hi ya all, this is my first post. so here's the deal. im recently encode my cds to mpc. and i've compared them with vorbis. the thing is i use the mpc winamp plugin 0.99d, and after some tweaks with the plugin (replaygain, dither) i found another option which is the musepack or winamp equalizer. when i choose winamp equalizer, the sound of two identical tracks (mpc q5 xlevel and vorbis q6) does not have any difference. when i switch to musepack equalizer, then mpc sounds a lot better!

but i wanna know whether this is good thing when using musepack equalizer? it sounded better than original!

IIRC, the winamp EQ cuts off frequencies above 16 kHz.
Better use the Musepack one, as it won't cut them off

The "musepack" equalizer is arranged in a different way than the "winamp" equalizer (this means, the frequencies of the sliders between each, do not match).
From this point on, it is useless to compare them both when using the same settings (as I assume you've done).

In other words, it's as easy to get a setting where one sounds better than the other, than the other way around. It is just different.

Also, the bit of information about wimamp's equalizer cutting at 16Khz is outdated.
This was fixed in Winamp 2.... 2.95 I think (can't check it now. don't have the changelog here). It was replaced by the one from 4front technologies (the one used in XMMS).

If you want to use the same settings between different formats, use the winamp one, else, use the musepack one.

P.s. the MP3 playback uses a 3rd equalizer type (fast equalization option in in_mp3, enabled by default).

ive fallen in love with mpc. because of the decoder which make my sounds so much better.

anyway [JAZ], is it me, or the winamp fast equalization is worse quality for mp3s? i use mad for my mp3s, and when i use the winamp default mp3 decoder, with fast equalization disabled sounded the same as mad one? me i dont have any golden ears..so which should i use? heard that mad is not that great. that's why if i want to hear mp3s, oggs, i use foobar2000.

The MAD plugin had problems with streaming (not sure if this was fixed in a recent release), and it doesn't have an ID3v2 tag editor. These things, and the fact that it sounds about the same at 16bits of resolution than the default one(there's a thread or two about this in these boards), is what makes (some) people not use it.
(Ok, and the media library addition)

The fast equalizer is quantized directly from the MP3 data (changing the gains of the scalefactor bands AFAIK), whereas the "winamp" one uses filtering techniques (shelf filter?). The result is different, but note that the (centre) frequencies of the sliders are different too.
Which ones does allow a better (as in more precise) equalization? Hard to say, the "PCM" (winamp) one has a wider range, at the expense of higher jumps between bands.

I've been using both, and nowadays I don't use any of them (well.. I have the fast one selected, but mostly using the pre-amp to attenuate the signal).

Well, I personally turn off the Fast EQ in in_mp3 and the EQ in in_mpc, because I want that my music behaves the same way with all music formats.

the built in winamp EQ is NOW safe to use. It is pretty good and doesn'T violate your music anymore (even the warning doen't pop up in in_mpc anymore). Justin's old EQ was rather crappy.