I thought I'd dig up an old thread rather than make a new one of the same theme. I have been using Foobar for years but I couldn't help but think there was better. I dabbled in jriver a few years back, but any pirated copies got weird or attempted to update which required reinstalling the cracked copy. So I went on a hunt for how to make Foobar better or possibly find a better alternatives. There were several tweaks I found that worked very well, but I also stumbled upon a post on superbestaudiofriends that someone reviewed like 15 different programs and gave opinions, so I decided to try a couple.
First real good one was Hysolid but that proved to be cumbersome. I couldn't reference a separate server pc on my network that stores the files so I had to copy songs/albums to a jump drive. Also the program runs fully headless on your pc but I usually run Foobar the same way. To control, it had to be via an old Android or a current IOS app so I pulled out my old Samsung S4 and tested away. The sound was a solid improvement over what Foobar had been but I hated the premeditated listening arrangement of copying over files like that.
Next up was one that came with a warning to back up your pc prior to install. This program was XXHighEnd and apparently the program makes a ton of windows process adjustments to strip your pc down to the bare essentials. Firewall settings, andivirus quarantines, and forced folder copy moves later and we were installed. What was left was in no uncertain terms glitchy AF for a program. Great... this is going to suck. But out of the good review on SBAF, I persevered and figured out how to load and click play and waited as nothing happened for 10 seconds that seemed like forever and oooooooh man was it worth it. Liquid smooth sound, clean and articulate and deep. What the hell happened here? Apparently this glitchy program with all the weird windows adjustments had worked wonders because this sound is phenomenal. I knew I couldn't hang with the program long term, but I have heard so much more so I dug in and I figured out some of the tweaks it was doing and how to apply to Foobar.
First up is setting the device priority higher in the windows processing schedule. Open foobar, open Task Manager, click devices, right click foobar, highlight set priority and select realtime. This means that any cpu action foobar wishes to process gets automatically jumped to the front of the line.
Next was running the wasapi plugin. This bypasses the windows sound processing and makes a direct connection for in data to out data.
Then I learned to load the music files onto your ram for no lag from my server pc. Right click the file/album you want to play, select Utilities, then select Send To Ram-Disk. This will copy the files to your memory, then just drag and drop onto your playlist. When done, simply click select View tab at the top, select Ram-Disk Content, then file and remove all.
Last and least amazing tweak was setting the output buffer setting as low as possible without causing playback errors. Tiny, and barely audible improvement but a tiny gain is still a gain, am I right?
Anyways, my point is I've found Foobar to still be the best complete free program out there that gives all the options without crashing your pc. Just need to hotrod it a little. Hope somebody finds some good use out of this.
