Does WinAmp sound better than iTunes playing the same MP3s?
To me … and maybe to me alone … the latest incarnation of WinAmp doesn’t sound better while the a song is playing, but rather when it stops. By default, there is an analog-sounding split-second fade triggered by stop, pause or going to the next track. This gives the illusion of fuller sound, because it feels like my dad’s old school hi-fi or the first rack system I had in high school.
If you have sound check enabled in iTunes, that can help a lot if you listen to music that is made to be loud (hard rock, etc). Look for a “replay gain” plug for winamp, or use something else that supports it. (foobar2000, etc) If you want a better mp3 player, you could check out the MAD plugin for winamp. It’s supposed to sound better, but I couldn’t tell. At least you’ll get a placebo effect. 🙂 It’s really all about speakers/headphones though. Get yourself some decent ones and that will help out much more than any plugin or whatever. PS: Foobar2000 rocks. Written by a former winamp developer (I think). Plain list boxes combined with an amazing amount of actually useful plugins makes for quite a player. Too bad I don’t run windows anymore.
My experience has also been the opposite: I prefer the sound of iTunes over WinAmp (And I’ll have to keep shoving the comparison in my face until an SPC plugin for iTunes is developed). Is it just psychological? Here’s a developer’s take on a similar phenomenon that happened with the Mac music players SoundJam and Audion: Jeff Robbin then asked us a funny question that had obviously been percolating for a while: “Does Audion do any kind of special filtering?” You see, since the beginning of time, press reviews in magazines, websites, etc., had consistently said that Audion simply sounds “better” than SoundJam, without question. It wasn’t until that declaration showed up in a very respectable, high-end British Hi-Fi magazine that people started to take it even more seriously. Audion was always noted for being “richer” or “sweeter”, and we were tremendously proud of our incredible results in this regard. The only problem was: we didn’t d
…and recursive, studios do indeed spend a lot of money to make their albums sound good, but $20 shareware plugins can help a lot of people make their music sound ‘better’. One of the main features of these plugins is a ‘loudness’ setting, which boosts frequencies that you don’t hear when your speakers are quiet. So, when you’re listening to an album at low volume, these plugins will make it sound like you’re listening at a loud volume, only quieter. 🙂 Many of them also have compensation for poor speaker setup, or low-bitrate mp3 artifacts, etc., etc… I personally don’t use plugins like these, but that’s because I setup my listening space myself, and I know what my room sounds like. If I were listening to music at work, using crappy ten-dollar-speakers, I’d download DFX or Ozone in a heartbeat.
