping from/to other player 's library). Some people (like one or two of us here) however don't like the 'seemingly cluttered' interface. Yes, they might be a bit cluttered upon the first run but those (like the so-called 'remote control' window) can be turned off. One thing that we really like with JetAudio is, ever since the oldest version of JetAudio we could remember, it has been supporting video playback when Winamp was not, and it plays quite a number or video formats too. Today it is also one of a very few audio player out there that supports FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Format) which is what an audiophile would want. We also like the alarm and timer function though it would be better if it comes with the sleep mode playing like the one found in MediaMonkey. With all this features, JetAudio basily beats all the media players in this comparison with a large margin.

2. Windows Media Player 11

Windows Media Player is a default media player in Windows and it has been available since the advent of Windows 95, although its functions was very much limited back then. The first major revamp of WMP was done with the birth of the 'failed' Windows ME. Yes, the OS itself may be a failure of an OS but Microsoft managed to steal some attention with the Windows Media Player 7. For us, it was one of the first media players that comes with a good media library management available for Windows operating systems. Not even Winamp has the media library management on that time, and iTunes for Windows was not around yet. On the sound enhancement department, as an addition to its limited 10-band equalizer, it has the SRS WOW effects in the form of SRS TruBass and SRS TruSurround. Although WMP supports third party plug-ins, we don't bother to get those as we already satisfied with the SRS WOW effects. The only thing we don't like about WMP's sound enhancements is, not only you can't save your own equalizer setting, they tend to give extreme boost to your music even with only a very little tweak, to the extent that that it would sound like your speakers are going to get destroyed. Therefore during the test session we disabled the equalizer completely and only relying on the WOW SRS effects as well as the qualization/sound enhancement settings that comes with our soundcard. Anyways WMP remains one of Microsoft's strong point although it's a bit of surprised to us that unlike Internet Explorer (which is the dominant in web browser market), WMP failed to be the dominant in media player market despite it is shipped with Windows, just like IE. Well, we are kind of understand why it is like that (WMP's supported file format is kind of limited and we believe it is one of the reasons).

3. Foobar2000


Foobar2000 is one of a few players out there that is able to deliver great sound quality. It's interface is simple as if it was made merely using the default Visual Basic UI. However don't let that fools you as looks can be deceiving. Right upon installation, the first thing we would like to find is the sound enhancement and the player did not disappoint us with the 20-band equalizer is built in. We like the snap-to sliders on the equalizer, so you will know definitely where you are when tweaking the frequencies. For us this is much better than just a simple indicator found in most players. As this player also supports third party plug-ins, there are plenty of them on the net, and most of them are on the official Foobar2k website too. It supports FLAC format (for those who happen to be the real audiophile) and some other rare audio formats not usually found in other players. This is one of the welcomed features as we here like to try out various formats in search for the ultimate sound settings. However we can't really tolerate on how this player handles ID3 tags. Upon loading the files to the playlist/library, it does not automatically reads them until you play those files. Even so, it still behave erratically even after it plays those files, as occasionally we found it displays the file name instead of the 'artist - song' name like most other players do. And we really hope it would be able to store individual EQ settings for each songs like in iTunes but it does not. Besides, the info columns is not movable but only resizeable, unlike those in ITunes too. At the time of writing, the player just reached the version 1.0 after years in development, as if it was stalled. Honestly last year we had a thought that it would not reach version 1.0 for at least another 2 years. Well, it would have been faster if it was made open source but too bad only the SDK components are available as open source under the BDS license. We however really like the skinning ability of the player. However it does not make it as "the Firefox of audio players" since it is CLOSED SOURCE. If you are talking about "the Firefox of audio players" then we would recommend Songbird, which is not only made with Firefox core, but also open source and highly customizable.

4. iTunes


iTunes is one of the easiest media players we've witnessed so far, though not the one to die for. Although the functions and supported formats are way behind other players, its ease-of-use would easily make one forget about its limitation. So what makes us so attached to this player? It is the equalizer which is to us is the most flexible of all players in the world. It allows user to 'tie' a song with any of the equalizer settings, which means you can have your music with their own equalizer setting. Well, we know that different music have different highs and lows that we believe it would need different equalization. Not only equalization, iTunes allows you to set the volume for each music as an addition to the built-in automatic volume leveling. However, the major setback unforgivable for iTunes is it doesn't support any third party plug-ins, so you can't extend the sound enhancement capability. Drag-to-select also don't work in the media listing so you'd have to resort to either pressing "Ctrl+A" or use the "Edit>Select all" menu. We also really despise the fact that playlist sharing between iTunes and other players is (almost) a no-no because the playlist created in iTunes can only be exported as an XML file. It is fine if other players can import this XML file into a playlist but not many players out there supports XML and we wonder ourself why the heck Apple didn't choose to support proven-to-be-more-popular playlist formats like M3U or PLS? We may be lucky that Apply didn't opt for a proprietary playlist format but at least they should join the public domain rather than forcing people to see things in their way. And we found it is strange for iTunes didn't comes with support for Quicktime video and it's pretty sick for it to support only MP4 as the only playable video format. For us, if a player comes with very limited feature like this it should at least support third party plug-ins to extend its features. With this considerations, iTunes didn't manage to be in our first 3 winners list.

5. BSPlayer


BSPlayer is the only 'Winamp-like' player here than the rest of other players in this comparison. What we mean by 'Winamp-like' here is the static-window interface (which is' non-maximize-able'). However, unlike Winamp's more proper media library, BSPlayer's library is quite limited in manageability. A new user wouldn't know it has a media library function unless s/he is brave and curious enough to delve into the context menus since the availability of the media library is not really obvious to most first timers.Other than the wide range of media supported out-of-the-box, we found the only strong point of BSPlayer is the 'unlimited' band equalizer. The only 'limit' to this EQ settings is your PC processing power, your speakers capability (of handling certain range of frequencies) and your hearing (take note that human hearing can only detect sound frequency between 20Hz to 20kHz so be sure your setting is not out of this range) and also your money. Yes, this 'unlimited' EQ only comes in the PRO version of the player (as an unlockable feature). With the free version, you will have to bear with the generic 10-band equalizer (just like Winamp). However, even with only 10-band equalizer, we'll have to warn you that the equalizer works like the one in Windows Media Player. What we mean here is even with a slight tweak they will tend to cause some distortion to your speaker, which is a turn-off factor if you are a bass-head person who likes to play your music loud. Not only that, each frequency band of the equalizer has a +/- 20dB increment but without snap-to sliders, it's hard to tune the increment to the number you want. In the test, we had a hard time to add exactly 10dB to the 60Hz low frequency band (to add the bass effect) and ended up at either 9.8dB or 10.2dB, until at the end we have no choice but to give up. Because the equalizer is too sensitive, even 0.1dB increment is noticeable on our speakers. Although we like the 'unlimited' EQ, we didn't like the fact that the saved settings will be rendered useless whenever you changed add/remove the band(s), and they will only work only if you reverts back to the exact band numbers. What we meant here is if you create a 20-band EQ ranging from say 30Hz-19kHz and saved the settings then the settings will only work with the same 20-band EQ with the same frequency range (and the same frequency divisions too). Truly inconvenient for sound enhancement freaks like us.

6. Beoplayer


Beoplayer is one 'weird' player that will turn any Windows PC to mimic a Bang & Olufsen audio product. The software though gives us either-love-or-hate impression, where we found it friendly and not friendly at the same time. Like all B&O product ranges, Beoplayer also tried to give the 'ease-of-use' feeling in our heart. Generally, audiophile refers to those who prefer to listen to music the way they are intended, but we here are different kind of audiophile, as we intend to listen to music the way we preferred (that's what we call "freedom of music listening"), thus we highly revere, welcome and support any kind of sound enhancement feature in any media player. The people at Bang & Olufsen however believe it the other way, where they think a media player (both hardware and software) must be 'honest', which means the music must be played as it was recorded. That is why you won't find any sound enhancement feature in the player, let alone graphic equalizer. So if you'd ever choose this software to be your player then you'd have to rely on your soundcard's sound enhancement feature (most higher-end soundcards comes with this). Beoplayer is meant to be a truly audio-only player so don't expect it to support any other format (READ: VIDEO) in the near future, although we think that is the department that Bang & Olufsen should change.

7. MediaMonkey


MediaMonkey is another not-so-restrictive shareware that made its way into this comparison. Function wise, this player almost matching COWON JetAudio. However, with the 10-band equalizer as the only sound enhancement feature that comes with the default package, we have to place this player several stairs below JetAudio. Thank goodness it supports third party plug-ins to extend the sound enhancement capability and we managed to get some too that works pretty good. We really like the sleep function which works similar to JetAudio's timer function but slightly better with an option to fade out the volume as the timer is reaching its end. There are plenty of other options available for the sleep function too, such as to shut down the PC or just closing the player. Our issue with this player is the drag&drop file management may or may not work with other players, and you might need to perform a trial-error test to see which other players would work with it. Other than that MediaMonkey is just a plain media player but still to us it is a media player worth an attention.

8. Winamp


Winamp is a media player that "anybody who know how to use computer knows" that we think we should not waste our time introducing this. We can say it is one of the pioneer of the mp3 fever back in the 90's and managed to survive until today. With a large user base it is by no doubt the king of media player. However to tell you the truth we never like Winamp except that we are thankful to it for being responsible of infecting every single of us here with the so-called mp3 fever. Well, for us the floating windows that made up the player is a bit cluttered to us and the player doesn't do much until the arrival of Winamp 5. Our 'hatred' towards Winamp 5 become more apparent with it becomes s shareware. To make it worse, the locked feature in the free version (like the fast CD burning/ripping) are offered many other free players, which makes us think Nullsoft (the developer) are making money from it in a nonsense way. Enough about that lets go to the sound enhancement feature. Well, like most players out there, it only comes with the basic 10-band equalizer. Luckily there are tons of plug-ins available on the official website to extend this (and many of them are free too) but too much of them will confuse most users, especially with Winamp has so many users out there. The media library is quite confusing to get used to but it is a welcomed feature considering many people is using Winamp for playing various types of media. Supported media format is good and it can handle exotic media format with a simple plug-in installation, provided that you have necessary CODECs installed in your system of course. The skinning feature also has switched from static to dynamic skinning since Winamp 3, and many of them are available on the official website too. However, those stuff still don't turn our 'hatred' to love. In fact we feel the plain boxy interface of Foobar200 looks better than the Classic Winamp skin. Heh! Perhaps it'd be better if Winamp can be 'de-skinned' LOL

*All software are tested using the Creative Cambridge SoundWorks PS2000 digital speaker with Realtek HD Audio on-board sound with digital (optical & coaxial) output.

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

With the new year comes the new resolution

KUALA LUMPUR    In the spirit of celebrating the new year, the owner of Zettai Freeware, Halfey Halphstein (not the one in the picture) promised that he will never abandon Zettai Freeware, and said he already has various plans to resume his job as a freelance freeware tester.

"For the past few months me and my colleagues were having some hardships as well  numbers of unexpected things came up. That is why the website has not been updated since September," said Halfey during the new year celebration just now. "You know, we are consisting of only 5 people using some aging computers. Imagine running today's software on an Intel Atom powered PC as well as a 1.4Ghz Pentium 4 machine. It's slow and sad."

Halfey said this new year things definitely going to change as he and some of his colleagues already get themselves some awesome computers to keep continuing their work. Most of the new computers are now powered by at least Intel Pentium D processors.

"My own PC is powered by an overclocked Core 2 Duo E7500 CPU, coupled with nVidia GeForce 9600GT. Yes, that means we are also going to test some 3D games too, if there are any freeware 3D games of course. For a starter, we might have to test some MMORPG for you since most of them now are free to play," he said, as he unveiled the detailed specifications of his new PC. "Unlike in the past, we even use a Pentium M laptop, not to mention we even have a Pentium III machine still 'running around' to make our jobs done. Luckily most of us managed to fork out some money we have saved since the establishment of Zettai Freeware and now we are back to give our service for those who needs them."

When asked about the identity of his other colleagues, Halfey refused to spill much words about it.

"We have a contract that we are not going to reveal much about each other except to say that we are exist as a group. I can only say that some of the hardships we faced are, one of us was getting married, another one was busy with his newly born baby, and there's one was on maternity leave... Yes, we have married couple too in our team. Me and another one were busy with our own work as government officers."

"However, like I said, you will see some changes soon, some are major changes and there will be some minor changes too. All that were done to bring the best from us to our 'customers'. I hope our 'customers' will accept and appreciate all the sacrifices, the sweat, tears, blood, and probably some saliva too that we have shed in order to get ourselves the better tools to do this job, despite the economic turmoil that affects our world now."

"We want everybody to be happy this year with more freeware reviews we will write. I also recently have received an application from an online friend who are willing to lend some hands. and now I am happy that we officially have at least 6 people in our team. Of course I would accept that and for your information, we are still looking for more freelance freeware reviewers and editors so anybody who are interested may drop a comment in the Zettai Freeware blog."