winamp

hairofthedawg · « **on:** 1 Jan 2003, 04:27 am »

I finally got around to buying CoolEdit and ripped a CD. I posted on HD awhile back about a really annoying hiss when playing mp3's via Winamp and thought that feeding it a pcm file would cure it but I still had the hiss. The audio files sounded great through CoolEdit, still haven't found out how to make a good playlist with it, if it's capable, and also through Window's media player. Has anyone else heard a hiss through Winamp or should I maybe try downloading a new version?

cheers,

Dick

mgalusha · « **Reply #1 on:** 1 Jan 2003, 05:17 am »

Dick,

I have never had a problem with hiss in Winamp. Since everything is working using Cooledit it would appear your soundcard is OK. Give a different player a try. Another free one is FreeAmp. http://www.freeamp.org

Mike

hairofthedawg · « **Reply #2 on:** 1 Jan 2003, 06:19 am »

It's a Carddeluxe and sounds great with the other two players. I finally figured out how to make windows media player shuffle songs for a mix so I think I've got my solution, but will check out the link you gave me. Thanks! I was almost hoping it didn't work with any player so I could blame the long cables, but that didn't happen. I'm using 25 foot cables as a feed to one of the preamps and thought that might be it. Tip, ring shield to RCA so I thought they might pick up noise. Now for the tedium of typing in song titles...

cheers,

Dick

Ferdi · « **Reply #3 on:** 1 Jan 2003, 09:48 am »

Happy New Year guys!

Dick, you shouldn't have to type in names. Downloaded MP3 will have titles and if you rip from CD most players have the option to go out on the Internet to find the titles using CDDB and there are other databases as well. That should save you a lot of time. The latest version of WMediaplayer does this for sure but other should do as well.

BTW, I don't have your problems. I use iTunes on OSX. That works great for the few ripped tracks I use.

mgalusha · « **Reply #4 on:** 1 Jan 2003, 01:39 pm »

Happy new year as well! (not that I was able to stay awake to ring it in...)

Dick,

You might want to give Easy CD-DA Extractor a try. It does a very good job of ripping CD's and creating play lists. It's not freeware but IMO worth the registration fee. (USD $20)

A poor mans play list: If you are running Win2K and the song file names are the song titles you can create play lists using the dir command.

Example:

dir /b *.mp3 > "Count Basie - 88 Basie Street.m3u"

The /b tells it to use a bare directory listing. This works well only if the file names are meaningful of course.

Mike

nathanm · « **Reply #5 on:** 16 Jan 2003, 06:53 pm »

I never had a problem with Winamp hissing until I downloaded version 3 for giggles. (I've since gone back to the old one) Anyway, check to see if DirectSound is enabled. There's two locations in Preferences where you can set this (unfortunately I don't have it on the machine I am using now, but if I remember correctly it was under the Audio tab of the prefs) . I tried turning it on and got a nasty hiss. Turning it OFF cured it.

You'll probably have to quit and restart Winamp to make the switch.

Slick · « **Reply #6 on:** 20 Jan 2003, 08:43 am »

http://classic.winamp.com/plugins/detail.jhtml?componentId=64947

This has worked good for me - except for a slight gap between the songs. It may not have the best quality (as a result of the mp3 format - higher encoding rates help) but it does the job good without having to use multiple programs and encoders to get files to CD's.

Slick · « **Reply #7 on:** 20 Jan 2003, 08:44 am »

http://classic.winamp.com/plugins/detail.jhtml?componentId=64947

This has worked good for me - except for a slight gap between the songs. It may not have the best quality (as a result of the mp3 format - higher encoding rates help) but it does the job good without having to use multiple programs and encoders to get files to CD's.

nathanm · « **Reply #8 on:** 20 Jan 2003, 03:43 pm »

One thing to keep in mind is that regardless of what player you use, simply listening to MP3s by default gets your purist audiophile status instantly revoked! Shame and derision will come to you, and eventually when you die your soul will never make it to the Golden Eared Halls of Hellven. There is a small loophole though; if you ONLY listen to MP3s encoded at 320k you may be granted a stay in Audiophile Purgatory, where you will face the Purifying Flame for a number of years after which judgement will be passed on whence your soul will go.

Just something to think about!

audioengr · « **Reply #9 on:** 20 Jan 2003, 11:18 pm »

MP3's ultimately limit the imaging and dynamics, but I have found that the best player to play anything back including MP3's is the Real jukebox player (old one). Even .wav files sound better on the Real tool. I tried 8 different players.

Comparison of the Real format to MP3, wav and microsoft format showed that the only compressed format that was close to the .wav file and the original CD playback was the Real format. If I were into caching digital music, I would definitely use the Real format with reasonably large file sizes.

Slick · « **Reply #10 on:** 26 Jan 2003, 08:08 pm »

http://www.mars.org/home/rob/proj/mpeg/

A new (to me) mpeg decoder that makes a very noticeable difference, and offers support for 24bit output. Still doesn't make for audiophile quality mp3's, but this does clean up the bass and take some of the edge off the high end.