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In Reply to: RE: what media player for older (XP) Dell computer? I just listen to internet radio with my Focal XS speakers posted by PhilJ on March 08, 2015 at 11:08:08
Welcome to computer audio!
Why not try Foobar2000 as a way of getting hands on experience with computer audio? It's free and does a good job of playing internet radio streams.
Like any sophisticated app, there is a learning curve, but the forum over at Hydrogen Audio is pretty good at helping your resolve your issues. An internet search will also turn up numerous pages with tips on how to configure and use it.
Glad you like your Focals!
JE
Follow Ups:
...foobar on xp is awesome.
Some might disagree, but I think you go a long way improving sound by having a decent audio interface. Stock mobo sound codecs can be okay, but they're easily beaten, sometimes by sound cards as cheap as $100 or $150. You can get "entry level audiophile" stuff for $200 to $500 or prosumer stuff in that range that can beat out mobo sound quite easily. Once you have a good quality interface, THEN I would experiment with different players. IME, the players make a more subtle difference, but for me, the interface can be "day and night" - especially with background darkness and detail retrieval.
Cheers,
Presto
so do you think the Foobar will help the sound?
I think a good audio interface with a decent quality SPDIF output that is bitperfect and handles your digital streams in "native format" will sound best. By native, I mean *NOT* resample, say, 44.1khz to 48khz.
XP is nice because it doesn't try as hard as Windows 7 does to muck with your sample rate. To avoid all of this, it's best to get a soundcard that is ASIO 2.0 capable. Then, in foobar, you use an ASIO output plugin. When ASIO is working properly (and it pretty much always does), the output plugin and hardware have complete control of the stream and it's routing. Any and all sound in the background generated by Windows and/or other applications are a non-issue (except where you had a second set of speakers connected to the mobo output, which I doubt you will do!)
also btw I forgot to mention but improving sound quality is my goal.best,
Phil
Edits: 03/08/15
And there is a huge online support community. Additionally, Foobar has all kinds of plug-in "components" that allow it to decode DTS, SACD, DVD-Audio and other digital storage formats. And, of course, it is free - w00t!!
-RW-
You might try different media players e.g. MusicBee but your best bet is to try different drivers.
As you have JRiver you can try a couple of options like WASAPI, Memory playback
The Well Tempered Computer
...
Yeah but I missed that you are using XP
You won't find WASAPI there
Sorry
The Well Tempered Computer
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