i get similar if not better quality with foobar as with winamp with enhancer plugin but then what i like about foobar is its simplicity and the focus on quality .thanx for this great player

Does Foobar2k really sound better than Winamp with the DSOutput 2.2.6 and RAD plugin?

I keep hearing the word 'placebo' from zZzZzZz himself.

As for minimal system resources, definitely (though my winamp rarely goes above 1% CPU on Win2k, P2 333) foobar2k uses less RAM.

Properly designed players should all sound the same (sans DSP enhancements).

I also don't know why many people in this forum write "better quality than winamp". I can't believe this - winamp has been developed for quite a long time, and the coders at Nullsoft don't seem to be that bad (btw. I'm talking about version 2.81, not the V3 which is crappy in my opinion).

So could someone please give me convincing reasons of that?

Regards, fileman.

To all intents and purposes, the latest Winamp3, Winamp 2 and foobar output the same quality audio to your sound card driver (with all DSPs turned off). What your driver does to it is it's own problem. But it's fairly stupid to say that one player is better quality than another. However the whole directsound/waveout/driver issue is another matter.

so... it doesn't sound better ?

no

Also the audio quality comparison has a lot to do with the mp3 decoder used. Winamp uses the Fraunhofer decoder which is considered one of the best. Foobar2k I think uses mpglib (correct me on this but isn't mpg123 based on mpglib??).

As for the quality of mp3 decoders, you can probably get a rough idea from this page MPEG Decoder Compliance which I got from this thread

i can't hear a difference. maybe with a 24bit card though.

like an audigy 2, or one of those higher model m-audio cards

No.Much more likely to have actual 24 bit output.