In the past I was using the MAD-plugin to play MP3s in Winamp and noticed that the sound was noticably better than with the standard Winamp decoder (especially the bass). I'm wondering where I can download the latest version of this decoder, or if there is another decoder that has surpassed the MAD decoder I'd be interested in that as well.

One comment I had about the MAD-plugin is that it seems when I use the slide-bar to move forward within a song that it cuts in and out drastically....as compared to the Winamp decoder that seems to turn the volume back up a little slowly so that it sounds smoother. I like that feature (stupid as it sounds).

Also, if I'm decoding an MP3 to create .wav file for burning a CD, is there something like a MAD decoder that can decode the mp3 to a wav file. Would this be better quality than decoding the mp3 with LAME?

I'd appreciate any opinions and idea. Thanks.

did you pass any abx-tests in order to verify your claim of "noticeable better audio quality" than with standard winamp mp3-decoder plugin? placebo is a strong argument, if not ...

anyway, Google.de yields the results you're looking for, already in the first place ...

bye
MS

Alright, from what you're saying the MAD decoder isn't a work in progress because the 0.142b version is something I've had for a year or something.

In terms of doing a test to see if it really sounds better, I didn't do a very controlled test with expensive headphones or anything like that. I had a book on my Bose speaker and when I used the MAD-plugin the bass went up dramatically at the same volume, the book fell on the floor after a few minutes. With the Winamp plug-in, it had been there for months without falling. Even well-encoded mp3s never sounded very good on this computer, MAD helps a lot. I'm not sure, maybe it's a weird driver thing with SB Live! (not the greatest for mp3 quality, I know I know).

ah, the ol' "book test"

Ah interesting, the way the sound fades slowly when moving within a track remains even with the MAD plug-in because this is a feature of the DirectSound Output as opposed to the decoder itself. Makes sense after I think about it.

Floyd, yeah what do you think, should everyone try the book test! Put a book on your speakers, play a song with lots of base and use a stopwatch to see when it hits the floor. Classic test!

man... i tried out_asio.dll and it wont work, do you guys know where can i get the lastest version?? winamp 2 that is...

This has no audio quality relation, i cant abx decoding so i only want to free up the cpu load when i listen music while gaming.. thnx for your help...

Has anyone used the MAD plugin for Winamp with a 90 minute mp3? It takes at least 5 seconds when I try to use the seekbar to seek to a location The default decoder works great B)

If you want something different, you can also try Otachan's mpg123 based decoder for Winamp:
Babelfish Tranlation of Otachan's page

MAD is a good MP3 decoder and it's open source. Why don't somebody try to improve it? The work would be appreciated.


Yes, there is MAD Frontend, for example.
And I think that burnatonce is using MAD as decoder too, so you could burn the CD in one step.


I don't believe it. Let's say similar quality.

as stated in the forums, the built-in fhg winamp decoder and the mad one produce almost an identical result. there is only a difference in the last significant bit. so no one should be able to abx that, neither your book.

as the mad decoder is rather an old plugin, it will not support the new metadata system for the new wa2.9 library.

and lame isn't a decoder, it's an encoder.

LAME is a coDEC, so it can encode and decode.

It uses mpglib for decoding IIRC.

This was mostly due to your Winamp Equalizer settings.
Winamp mp3 plugin uses (by default) it's internal equalizer, which doesn't correspond to the same frequencies than the PCM equalizer ( and now, in WA 2.9, it's even more different. You would notice a high increase of highs with this new one. Still, they f*cked it up as well with a wrongly choosen range of frequencies )

I personally don't fully like the mad decoder for a variety of reasons : Doesn't work as well with streams than the default, the info-editor isn't as good (for me) and since I don't have a 24bit soundcard, I don't get any improvement with it.