Since Resonic has WASAPI exclusive output mode in free version, ASIO output in PRO makes no difference, since ASIO only has to do with lower latency. It is just a very good player.
But it causes system stutter sometimes (happened to me even when I started Google Chrome), because it blocks audio card as long as it is loaded in memory, no matter whether it is active (playing) or not.

 

Why are we even discussing this?
There is only one clear winner: Winamp + Quinto Black CT Skin
Such a beauty
https://winaero.com/blog/quinto-black-ct-v3-1-updated-design-new-features/

 

i deinstalled win amp to get that skin work...not working...then i deinstalled with revo...wow...what a huge amount on registry entries..record..

 

Just askin' the people that say audio players sound diferent: Are you the same kind of people that think a flac sounds different than a wav file? If yes, then I'm relieved and can ignore this matter.

If not please provide some form of evidence. I have strong doubts regaridng different output signal while I won't rule it out completely.
Saying that you think one player is sounding more transparent than the other is no proof, btw. I've seen enough people being sure to hear differences being exposed to the same audio material twice in a row, so let's just skip this, get right to thing and do some waveform comparisons.

Been using winamp for ages, btw. Just compared to media player classic and felt zero reason to believe there could be a difference. Same thing with Cubase 9.5 ...

 

if you would have seen the threads where ppl with ears here in forum could determine stuff which is not audible to untrained and skilled ppl or also other pro ppl which not have those ears..

 

Between Resonic and Aimp4 we're not talking small differences. I can't believe for a second trained ears wouldn't catch them.
It's very important you know. I need detailled sound when,picking samples.

 

bout win amp
latest 5.66 dont work with the skin...

latest beta or something : 5.8 build 3660 has more features and formats ...i didnt kno that..
https://www.winamp.com/

 

make no sense to differ between a so called audio player and video player. It is a media player, and the best one in my opinion is PotPlayer

 

i want it seperated , so i got my wav standartiized to winamp while not having video enabled in winamp ...
so vid files get standartized to vlc...
so i have audio and vid files seperated by standart program label in windows when watching archives..so the vlc or winamp label is at beginning from file lane...the file format at end of lane is to far away..so i never have need to scroll for seeing file format
not to mention the other app: a sample browser player with video..naw..for me...for other it might be the best otherwise

 

Last edited: Feb 9, 2020

I revisited the newest JRiver, but it still sounds constricted and screamy to me.
I also tried Dopamine, and it works pretty well, but it's not quite on the level with the top 5. Still better than most.

So, for FLAC an WAV files the best is HQ Player 4
For all lossy formats: 1. foobar2000, 2. Winamp, 3. Resonic
For mp3 only: 1. foobar2000, 2. Apollo and 3. Winamp

The next choice by sound quality (No 6) is Dopamine.
Of course, this is just my opinion. Anybody can (and should) test and judge for himself.
There is also the famous Japanese Bughead Emperor, but I was unable to install it. Never met such complicated, strange and non-transparent audio software installation. Maybe somebody could give me a clue how to install it?

 

It's great, but there are better still. Although the differences are not too big, in my opinion.

 

Last edited: Feb 9, 2020

What proof do you have in mind? Just start several players set at their best, play the same file, and listen to differences. To people who can not hear any difference by themselves there is no other proof available. But, as a well known proverb says, "to some people all the Chinese look the same'...

 

Can anyone decrypt this?
Highest quality music playback is achieved through the use of a special sound enhancement technology that Hiroyuki has patented as the “Bug head”. The essence of the technology is that the audio file in RAM is converted to a raw RAW file, which is then improved by cubic spline interpolation in accordance with the reference schemes for recording audio disks, as well as user-selectable options for optimizing sound, such as Green, Star, Galaxy, etc.

 

Last edited: Feb 9, 2020

.del

 

Hahaha so true, though I think this is not the same case.

That's very true. If the software players have differences (with non-lossy formats) you can easily record the exact output with a virtual-sound-device and compare.

Also I feel we're mixing two very different things. If we're just listening music for pleasure we want to use regular Hi-Fi speakers (not flat by definition), an V equalization for rock, another for classical music and stuff.
If you need detailed sound as in producing music you need monitor speakers or equivalent headphones. That's when you care about the exact sound.

Holy sh*t . It seems like a CD-Ripper (probably also player) outputting FLAC that loads the entire CD into RAM memory to do the ripping process. The two first lines sounds kind of ripping profiles with their expected conversion times to me.
There's obviously more to it, because I can't find the use of 32bit floats to rip a 16bit CD. well, perhaps for the playing process?
16 and 32GB-> f*cking beats me
Perhaps it's a live DVD/CD-ROM/USB and needs all that RAM for the FLAC lossless encoding process without using any disk.
It probably for some reason interpolates to 32bit.

Edited: damn, I didn't even look to the folders, nor your description. They're custom made cd ripper-players for custom made speakers or high-end in general perhaps. A simple google plus translate tells it. The goal is indeed maximum quality from a CD source to the speakers. I guess the FLAC conversion is just an intermediate way to store 32bit sound without completely blowing up the RAM. Probably the huge complex interpolation requires more memory than the output sound itself.
But the important thing is that high quality interpolation to 32bit. Interpolation is whole art, in audio, 2D/3Dimage and video. Being splines one of the most powerful ones. First time I heard the term was for image 3D modelling, to soften the triangle-like effect of 3D images.

 

Last edited: Feb 9, 2020

ASIO output Plugin for winamp
https://winampheritage.com/plugin/asio-output-plugin/156466

 

After hours of searching, I finally found a working version (on my system), it is from 2016 v7.27 (v11.79 being the most recent). Most probably I do not have enough RAM for the newest version to get installed. It is a player and a ripper I guess, and God knows what else.
It has stunning precision, overshadowing all of the other players mentioned. Although the sound seems to me slightly unnatural... but now it's very late at night to experiment further. It's got dozens of possible settings combinations, it will take days to explore.
Terribly awkward to use, that's for sure.

 

Well, we all have our vices, beginning with me, so I'm not going to tell you what to do. But that monster is insane lol.
I don't know what's that PC file ripper-player for, but considering there're patents in play I guess it's a demo/prototype of what would be a hardware sound player. And it's distributed as a kind of beta-testing for very demanding users.

Clearly not aimed as a PC software player. But hey, we gotta die from something, right?...

 

It is not beta-testing, I've first heard of it back in 2012 on pro forums, people were exalted, and as far as I remember v5.x was actual at the time. Now it is 11.79... And free still... The author is constantly improving the player, but seems like now he's got into the field of extreme hardware requirements.
Last year I had v 9x, more complicated than 7.27, but deleted it and had no backup. Now I found out that it is very hard to find older versions, and the newest ones are too much for my system.
My version supports only playlists with up to 50 entries. It's got its own playlist format BHx.txt (1,2,3...). It doesn't remember the last item played, etc. Works with ASIO output only /no WASAPI/. For high demanding tasks takes up to several minutes per file. Each playlist item it tests again every time you load it... It sounds beautifully, but you have to be really patient and tolerant.

 

Last edited: Feb 10, 2020

And more surprises yet. In version 7.27 there are two separate players, the other one is called 'Infinity Blade'. They look exactly the same, except that the 'Infinity Blade' sounds sharper and a bit metallic to me. I also got a grip on v10.06, it works, but settings are dead, defaults only frozen. And defaults' default is to re-write memory 6 times and check it for 7 sec afterwards, before playing each /next track (even if it is the same one played again)...