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Best windows software player


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^^^ no problem..i just didn't want anyone to think that i would not seriously consider any offering available that someone suggested. I am serious in my quest that meets this criteria:

 

1. single player

2. controllable from windows

3. supports native dsd

4. rivals SQ of HQPlayer

5. under $300

 

I am sure we will get there...it may take a year or two...but we will get there.

 

Really, what for? Most music is in PCM or analog. How much is in DSD? Less than 1/10 of 1 percent?

(JRiver) Jetway barebones NUC (mod 3 sCLK-EX, Cybershaft OP 14)  (PH SR7) => mini pcie adapter to PCIe 1X => tXUSBexp PCIe card (mod sCLK-EX) (PH SR7) => (USPCB) Chord DAVE => Omega Super 8XRS/REL t5i  (All powered thru Topaz Isolation Transformer)

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^^^ no problem..i just didn't want anyone to think that i would not seriously consider any offering available that someone suggested. I am serious in my quest that meets this criteria:

 

1. single player

2. controllable from windows

3. supports native dsd

4. rivals SQ of HQPlayer

5. under $300

 

I am sure we will get there...it may take a year or two...but we will get there.

 

I was just kidding around with that link hoping you got a chuckle from it...

I missed your point number 2 above that was stated in your first post. I have a friend that uses muso and it seemed to work well.

I would think if you wanted the best windows player, you would be using a separate remote device to control it.

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I was just kidding around with that link hoping you got a chuckle from it...

I missed your point number 2 above that was stated in your first post. I have a friend that uses muso and it seemed to work well.

I would think if you wanted the best windows player, you would be using a separate remote device to control it.

 

i want to control from where i sit at in front of a windows pc most of the time.

My eyes are bad and don't want to wear glasses or look at a small tablet or smartphone...i want to control from a 30" monitor...

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^^^ no problem..i just didn't want anyone to think that i would not seriously consider any offering available that someone suggested. I am serious in my quest that meets this criteria:

 

1. single player

2. controllable from windows

3. supports native dsd

4. rivals SQ of HQPlayer

5. under $300

 

I am sure we will get there...it may take a year or two...but we will get there.

 

I am 100% with you. As it turns out, I am looking for the same thing.

 

It is a darn shame that the only software that supports HQP is Roon, Muso, and Alchemy. Like you, I am not a fan of Roon. I agree that it is overpriced. And if you are a classical music fan, Roon doesn't even work properly. Muso is slightly better, but the author of Muso won't even consider a feature request to enable browse by folder. And Alchemy shows promise, but its current interface is no better than HQP's and is in fact worse in some ways. I have high hopes for Alchemy's forthcoming update.

 

I have been on the look out for ANY software which fulfils your list for quite some time. My solution is ... HQ Player, and Windows Explorer. I just navigate to the folder I want, and drag and drop folders into HQPlayer. Not the most elegant solution, but it works.

 

I have asked Miska on several occasions to allow HQP to be used as an ASIO service, or allow a digital in so that you can use any player you want and still enjoy the sound quality of HQP. But sadly, he has repeatedly declined. So I guess that is not going to happen any time soon, either. A real pity.

 

I guess one thing to be thankful about is that the default interface of HQP is good enough to be tolerable. Just.

 

Oh yes, Miska has also said that he is not considering upgrading the interface for the time being, because he would rather focus his programming effort on improving the sound. Which is, again, another pity.

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I am 100% with you. As it turns out, I am looking for the same thing.

 

It is a darn shame that the only software that supports HQP is Roon, Muso, and Alchemy. Like you, I am not a fan of Roon. I agree that it is overpriced. And if you are a classical music fan, Roon doesn't even work properly. Muso is slightly better, but the author of Muso won't even consider a feature request to enable browse by folder. And Alchemy shows promise, but its current interface is no better than HQP's and is in fact worse in some ways. I have high hopes for Alchemy's forthcoming update.

 

I have been on the look out for ANY software which fulfils your list for quite some time. My solution is ... HQ Player, and Windows Explorer. I just navigate to the folder I want, and drag and drop folders into HQPlayer. Not the most elegant solution, but it works.

 

I have asked Miska on several occasions to allow HQP to be used as an ASIO service, or allow a digital in so that you can use any player you want and still enjoy the sound quality of HQP. But sadly, he has repeatedly declined. So I guess that is not going to happen any time soon, either. A real pity.

 

I guess one thing to be thankful about is that the default interface of HQP is good enough to be tolerable. Just.

 

Oh yes, Miska has also said that he is not considering upgrading the interface for the time being, because he would rather focus his programming effort on improving the sound. Which is, again, another pity.

 

You don't know how much your message means to me. I have been hammered here and to think i have reached even ONE person, means the world to me.

 

Thank you!

 

Happy hunting...i know there are 1000s of us out there that don't want to pay $500.

 

Also, just so you know, i have convinced Miska to make one change anyway, so that you can click (or double click, i forget which) on a file in library view and it will play without having to add it to the play llist...I believe he said he will do that in future release...

 

Check out RESONIC, and let me know what you think. The author of resonic said he will be supportiing NATIVE DSD in the very near future and if you like browsing file structure, you should like resonic, and its very fast and lightweight.

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I would suggest to get the best out of DSD playback you would need dedicated DSD audio software for this(does not do PCM). None exists yet to my knowledge.

 

I use XXhighend in W10 and have compared to JRiver, Foobar and Daphile. It easily beat all 3 using PCM files.

 

Any software that relies on converting PCM to DSD is not the best and why bother.

 

Unless your OS and audio software all work together from RAM, for music playback, you are not hearing the best. This is by far the best sound I've ever had, somewhat frightening with transients and dynamics that suddenly creep up on you.

 

Robert

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I would suggest to get the best out of DSD playback you would need dedicated DSD audio software for this(does not do PCM). None exists yet to my knowledge.

 

I use XXhighend in W10 and have compared to JRiver, Foobar and Daphile. It easily beat all 3 using PCM files.

 

Any software that relies on converting PCM to DSD is not the best and why bother.

 

Unless your OS and audio software all work together from RAM, for music playback, you are not hearing the best. This is by far the best sound I've ever had, somewhat frightening with transients and dynamics that suddenly creep up on you.

 

Robert

 

XXhighend doesn't support native DSD and that is a must for me...that is predominanly what i listen to now. Once i was sold on DSD a couple years ago, there was no turning back to pcm for me. I know Jud likes XXhighend, so I am sure it is praise worthy..just doesn't fit my desires.

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You don't know how much your message means to me. I have been hammered here and to think i have reached even ONE person, means the world to me.

[...]

Check out RESONIC, and let me know what you think. The author of resonic said he will be supportiing NATIVE DSD in the very near future and if you like browsing file structure, you should like resonic, and its very fast and lightweight.

 

You're welcome. Actually, I reached the same conclusion as you a few months ago when I tried out Roon. It made a complete un-navigable mess of my music collection with no way to over-ride it. I suppose this is what Roon proponents mean when they say it helps them "discover" their music collection. For me, it destroyed the structure of my music collection.

 

I have said elsewhere that I decide how MY music is organized. I decide how I want it played. I don't want to listen to a Shostakovich symphony followed by an excerpt from Wagner. And I don't need no stinking discovery feature, where some algorithm thinks it knows better than me about my choice of music. I know how to find my own music. I would go so far as to say that if you don't know what music you want to listen to, and you think some algorithm does a better job than you of discovering music, you have no business calling yourself a music lover.

 

Neither do I need Roon to tell me who Johann Sebastian Bach is. I freaking know who he is. Stop wasting screen space showing me the same useless information every time!

 

ALL I WANT is for the software to present my music how I have already organized it, and play it for me. This would seem to me to be the most basic requirement of all, and Roon can't do it. No software has infuriated me as much as Roon.

 

As for Resonic - it lacks a very important feature that HQPlayer has - convolution, and ability to be used as a crossover. For me, this is even more important than DSD functionality.

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Been reading this thread and me myself settled on using Foobar several years ago.

Never looked back. Tried several solutions at the time, but none of them where close to Foobar including the DarkOne 3.1 skin plus the SACD plugin.

My stereo collection is stored on 2 x 4TB disk (plus 2x backup, so 3 copies).

One disk stores music in PCM (Flac) and the other DSD (DSF) files. All stored in a tree structure in the following structure ; Artist => Album => Songs.

I have had to store on different diskdrives because of diskspace neeeded for my collection.

I have CD's in a "PCM" folder (16 bits 44.1KHz). All higher formats in a "PCM HD" folder . The other disk is for DSD files in DSF fomat. I think I have approximatly the same "volume" of files in PCM as in DSD.

 

Currently I do not do upsampling because my Wyred4Sound DAC 2DSDse handles "all" formats on the fly.

The Foobar skin that Tedgo built fits my needs perfectly. I use my 42" TV to navigate and when tagging is done "correctly" it serves my needs and sounds fantastic.

One of the most important things I have used a lot of time on is to get the tagging of the files correctly.

 

I know there might be other nice solutions out there and I also bought JRiver som years ago, but never liked the GUI.

Tedgo is now updating DarkOne.

I thought I could give some links that might be useful if anyone is interested in Foobar. Check also Foobar Mobile for Android and IOS.

Links:

DarkOne 3.1: DarkOne v3.1 by tedgo on DeviantArt

DarkOne 4.0: DarkOne v4 by tedgo on DeviantArt

DarkOne 4.0Mod_V1: DarkOne4Mod v1 by tedgo on DeviantArt

SACD decoder: https://sourceforge.net/projects/sacddecoder/

Foobar for Dummies: https://diyaudioheaven.wordpress.com/digital/pc-software/foobar-2000-for-dummies-part-3-new-experimental-sacd-plugin-v-0-9-x/

Great source for learning and setting up Computer Audio: http://www.thewelltemperedcomputer.com/index.html

 

And of course this site is a must read to learn about Computer Audio.

I have the last year ripped everything I have and only use a PC to playback music. In addition I find Foobar to be perfect also for Multi Channel music. I have around a 1000 MCH disks stored in PCM and DSD format in addition to my 2channel ripped disks.

 

All the best. And remember to listen to the music. Sometimes good enough is good enough.

And when free even better :-)

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Unless your OS and audio software all work together from RAM, for music playback, you are not hearing the best.

 

+1

 

Furthermore, I'd say that there should be no internal peripherals connected to the mobo whatsoever, and that the LAN needs to be shut down totally before music commences playback. XXHighEnd is the only music player I'm aware of that is capable of all this.

 

But I have to say that the hardware still makes a massive difference. I've recently bought a Mach II audio PC from Phasure. I thought my home-grown 'tricked-out' audio PC (Teradak linear PSU, 2x Neutron Star clocks (separate linear PSUs) on mobo, 1x Neutron Star clock (separate linear PSU) on PCIe USB card, OS loaded onto RAM, no HDDs or SSDs, etc, etc) was pretty much as good as it could get. But the Phasure Mach II PC is in an altogether different league.

 

Edit: I don't know what PeterSt smokes, but you should seriously look at anything that comes from his stable...

 

Mani.

Main: SOtM sMS-200 -> Okto dac8PRO -> 6x Neurochrome 286 mono amps -> Tune Audio Anima horns + 2x Rotel RB-1590 amps -> 4 subs

Home Office: SOtM sMS-200 -> MOTU UltraLite-mk5 -> 6x Neurochrome 286 mono amps -> Impulse H2 speakers

Vinyl: Technics SP10 / London (Decca) Reference -> Trafomatic Luna -> RME ADI-2 Pro

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You're welcome. Actually, I reached the same conclusion as you a few months ago when I tried out Roon. It made a complete un-navigable mess of my music collection with no way to over-ride it. I suppose this is what Roon proponents mean when they say it helps them "discover" their music collection. For me, it destroyed the structure of my music collection.

 

I have said elsewhere that I decide how MY music is organized. I decide how I want it played. I don't want to listen to a Shostakovich symphony followed by an excerpt from Wagner. And I don't need no stinking discovery feature, where some algorithm thinks it knows better than me about my choice of music. I know how to find my own music. I would go so far as to say that if you don't know what music you want to listen to, and you think some algorithm does a better job than you of discovering music, you have no business calling yourself a music lover.

 

Neither do I need Roon to tell me who Johann Sebastian Bach is. I freaking know who he is. Stop wasting screen space showing me the same useless information every time!

 

ALL I WANT is for the software to present my music how I have already organized it, and play it for me. This would seem to me to be the most basic requirement of all, and Roon can't do it. No software has infuriated me as much as Roon.

 

As for Resonic - it lacks a very important feature that HQPlayer has - convolution, and ability to be used as a crossover. For me, this is even more important than DSD functionality.

 

Wrong about Roon. You can totally override those features and have it only relate to your tagging. I've done it. One of the options in the settings.

Main listening (small home office):

Main setup: Surge protector +>Isol-8 Mini sub Axis Power Strip/Isolation>QuietPC Low Noise Server>Roon (Audiolense DRC)>Stack Audio Link II>Kii Control>Kii Three (on their own electric circuit) >GIK Room Treatments.

Secondary Path: Server with Audiolense RC>RPi4 or analog>Cayin iDAC6 MKII (tube mode) (XLR)>Kii Three .

Bedroom: SBTouch to Cambridge Soundworks Desktop Setup.
Living Room/Kitchen: Ropieee (RPi3b+ with touchscreen) + Schiit Modi3E to a pair of Morel Hogtalare. 

All absolute statements about audio are false :)

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Oh yes, Miska has also said that he is not considering upgrading the interface for the time being, because he would rather focus his programming effort on improving the sound. Which is, again, another pity.

 

I would put it in a different way. HQPlayer already has two GUIs and every now and then I hear neither one is good. Creating a new GUI is easily six months effort. I'm not convinced I could create anything better. And potentially I would end up wasting half a year just to disappoint people.

 

And as I've said before, the fullscreen/touch interface can be replaced without having to modify HQPlayer itself. If someone else wants to take on the GUI development.

Signalyst - Developer of HQPlayer

Pulse & Fidelity - Software Defined Amplifiers

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I would suggest to get the best out of DSD playback you would need dedicated DSD audio software for this(does not do PCM). None exists yet to my knowledge.

 

Any software that relies on converting PCM to DSD is not the best and why bother.

 

Robert

 

I am wondering what your reasoning is here. We're really just talking about DSP math in either case.

 

If you are saying the best sound is the one that involves the fewest lossy conversion steps, then I think there's something to be said for that, though there are vanishingly few "pure" DSD recordings (that haven't had any editing done in PCM or analog), and no "pure" PCM recordings (that didn't originate in the ADC as a lower-bit sigma-delta modulated format and were converted, in the ADC or afterward, to PCM) for a quite a while now that I'm aware of.

 

But I wouldn't reason from this to a conclusion that resampling/player software must abandon the ability to handle both PCM or DSD or it cannot be "the best."

One never knows, do one? - Fats Waller

The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. - Einstein

Computer, Audirvana -> optical Ethernet to Fitlet3 -> Fibbr Alpha Optical USB -> iFi NEO iDSD DAC -> Apollon Audio 1ET400A Mini (Purifi based) -> Vandersteen 3A Signature.

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+1

 

Furthermore, I'd say that there should be no internal peripherals connected to the mobo whatsoever, and that the LAN needs to be shut down totally before music commences playback. XXHighEnd is the only music player I'm aware of that is capable of all this..

 

Sounds like wtfplay is going along the right lines then - everything (OS, replay software and music) loaded into RAM and no LAN.

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Been reading this thread and me myself settled on using Foobar several years ago.

Never looked back. Tried several solutions at the time, but none of them where close to Foobar including the DarkOne 3.1 skin plus the SACD plugin.

My stereo collection is stored on 2 x 4TB disk (plus 2x backup, so 3 copies).

One disk stores music in PCM (Flac) and the other DSD (DSF) files. All stored in a tree structure in the following structure ; Artist => Album => Songs.

I have had to store on different diskdrives because of diskspace neeeded for my collection.

I have CD's in a "PCM" folder (16 bits 44.1KHz). All higher formats in a "PCM HD" folder . The other disk is for DSD files in DSF fomat. I think I have approximatly the same "volume" of files in PCM as in DSD.

 

Currently I do not do upsampling because my Wyred4Sound DAC 2DSDse handles "all" formats on the fly.

The Foobar skin that Tedgo built fits my needs perfectly. I use my 42" TV to navigate and when tagging is done "correctly" it serves my needs and sounds fantastic.

One of the most important things I have used a lot of time on is to get the tagging of the files correctly.

 

I know there might be other nice solutions out there and I also bought JRiver som years ago, but never liked the GUI.

Tedgo is now updating DarkOne.

I thought I could give some links that might be useful if anyone is interested in Foobar. Check also Foobar Mobile for Android and IOS.

Links:

DarkOne 3.1: DarkOne v3.1 by tedgo on DeviantArt

DarkOne 4.0: DarkOne v4 by tedgo on DeviantArt

DarkOne 4.0Mod_V1: DarkOne4Mod v1 by tedgo on DeviantArt

SACD decoder: https://sourceforge.net/projects/sacddecoder/

Foobar for Dummies: https://diyaudioheaven.wordpress.com/digital/pc-software/foobar-2000-for-dummies-part-3-new-experimental-sacd-plugin-v-0-9-x/

Great source for learning and setting up Computer Audio: http://www.thewelltemperedcomputer.com/index.html

 

And of course this site is a must read to learn about Computer Audio.

I have the last year ripped everything I have and only use a PC to playback music. In addition I find Foobar to be perfect also for Multi Channel music. I have around a 1000 MCH disks stored in PCM and DSD format in addition to my 2channel ripped disks.

 

All the best. And remember to listen to the music. Sometimes good enough is good enough.

And when free even better :-)

 

+1

 

I actually have been looking for a nice foobar skin...will definitely check it out.

Since you know foobar, just curious....why don't they have skins that have SACD and upnp plugins implemented, or they are not allowed to? It would be nice if they could.

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+1

 

I actually have been looking for a nice foobar skin...will definitely check it out.

Since you know foobar, just curious....why don't they have skins that have SACD and upnp plugins implemented, or they are not allowed to? It would be nice if they could.

 

I think that would take too much time from the developers working on the core part of Foobar as they focus on the basics for the player.

 

Foobar is a powerful open component architecture allowing third-party developers to extend functionality of the basic player, including the ability to fully replace the user interface.

Foobar is relying on others to extend functonality. SACD is f.ex done by Maxim. To install the SACD plugin it's a must do to read the "Foobar for Dummies".

In addition there is an upnp plugin. Have a look at the Component page at Foobar's website.

 

I find Foobar very easy to use and you can get it set-up to look very Roon-alike based on the DarkOne skins.

If you have look at the component page for Foobar it's quite many that can be installed. Most of them are just a .dll extension.

 

I think the reason The plugins live there own life is that the plugin "owners" then feel responsibiity for it and the users of the component can ask the developer directly.

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^^^ i personally am already familiar with foobar and have used the upnp and sacd plugins years ago also. It was my go to player for quite awhile until i heard audiogate...then hqplayer. I haven't returned to foobar since because the SQ of both the latter are superior imho...what they do, i don't know nor do i really care to get into the weeds that many here do....i just know i can hear a clear difference.

 

I googled and see that someone uses foobar to hqplayer with a ramdisk..sounded a bit complicated, but it may be the "temporary" ticket.

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I would put it in a different way. HQPlayer already has two GUIs and every now and then I hear neither one is good. Creating a new GUI is easily six months effort. I'm not convinced I could create anything better. And potentially I would end up wasting half a year just to disappoint people.

 

And as I've said before, the fullscreen/touch interface can be replaced without having to modify HQPlayer itself. If someone else wants to take on the GUI development.

 

I beg you!!! I am your number 1 fan! I tell anyone who listens that the only reason my system works, and what drove all my hardware purchases ... is the combination of Acourate and HQPlayer. I'll have you know that I purchased a USD$14,000 DAC so that I could take full advantage of what your software is capable of. And HQP ONLY cost me USD140. To me, HQP is screaming good value, considering it is the heart of my system and it is so cheap.

 

If you can't be bothered developing your own interface, why not allow skin plugins, like Foobar?

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And as I've said before, the fullscreen/touch interface can be replaced without having to modify HQPlayer itself. If someone else wants to take on the GUI development.

 

If you can't be bothered developing your own interface, why not allow skin plugins, like Foobar?

 

Miska says he'd be happy to allow someone else to take on GUI development entirely, not just eye candy (skins). So if you can find someone who would like to do that....

One never knows, do one? - Fats Waller

The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. - Einstein

Computer, Audirvana -> optical Ethernet to Fitlet3 -> Fibbr Alpha Optical USB -> iFi NEO iDSD DAC -> Apollon Audio 1ET400A Mini (Purifi based) -> Vandersteen 3A Signature.

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The biggest issue with that is "precious time".

would make more sense to team with someone that has a gui already...jmo.

 

and he did that with Roon...

Main listening (small home office):

Main setup: Surge protector +>Isol-8 Mini sub Axis Power Strip/Isolation>QuietPC Low Noise Server>Roon (Audiolense DRC)>Stack Audio Link II>Kii Control>Kii Three (on their own electric circuit) >GIK Room Treatments.

Secondary Path: Server with Audiolense RC>RPi4 or analog>Cayin iDAC6 MKII (tube mode) (XLR)>Kii Three .

Bedroom: SBTouch to Cambridge Soundworks Desktop Setup.
Living Room/Kitchen: Ropieee (RPi3b+ with touchscreen) + Schiit Modi3E to a pair of Morel Hogtalare. 

All absolute statements about audio are false :)

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I have got to wonder if you gave used HQP in full screen mode/touch screen mode? I use a touch screen just for this reason...

 

 

That is another option worth consideration... I haven't tried that...definitely worth consideration. I will probably play with MUSO first though...it seemed like an interesting offering. I will do some sq comparisons of both though before i buy muso...but i will buy HQPlayer regardless, once i check out his next release. I really don't mind his interface or any "plain" interface...i don't need to read biographies or see pretty pictures when i want to listen to music....if i wanted pretty pictures i would watch a multichannel 4K bluray. Next release of HQPlayer may be enough for me for my stereo sessions...i already know i like HQplayer's SQ. Also as Miska pointed out, that his product shines when upsampling, so maybe i will try some of my older flacs again....i have been spoiled by native dsd for over a year now....but may revisit the old stuff.

Forrest:

Win10 i9 9900KS/GTX1060 HQPlayer4>Win10 NAA

DSD>Pavel's DSC2.6>Bent Audio TAP>

Parasound JC1>"Naked" Quad ESL63/Tannoy PS350B subs<100Hz

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