hello,
im new here. got a question... are there any other alternatives to the mad plugin that work as well? i like the sound quality of mad, but it doesnt work with id3v2 tags, and most of my collection either doesnt have a v1 tag, or it only has 1 or 2 fields filled in. i have used tag+rename to manage my tags, but my collection is so large, it would take me a day to fix all the bum tags i created when i first started using MP3 many years ago, and im too lazy for that right now. im just wondering if there is another option, or is MAD the end-all and be-all of sound quality with winamp??

P.S. any other suggestions on how to improve the sound quality of playback/decoding would be greatly appreciated also...

The following plugins offer perfect MP3 reproduction:

in_mp3: bundled with Winamp
in_mad: http://rarewares.hydrogenaudio.org/files/MADbundle.zip
in_mpg123: http://www3.cypress.ne.jp/otachan/in_mpg123.html

mad is not better nor worse than any one of these decoders.

so the winamp decoder is just as good? why is everyone all over MAD then? i guess i was fooling myself that mad sounded better than winamp...

Placebo effect, I reckon.



I guess so.

I suggest you look here for more info on this issue:
http://ff123.net/madchallenge.html

With MAD the equalizer of winamp doesnt work.....does anybody know why ?? why ??

use foobar2000 player
uses the mpg123 lib, but does all the mad features natively too, like 24 bit decoding with dithering, works with the equaliser, way better clipping handling and more.

It was taking toooo long. :B

(I actually had a little hope it wouldn't happen)

It took almost four hours, but realy if you are looking more features in decoder foobar is the thing for you.

I agree completely when it comes to quality, but there is also the issue of error handling. I did some tests half a year ago with a file that had faulty frame headers, and there where clear differences in how the decoders handled this. Don't really remember much more than that i preferred the Winamp decoder, unfortunately. And i didn't try foobar either so...

Out of date, but may still be relevant to decoding corrupt files:
http://mp3decoders.mp3-tech.org/corrupt.html

Cheers,
David.

@tangent and askoff
Did I mention that Linux is far better than Windows?

LINUX LINUX

everybody shall shout with me.

EDIT: to get on-topic.
the decoder question isn't the important one. most current mp3-decoders do their jobs very well. and the winamp fraunhoffer codec is known to be excellent.

mad has surely advantages concerning sound quality, BUT ONLY IN THEORY. in practice all good (=they decode mp3 correctly) decoders sound the same.
it's a rule in these forums: if you think they sound worse, try to ABX it, or noone will trust you.

Proper handling of clipping is something you can most certainly ABX on real music.
I see someone else already warned you for your original unedited trollpost so I won't bother flaming it further.

Whats this warn thing all about? how does it work?

BTW I think people should be allowed to choose what ever player they want, if they are happy with MusicMatch or whatever then they shouldn't have something else constantly shoved down their throats.

Let me quote from the original poster:

im just wondering if there is another option, or is MAD the end-all and be-all of sound quality with winamp??

So what's the problem with recommending Foobar2000 which is exactly what he is asking for?

Off-topic semantical discussion:

To my untrained eye it looks like he's using winamp and wants to continue doing that but with the best possible decoding quality available. If this is the case I can't imagine how foobar would be of any use for him...

Of course there is the possibility that he never heard of foobar, in which case it is reasonable to point out the alternatives. Considering the low post count maybe this is the more likely case.

i have heard of foobar, but never tried it. just never felt the need to switch from winamp, but i am open to all alternatives. where can i find foobar for download, ill give it a shot.

any and all suggestions are welcome, as you can probably tell i am a super-noob.

Here you can find the legendary foobar

amano: I hope there's nothing wrong to try something different sometimes. Are afraid that someone else will switch from Winamp to foobar2000 again?

EDIT: Removed dead link.

the link to case's special installer is dead... are you sure its right?

It got removed because RC14 replaced it. People should link to this html file instead of exes.

By the way Case your ICL test compiles where over 10% faster than non-test ICL compiles with my P4... (But this doesent look like the right place for this comment, but i won't start new topic about it.)

As there is a replay gain plugin for winamp or the possibility to mp3gain your music, no clipping should be heard with winamp. so you will not be able to spot a difference by ABXing it.

and when I am annoyed by those foobar trolls in winamp/other audio player threads, you call ME the troll?

As I respect your hard work as the foobar developer, I don't understand your reasons for promoting it in winamp related threads - nor do I see the need for other zealots to to so. for people like me, who are just looking for new/valid information this is plain annoying.

the thread title is "alternatives to MAD" and as MAD is a winamp plugin and not an audio player and foobar is an audio player but not a winamp plugin, foobar can be no alterantive to mad.

You have a point, but NatGun also did say: ... so I think foobar2000 would count as "any other suggestion."

Just MHO

If I may interject...

I've only been an HA member for a couple of months, but through direct participation as well as loads of research, I've seen many threads here where audio players are discussed. And there seems to be more than a few complaints that foobar2000 is "promoted" more than any other player.

I'm not seeing it. In foobar2000-specific threads, it is the primary focus, with other players being mentioned periodically. In Winamp-specific threads, Winamp is the primary focus, with other players (including fb2k) mentioned periodically.

If there are more threads overall that discuss foobar2k, there would be two very good reasons for this. #1: The foobar2000 site is directly hosted by HydrogenAudio (whereas Winamp, QCD, etc. are not). #2: In a recent HA poll, foobar2000 proved to be the most preferred audio player by the majority of HA members who participated (and by a good margin, IIRC).

Anyone asking for an alternative to any aspect of audio playback should probably hear about fb2k.

(And for reference, I'm not a foobar2000 user. I use Winamp 5.0 currently.)