I just d/l the latest Winamp plugin, the one linked from PM's homepage here. Here's some observations when using it. Any comments or suggestions appreciated. For the record, I don't use Replaygain.

I cannot hear any difference when playing around with the plugin's EQ. Do you?

I can hear Winamp's EQ cut in if I use it but I don't hear a major drop in high-end.

From what the readme file states, I beleive using Dithering is a good thing, no?

EQ works fine.

Dithering should in theorie sound better. Just try for yourself what's better to you. If you can't hear the difference don't worry, neither can I On my machine I can hardly measure the impact winamp has on my CPU so I can't tell you anything to how much more processing power it takes to dither. I just leave it on and feel good

Sometimes though winamp freezes when switching from one song to another. Happens only with musepack files; mp3 works fine. Using Peter's output plugins. (Yeah, soundcard drivers suck: vortex II chip + win2k is a bad combination)

About the mpc plugin's EQ, what do the dynamic range settings mean? It looks nothing like the Winamp EQ (which I don't use).

What if I don't want any equalization? I can only choose between Musepack and Winamp.

Anyway, I just set the dynamic range slider all the way to the left at ±0dB hoping that this will cause no change to my music.

:confused:

To controll the EQ you just use the regular winamp EQ (also turn it on/off). You can choose between the routines used to calculate the attenuation though. Winamp's routines do a bad job at equalizing so normally you would choose "Equalizing done by Musepack". The dynamic range slider selects the maximum amount of attenuation (in db) you can set in the Winamp EQ.

Hey Gecko, what is that picture?

Thanks for the clarification Gecko.

Ah, strange thing I didn't notice before is that you cannot move the "Dynamic Range" slider if you have it on Winamp EQ, which it actually effects. You must select the Musepack EQ in order to move the slider, then reselect Winamp EQ to make the change work. Regarding Winamp's EQ, it may not do such a great job at EQ'ing but it sounds a helluvalot better than without it, IMnsHO.

Winamp's generic EQ cuts off high frequencies (I think just about anything >16kHz). That's why it's bad. Are you saying that you prefer the output of the winamp EQ over that of the custom mpc EQ? If so, why? Your post does not make this clear.

I can confirm the slider bug though. I didn't know there was a way to influence Winamp's EQ range. It seems only to affect mpc playback.

About the picture (hihi, I finally got myself a nice avatar! I could just refrain myself from adding "PS: look at my pic, NOW!!!" to my last post ) It's an alien like you can see in the movie "Alien" and it's follow-ups created by H.R. Giger. I did a little digital image magic and viola! Check out these urls:

original picture:
http://arthistory.cc/pics/hrgiger/36.jpg

More pictures by H.R. Giger
http://arthistory.cc/html/hrgiger/images1.htm
http://arthistory.cc/html/hrgiger/images2.htm

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. To me the unaffected, no-EQ sound is basically the original wav and I think it sounds too flat. Using the MPC EQ, it still sounds flat. Using Winamp's EQ at least I can control things a bit more and if you crank up the slider to 24db and up the high-end of Winamp's EQ you get plenty of highs. Was the statement that using Winamp's EQ cuts so much highs actually proven? If so, where's the results because I'd like to see them for myself.

I just did a short test myself and it seems the bug has been fixed. (Made a wav sweeping from 15 to 19kHz and ran without and with flat EQ through diskwriter plugin and had a look in cool edit at the output which seems to be identical (forgot to do bit2bit comparison)) It seems like this info is outdated. Previously you could clearly hear a difference with flat EQ (all sliders to middle position). Now I can't hear any with mp3s. (Yes, I used one which does not cut-off above 16kHz)

So everybody be happy and use whatever you want for all I care!

I tested this thing quickly. I decoded a song encoded with insane profile using winamp eq and musepack eq. Both files had full frequency spectrum, and binary comparison showed that they differ only in the beginning (first 1188 bytes of 62Megs). The test was done on latest Winamp 2.78.

just to clarify...

if you say to use the MPC eq, what it does is USE whatever you have on the winamp EQ (as far as presets and what not) but it bypasses the winamp eq, as it does a bad job and cuts off the higher frequecies...

the mpc eq is probably a little less cpu usage as well, as due to the subband technology in mpc, it is easy to raise or lower the level of one or more subbands.

and as far as the threshold, it defines how much you can manipulate the frequencies. at +/- 12 dB, when you put the sliders (on the winamp eq window) all the way up it will raise that frequency 12 dB etc..

so basically what you do for best quality is tell the plugin to use the musepack EQ. but you have to also on the winamp eq window turn on equalization and set settings there.

it will equalize the file as far as whatever settings you have in the eq and it will NOT cut off the higher frequencies as winamps built in eq does.

hope this clears a lot up.

oh yea and dithering is good.

hi,

to clear some things uo:

there will be no EQ at all, if do not set any EQ in WinAMPs EQ-panel. the choice for WinAMP- or Musepack-EQ onyl affects the output, if you _activate_ the EQ.
Musepack EQ was designed at a time where WinAMP had no own EQ. it is very fast (due to subband-FIR and -scaling).
with older WinAMPs the generic EQ that was done by WinAMP had a loss of high frequencies (above 16kHz), if you simply set the preamp-value to != 0 dB. if this is fixed, ok -- gotta test it.
the dynamic range was correctly explained by spase

regards,
andree

Winamp's EQ still has loss of highs (and just about everywhere else in the spectrum). If you set up a flat EQ in Winamp and activate it, the EQ is not actually used until a slider is moved out of the neutral position. Try this: make your EQ flat and then just barely move one of the sliders (heck! you can even boost the highs) and listen to some music (preferrably with lots of highs) while turning EQ on and off.

I did another test. I created a sine sweep from 100Hz to 20kHz and just nudged up the bottom most slider a little and played back through the diskwriter plugin. Looking at the wave in Cool Edit was a real eye opener. What used to be a rectangle was now more or less cone shaped. The higher you look the more amplitude is lost. At 11kHz it is 3db less; at 14kHz 6db are gone; at 16kHz you loose about 9.5db; finally at 20kHz 26db are removed from the original signal.

More testing should be done (like with what settings in winamp EQ do you actually get a flat response) but I have to get some sleep and maybe someone before me has allready done so.

It seems best to not use Winamp's own EQ and instead use one of the plugin EQs around.

I highly recommend Shibatch's Superequalizer:
http://www.milky.ne.jp/~galaxy/superequ.html

Regards;

Roberto.

As far as the enabled dither output option's increase in CPU load, on my 1.3GHz Athlon I get 2% CPU utilization on Winamp about every 20 seconds and 0% the rest of the time instead of 1% every 20 seconds without it enabled. I'm running Winamp 2.78 on WinXP and set the Task Manager to the High refresh rate to see changes more often. Unless you're running a Pentium 75, the performance hit should be pretty negligeable.

WOO HOO finally got somethin right