SirBannana reviewed v2.0 Beta 11 on Jun 20, 2023

Pros: Light, fast and a lot of features.

Cons: Not really/

Bottom Line: It is an application that I still use today. It has everything I used to have to do in several programs.

Loading 5,000 files, removing tags from them or modifying them, converting them to another format, all this for it is not a problem. And on top of that, during such operations it uses all the processors so the application is extremely fast.

Love it :)

Someone reviewed v on Mar 19, 2023

Pros:

Cons:

Bottom Line:

Someone reviewed v on Jul 5, 2022

Pros: 555

Cons: 555

Bottom Line: 555

krunkerio reviewed v1.6.8 Beta 6 on Jan 21, 2022

Pros: I have been using this software for about 1 year. Honestly, it's one of the best software I've ever used. Ease of use, fast and good customer care is what I like best here. https://krunkerio.io

Cons: Maybe there's only one thing I don't like, it's not updated as much as I expected, hope you guys will improve more.

Bottom Line: I definitely give it five stars because it deserves it.

rutherfordpaul reviewed v1.4.1 Beta 1 on Oct 9, 2018

Pros: Best audio player choice ...

Cons: ... were it not for suspect virus payload.

Bottom Line: Checked foobar2000_v1.4.exe on Virus Total (VT).

VT says
2 engines detected this file
SHA-256 7c048faecfec79f9ec2b332b2c68b25e0d0219b47a7c679fe56f2ec05686a96a
File name foobar2000_v1.4.exe
File size 4.25 MB
Last analysis 2018-10-09 08:48:49 UTC

Having said that I checked the previous version I have been happily using.
VT said ...
One engine detected this file
SHA-256 a45b63598ddc0645aedb57a715c285b249e2f66831973aef993895e39edf534d
File name foobar2000_v1.3.17.exe
File size 3.78 MB
Last analysis 2018-10-05 15:04:53 UTC

I'll give it the benefit of the doubt - and use it.

dory69 reviewed v1.4 Beta 4 on Feb 5, 2018

Pros: This article was definitely helpful and has sparked up my interested.
kissanime https://kiss-anime.co/

Cons: This article was definitely helpful and has sparked up my interested.
kissanime https://kiss-anime.co/

Bottom Line: This article was definitely helpful and has sparked up my interested.
kissanime https://kiss-anime.co/

azdps reviewed v1.4 Beta 4 on Feb 4, 2018

Pros: Free
Works great
Excellent audio converter
Numerous components (extensions)

Cons: None

Bottom Line: i use this is convert my audio files to AAC. This is an outstanding program and it works great!

krgood reviewed v1.3.13 Beta 1 on Sep 20, 2016

I get the same notification from AVG...I am not going to download any more versions until it can be determined that it is free of malware/viruses/trojans etc.

vailr reviewed v1.3.12 on Sep 17, 2016

This file seems to have been infected with a trojan: version "foobar2000 1.3.12".
Both the file from BN and also directly from the author's download page give the same results from Avira AV when running the installer .exe file: Detection: TR/AD.NsisInject.8f0f0c (Cloud). Does NOT seem to be a "false positive" detection. This occurs immediately after double-clicking the .exe installer, before any further option choices would appear, such as allowing installation of Google Chrome, or other 3rd-party money generating add-on software. The software is very useful, except for the above noted problem.

dhry reviewed v1.3.12 Beta 1 on Aug 24, 2016

Beta 2 is out.

Music4Ever reviewed v1.3.8 on Mar 26, 2015

Superb player - Personally I prefer AIMP mainly for the skins but foobar is one of the best.

Antichrist reviewed v1.3.7 Beta 1 on Dec 23, 2014

I love foobar2000 but it really needs to come with at least an option of skins upon install like WinAmp does. If you have been driven away by its sparse look and gave up on it here's a skin I'd recommend which will most likely make you appreciate the player:

http://tedgo.deviantart....rt/DarkOne-v4-360862076

I also dig this for addon for adding lyrics to files:

http://www.foobar2000.or...ts/view/foo_uie_lyrics3

Enlightenment reviewed v1.3.6 on Dec 19, 2014

if you care MORE about high-quality music player instead of fancy moving themes that waste CPU cycles, then choose foobar2000

foobar2000 for audio player + another program for video player is the way to go!

foobar2000 is very light-weight and doesn't load up tons of junk just to play music

TGB72 reviewed v1.3.3 on Jul 27, 2014

My second choice, it's super versatile and the sound it's pretty good (not as good as AIMP) but it needs a decent equalizer urgently.

DKDude reviewed v1.3.3 on Jul 17, 2014

Still the BEST, thank you for a GREAT player.

Use it daily to stream radio and music from the Net, works as it should and always did.

roj reviewed v1.3.1 on Mar 14, 2014

Haven't tested the streaming to see if it's better (will leave it running today and will check this evening to see if it managed to retain connectivity to SomaFM) but the addition of the Export function for the error reporting on file integrity checking is enormously appreciated. Also have to check WASAPI with my Logitech USB Z-Cinemas to see if that now works properly as well. It didn't stall out on some 15,000 lossless files across my network either - awesome! Tentative FIVE stars.

Edit:

Streaming problems I iterated before aparrently solved - the player held tenaciously to SomaFM for well over 12 houts when it previously would inexplicably stop after 45 minutes (DeadBeef on Linux wouldn't falter over the same timeframe). Unfortunately, WASAPI 3.x remains broken with my USB Z=Cinemas where 2.x worked fine. So-called "improvements" should not remove previously available functionality - it seems to be a lesson that many devs today (ranging from Microsoft, GNOME and Mozilla to this one) need to learn.

Downgraded to FOUR stars.

chrispaul reviewed v1.3.1 on Feb 17, 2014

pretty good

roj reviewed v1.3 Beta 5 on Nov 9, 2013

This player is devolving into a buggy mess of late. WASAPI still doesn't work properly, streaming on occasion hangs the player and file operations similarly will stall out on large numbers of files.

I expect better from this player - this is Winamp-style behavior (and that's NO compliment).

THREE stars.

olivergiving reviewed v1.2.9 on Sep 25, 2013

awesome

tomkelly reviewed v1.2.9 on Aug 22, 2013

excellent, love it!

roj reviewed v1.2.9 on Jul 10, 2013

The player is awesome. It has no peer.

The WASAPI plugin is pure garbage. It worked flawlessly with USB speakers in its 2.x incarnation but with 3.x it stops dead and locks up Windows audio after playing ONE song, requiring a reboot to get audio back. This is with Logitech Z-Cinema speakers.

FIVE stars for an indispensable player. Minus ONE star for an absolutely abysmal WASAPI plugin implementation bu the same author.

FOUR stars.

@NyaR:

If you're running Linux give DeadbeeF a try. It's pretty much Foobar2000 for Linux.

NyaR reviewed v1.2.8 on Jul 4, 2013

There is no player better than this, shame it is only for the Windows platform.

dubstepmaker3000 reviewed v1.2.6 on May 8, 2013

excellent!!

robmanic44 reviewed v1.2.3 Beta 3 on Feb 13, 2013

I tried to download this, but the site I was sent to wasn't allowed by my security system.

roj reviewed v1.2.3 Beta 3 on Feb 12, 2013

Why is Roj dissing it? Because the primary dev for the WASAPI plugin and the infrastructure it plugs into in the player itself is the same guy. Because it worked flawlessly until the 3.x builds of that plugin. Because it's pretty dumb if the one guy who builds both can't get 'em to work right and manages to break a system that worked for considerable time previously.

It would be a different story if there were two different teams or even individuals working on each aspect of the project and if there were problems before.

There isn't and there weren't.

The buck stops with one individual and he dropped the ball.

Repeatedly.

We're back to the land of "newer ain't necessarily better and frequently actually isn't".

THREE stars.

Blaxima reviewed v1.2.3 Beta 3 on Feb 11, 2013

I'm not sure why roj is slagging the player for a problem with a plugin that is not even packaged with the player itself. That's like complaining about Chrome because The Google team's youtube extension is crap.

The player is and has been one rock solid piece of software. My only gripe is with the tagging. Something had changed a few builds ago and because of that I've had to retag some files.

roj reviewed v1.2.2 on Jan 30, 2013

In my previous review I heaped scathing coals of castigation on the WASAPI plugin. Reverting to the old WASAPI plugin prior to the new so-called host architecture cured the problem. The new WASAPI plugin is a steaming pile of crap. The player remains excellent but that plugin is pure unadulterated garbage that is an insult to any audio buff (I play only flac files through USB out).

THREE stars until it's fixed.

roj reviewed v1.2.1 on Jan 12, 2013

In one fell swoop this thing went from an excellent piece of software to an unusable POS with WASAPI. The WASAPI plugin broke massively since 1.1.18 forever giving "device in use" errors after ONE playback. The only cure is a reboot. WTF??? This worked flawlessly for YEARS until now.

TWO stars (I'm feeling generous given that I'm hugely annoyed - this is the one piece of software I could absolutely count on in the past).

JRice reviewed v1.1.16 Beta 1 on Oct 19, 2012

my one and only

Fred G. Sanford reviewed v1.1.15 Beta 2 on Sep 7, 2012

From foobar's own FAQ:
____________________

Does foobar2000 sound better than other players?

No. Most of “sound quality differences” people “hear” are placebo effect (at least with real music), as actual differences in produced sound data are below their noise floor (1 or 2 last bits in 16bit samples). foobar2000 has sound processing features such as software resampling or 24bit output on new high-end soundcards, but most of the other mainstream players are capable of doing the same by now.

Music4Ever reviewed v1.1.14a on Aug 22, 2012

Along with AIMP the best sounding player.

If you think all players sound the same you are mistaken or have plastic speakers & or a cheap sound chip ~

@roj - DeadbeeF is the best sounding Linux player I've heard - Thanks for the tip!

@Dr. Sound - Agree 100% ~

DKDude reviewed v1.1.14 on Aug 17, 2012

No other player comes even close.

roj reviewed v1.1.13 Beta 1 on Jun 4, 2012

Awesomeness Incarnate but I maintain that the export function for the results of the file verification tool needs work to make it useful. When I verify huge folders with subfolders of files, I'm reduced to inhaling the export file into a text editor and searching for the word "error". It would be much better to export it in CSV format so I could slice and dice it with a spreadsheet.

@Music4Ever

Try DeadbeeF under Linux. It's pretty close to Foobar2000 and is what I use instead of the horrible Amarok or Banshee.

FOUR stars (should be 4.5)

Music4Ever reviewed v1.1.12 Beta 3 on Apr 17, 2012

Small size, works well, sounds great, along with AIMP one of the best ~ Far in front of the bloated & intrusive 'Winamp' ~

(A Linux version would be nice)

Dr. Sound reviewed v1.1.11 on Mar 18, 2012

Its astonishing: none of the comments did mention the real benefit of foobar: its extraordinary soundquality, which is superior to ALL other players. Of course, even on external pc speakers, yet alone on a cheap headset, you will not notice the difference, but with HiFi Headphones or on a proper Stereo system Foobar is much more detailed and open. It even plays the audio of mp4.

roj reviewed v1.1.11 on Mar 11, 2012

Awesome program with one absolutely HUGE Epic Fail:

The reporting on the file verification function.

You can't sort it, the export function is stunted in the extreme and for large numbers of files it's utterly useless.

Beef this up please; as of now it's quite lame.

FOUR stars.

Input Overload reviewed v1.1.11 on Feb 6, 2012

I must be the last person on earth never to have used this program but installed it today & it's great.

hariskar reviewed v1.1.11 Beta 4 on Jan 23, 2012

Great app, I used it for years, but I switched to (open source) Clementine recently.

Prospero424 reviewed v1.10.1 Beta 2 on Nov 22, 2011

There are few things I can say this about with absolute conviction: This is the best of the best. Absolutely nothing can match it on features

umi81 reviewed v1.1.9 on Nov 6, 2011

Nice lightweight audio player, and it is free.

Conrad.TDI reviewed v1.1.9 Beta 1 on Oct 21, 2011

The best! Stable, small, and fast - and performs every conversion needed. Even performs replay gain quickly. All this, and it's free.

The Seeker 11 reviewed v1.1.8 on Sep 20, 2011

The best just keeps getting better. Nothing comes close to foobar2000.

kaso_Da_Zmok reviewed v1.1.8 Beta 1 on Jul 12, 2011

Great music player i like and recommend.

Hilbert reviewed v1.1.7 on Jun 6, 2011

foobar2000 is an excellent product. It's light weight, tightly coded, ergonomically logical and efficient, and it's easy to use.

It's a pleasure to review foobar2000 (esp. after my review of VLC). Shame others don't take a leaf out of its book. VLC's authors etc, could do well to stat here.

Highly recommended.

egg83 reviewed v1.1.7 on Jun 6, 2011

Best music player out there, period. Handles large music collections fine, only thing I miss is the old school formatting from the older versions.

Conrad.TDI reviewed v1.1.7 Beta 5 on May 24, 2011

No, it's not pretty!

But that said, this FREE piece of software does everything. For me, that's playing FLACs, APEs, ALACs, Mp3s and being capable of converting any of these formats back-and-forth. It indexes LARGE collections well, understands my Creative card's TOSlink perfectly.

If you haven't tried it ~ why not?

pjafrombbay reviewed v1.1.7 Beta 3 on May 19, 2011

GREAT SOFTWARE! IMHO, one of the best audio players around.

war593122 reviewed v1.1.7 Beta 2 on May 9, 2011

foobar2000 v1.1.7 beta 2 was just released.

Ability to add/remove embedded pictures in vorbis and speex files

Source: http://www.hydrogenaudio...w=findpost&p=755009

The Seeker 11 reviewed v1.1.6 on Apr 25, 2011

The best of the best. Did I mention it's the best?

war593122 reviewed v1.1.6 Beta 5 on Apr 15, 2011

Beta 5 out. No ReplayGain scanner changes yet unfortunately.

To prevent problems with converting tags between different ID3v2 revisions, foobar2000 will no longer convert ID3v2 tags between 2.3 and 2.4 unless explicitly requested by the user.
ID3v2 revision is now reported in the "tagtype" field.
MP4 genre now works properly.

Source: http://www.hydrogenaudio...w=findpost&p=752236

war593122 reviewed v1.1.6 Beta 4 on Apr 8, 2011

Beta 4 is out. It features more tagging compatibility changes.

id3v2 (mp3) changes from beta 3:

iTunes-private COMM frames are ignored so they don't pollute comment fields and are always preserved when retagging.
Added support for more iTunes-specific fields.

mp4 changes from beta 3:

Added support for more iTunes-specific fields.
Unknown or unsupported Apple metadata atoms are preserved when retagging.

RG scanner:

Mono files now treated as dual mono

Source: http://www.hydrogenaudio...w=findpost&p=751252

war593122 reviewed v1.1.6 Beta 3 on Apr 4, 2011

Beta 3 Fixes ReplayGain scanner slowdowns and memory leaks.

Source: http://www.hydrogenaudio...750581&#entry750581

PetePat reviewed v1.1.6 Beta 2 on Mar 26, 2011

I welcome the change in tagging because of it's compatibility, now i won't need extra software (MP3Tag) for tagging.
In beta2 there's an option to not map TPE2 to Album Artist thus reverting to old behavior.

Hergest reviewed v1.1.6 Beta 1 on Mar 23, 2011

This *was* a good app. However, I really hate that in a minor revision update, they have totally changed tag support. It no longer interprets TPE2(BAND) as Band/Orchestra, but as Album Artist, which makes it as good as iTunes. Hmmm.
The change is not configurable, and has been done for compatibility. But for me, it means incompatibility, and thus cannot recommend upgrading if id3 tag standard compatibility is important.

egg83 reviewed v1.1.6 Beta 1 on Mar 23, 2011

I really do not see how this app can get better. But, the author keeps plugging away. Oh well. Wish I could give 10 stars. Never had a moment's trouble out of this app, crystal clear sound, very configurable, one of my must have apps on my computer.

Input Overload reviewed v1.1.6 Beta 1 on Mar 23, 2011

At the moment I use XM Play - Good.

However I'm going to give foobar a good try out. Given it 5 stars so as not to mess the system up. Thanks for the reviews.

The Seeker 11 reviewed v1.1.5 on Mar 1, 2011

@carriaz - Thanks for the in-depth review :|

Anyway, foobar2000 is awesome. Use it, love it.

dhry reviewed v1.1.4 on Feb 26, 2011

Still the best, most configurable audio player for Windows.

pjafrombbay reviewed v1.1.3 on Feb 23, 2011

IMHO Foobar is _THE_ best media player available for the Windows platform full stop!

I tend to be quite picky with software and ratings but this has been very good software for a very long time.

Regards,
Peter

Plumber reviewed v1.1.3 on Feb 22, 2011

As usual, roj talks sense and gets it right.

I don't know how a person can fail to understand the difference between neato interface gimmicks and usability. I don't care if I can achieve a sorta, kinda, meh, almost-there state by poring over 2,000 different "components" then another week configuring them.

But hey, whatever gets you through the night. If your ego is so fragile that you need to act as if you're some kind of elite hardcore user, and therefore shun interface and usability improvements, then have at it.

But thank goodness there are smarter people out there.

The Seeker 11 reviewed v1.1.2 on Jan 27, 2011

Studies show that foobar2000 users are 76.98% more likely to win the lottery. Just another reason to use this fantastic piece of software.

Blaxima reviewed v1.1.2 on Jan 24, 2011

oh boy, if looks are that important then just install one of the many plugins and skins to take care of that. Or do you guys need to be spoon fed?

Great app, always has been. Plays everything, has great features and plugins and never crashes

roj reviewed v1.1.2 on Jan 24, 2011

Love this program.

Been using t for a few years now.

Well versed in audio formats, etc.

Still not going to give this app more than a THREE (after many FOURS and FIVES until it gets a decent UI.

The real IDIOTS are those resistant to change, either because they're elitist (we like our app "psuedo-minimalist" because it makes us different and we like to be different, so there!), unable to step outside their tiny box and embrace something better (oh god, something new - the horror THE HORROR) or small minded enough to subscribe to the "it's always been done that way" syndrome.

Not everything new is better but not everything old should be cherished either.

A published, standard and supported API would be nice instead of the current hack approach - anyone with any intelligence at all can appreciate that over the alternative. I would say "this ain't Linux" but Linux has an intelligent and easy to use UI now - witness Ubuntu. Hell, even The Gimp has a usability group now - so what's Foobar's excuse?

Mr Swiffer reviewed v1.1.2 on Jan 24, 2011

This is the best program of its type in existence. Has support for WASAPI, playback of DVD-Audio discs at full resolution over HDMI. Heck this program can even playback SACD's provided you have an optical drive that can read those types of DVD's. Foobar2000 also supports HDCD decoding. This is one of the few programs that can rip audio CD's to FLAC as well.

If you don't know what WASAPI or SACD or HDCD or FLAC are then you probably shouldn't be using this program. If you don't like the minimalistic UI then go use Windows Media Player or iTunes and stop b****ing about it.

ron_marz reviewed v1.1.2 on Jan 24, 2011

Not for idiots.* For the rest of us, indispensable.

*Which you'd have to be to give this program less than four stars.

Plumber reviewed v1.1.2 Beta 4 on Jan 18, 2011

It should not need pointing out, but "spartan" and "minimalistic" are not opposed in concept to usability.

dejavu reviewed v1.1.2 Beta 4 on Jan 17, 2011

5 stars and please continue with that spartan and minimalistic interface! Great work Mr. Peter Pawlowski! Thank you!

roj reviewed v1.1.2 Beta 4 on Jan 17, 2011

OK Peter, time for Foobar to visit What Not To Wear.

The app is really good. It's evolved from its beginnings when it was more hype than substance to incredible substance. But now it's time to work on the presentation. I'm going to side with the folks who say that the usability needs an overhaul and additional sexiness (Foobar has all the charm of Lil' Abner at a black tie affair) and my rating is going to stay at a constant 3 until that changes.

You're a great programmer. Get someone to do some usability testing for you and make the app a total success.

THREE stars.

Plumber reviewed v1.1.2 Beta 3 on Jan 10, 2011

As has been previously mentioned, it works great but desperately needs an interface and usability overhaul. The people who don't mind either (1) Using a crap interface or (2) Spending a ridiculous amount of time configuring it will do fine. Those of us who just want a sensible application are out of luck.

wj32 reviewed v1.1.2 Beta 2 on Jan 5, 2011

foobar2000 is simply the best audio player out there, because It Just Works. Not only for playing audio, but for managing your audio files. After struggling with many other audio converter programs, I thought, why not use foobar2000? And it does the job perfectly. It even spawns multiple encoder instances for each core! This is one of those programs which you *know* you can rely on.

The Seeker 11 reviewed v1.1.2 Beta 2 on Jan 3, 2011

After a nuclear holocaust, two species will survive: c***roaches and foobar2000 users. Get it while you still can.

Cris3 reviewed v1.1.2 Beta 1 on Jan 2, 2011

Good program but poor choice of name as it is pronounced the same as Fubar which has this definition in the Urban dictionary and is well known:

http://www.urbandictiona...m/define.php?term=fubar

SuzzyWoozy reviewed v1.1.2 Beta 1 on Dec 28, 2010

Good player, with a huge supporting comunity, but is too highly overrated imho.
Needs a modern interface tough, not necessarily skinned.

DrTeeth reviewed v1.1.2 Beta 1 on Dec 27, 2010

An excellent program in dire need of an interface/usability overhaul.

roj reviewed v1.1.2 Beta 1 on Dec 27, 2010

Changelog:
- New foobar2000 application icon.
- foobar2000's volume slider is now synchronized with Windows Mixer application volume slider on Windows Vista and newer.
- Progress of various operations is now displayed on Windows 7 taskbar

Minor stuff from an end-user perspective...

The Seeker 11 reviewed v1.1.2 Beta 1 on Dec 27, 2010

The best audio player for Windows. Period. Use it, or suffer the consequences.

trents reviewed v1.1.1 on Nov 24, 2010

HI,
Yes, this is true that oobar2000 is an advanced audio player for the Windows platform where we can used anytime we want...

roj reviewed v1.1.1 Beta 2 on Oct 21, 2010

I found 1.1 somewhat problematic - for the first time ever, Foobar occasionally crashed on me. I hope 1.1 restores the long cherished stability. Also, I'm not enamored by the loss of pulldowns for conversion settings (it used to remember the last ones used).

FOUR stars.

roj reviewed v1.1 Beta 2 on Aug 3, 2010

There is not a day that goes by that I don't bless the author of this superb audio utility for the excellence he has provided us with.

The corollary of that is that there isn't a day that goes by that I don't curse that selfsame author for the inexecrable arrogance of taking away user configurable context menus in the player.

FOUR stars (FIVE really but that context menu thing seriously burns my butt).

Young Strider reviewed v1.0.3 on May 24, 2010

A once great media player has now become a pile of ugly mess due to the crap interface "layouts"

dhry reviewed v1.0.3 on Apr 30, 2010

Finally took the plunge on the 1.x upgrade path. Basically I was forced to because at least half my existing 0.9x plugins didn't work with Win7 x64 and "needed to be compiled with a newer version of the SDK". Yeah, even WITHOUT upgrading to 1.x. Glad it's over with. Plenty of stuff that's different but not too much that's truly noticeable. However, I'm pretty annoyed that they've disabled the shuffling of menu items. I had my menus structured with often-used items at the top (replaygain, discogs scan etc). Now I have to wander down through two or three branches to get to the discogs system. Whatever. Still five stars, but I just hope that one day I'll be able to upgrade to something that takes two steps forward WITHOUT then taking half a step back.

BTW Dingledoo, good to see you're catching up to me in the "upsetting other users on Fileforum" stakes *8-) Let me know when people start running to your blog or website with tears in their eyes, complaining about how you're mistreating them on Fileforum. (then again, hey, it's traffic right? *8-D

Blaxima reviewed v1.0.3 on Apr 30, 2010

Thanks for the changelog Artem

This is one of the few apps that when I see an update it puts a smile on my face because I feel no need to test and investigate the release for any regressions or bugs, I simply don't come across them and that is a rare thing.

Artem S. Tashkinov reviewed v1.0.3 on Apr 30, 2010

An excellent audio player (and much more than that).

1.0.3 changelog:

* Fixed incorrect behaviors with both “cursor follows playback” and “playback follows cursor” enabled.
* Improved compatibility with dodgy ASX files written by Windows Media Player.
* Fixed notification area icon minimize bugs (again).
* Fixed problems with encoding very long audio streams to Vorbis.
* Fixed a very rare crash when using the Media Library preferences page.
*Various other maintenance updates and bug fixes.

jorgosch reviewed v1.0.2 Beta 1 on Apr 1, 2010

Nice April joke!

anomoly reviewed v1.0.1 on Mar 9, 2010

Peter, Thank you for the deadlock of silence.
I am speechless

emanresU deriseD reviewed v1.0.1 Beta 2 on Mar 1, 2010

Aww, I have a new friend! Hi, anomoly! Angry much? :)

emanresU deriseD reviewed v1.0.1 Beta 1 on Feb 22, 2010

I laugh at those who don't mess with all the gui plugins.

Zarggg reviewed v1.0.1 Beta 1 on Feb 22, 2010

@dhry:
The reason they did that was because they made MAJOR API/plugin changes since the 0.9.x line and the version of those plugins that you had installed WERE confirmed to cause the application to crash. That's why they delete them. Go get updated versions for them.

@sld:
I believe they want to make torrent distribution the standard for all releases.

@roj:
Relax. The forums are fine. They just don't like idiots. :p

roj reviewed v1.0.1 Beta 1 on Feb 22, 2010

sld:

1) I also use XMPlay - it does very well against Foobar, which I also use and have for a while now. The Foobar interface remains painfully spartan but the font adjustments are very vision friendly, which sadly matter a very great deal to me now.

2) I lurk, I watch. The results I see speak for themselves. I now rarely participate in forums - it's largely a waste of my time.

3) If you'd taken a wee bit care to notice, I commented on 1.0 Final - not beta. I rarely run beta software (EAC being the notable exception and everyone knows it's a final anyway).

At any rate, it's good to see you still around Old Man. :) :) ;)

anomoly reviewed v1.0.1 Beta 1 on Feb 22, 2010

When it was a nightmare to configure I didn't use it. Now? As a fully functional portable installation it took me literally 30 sec to update and not a single issue whatsoever. I laugh at those who mess with all the gui plugins.
Be nice to have a proper plugin updater though (like xmplay ha)
At undesire:
go play with yourself f**got!

sld reviewed v1.0.1 Beta 1 on Feb 22, 2010

Dear uncle roj,

It's been years, and you're still ranting about Foobar2000.

1) It's well-known that you prize exquisite sound with a little bit of aesthetics. Hop over to XMPlay if you have to praise it in the review page of Foobar2000.

2) Why blatantly lie that there's no user-friendliness in Foobar's sub-forum? Let's hope that your foolish outburst doesn't backfire on you. There's certainly a need for less curt responses, but the few bans I've seen were imposed on punk users barging in with unreasonable demands phrased improperly.

3) This version is a BETA. The reason why it's only available on torrent is because it's BETA. Peter has your welfare in mind, he doesn't want you crashing your com (and whining about it) when you install unstable software like Foobar2000 1.01 BETA 1. =)

JustForMyMemory reviewed v1.0 on Feb 11, 2010

think foobar2000 is pretty idiot, it is really not smart and restricted..

dhry reviewed v1.0 on Jan 25, 2010

Finally got around to installing v1.0 (backed up my existing config first, of course) and sure enough, I get the following dialog: The following components are either not installed correctly or no longer supported in this version: foo_amipwrapper.dll, foo_audioscrobbler.dll, foo_discogs.dll, foo_dsp_ssrc.dll, foo_dsp_vlevel.dll, foo_infobox.dll, foo_input_tta.dll, foo_lyricsdb.dll, foo_playlist_bind.dll, foo_prettypop.dll, foo_uie_quicksearch.dll, foo_uie_trackinfomod.dll, foo_uie_vis_projectm.dll. They will be deleted when you click OK.

Really? They'll break the program if you keep them there? No thanks. Great music player but I got too much invested in existing plugins and frankly I simply don't have the time to run off looking for updates for plugins I'm already exceedingly happy with. Ship an update checker with the program next time, or include a "cancel, I've changed my mind and I don't want thirteen of my plugins blown away" button. Seacrest out.

anomoly reviewed v1.0 on Jan 11, 2010

Nice. Now all colors and fonts are easily changed. If it would update plugins and notify of any new ones (as well as serve up your favorite beverage) it would be too perfect.

emanresU deriseD reviewed v1.0 on Jan 11, 2010

I'm with roj.

No more custom context menus? There goes half the point of using the easy-to-access functionality of foo_quicktag, and all the other first-level menu tweaks I had in place. Now, all I see for many of them is a crappy "Legacy Commands (unsorted)" menu item.

Wow.

khagaroth reviewed v1.0 on Jan 11, 2010

For MIDI files - http://www.foobar2000.org/components/view/foo_midi

taxis reviewed v1.0 on Jan 11, 2010

Still my favourite player: Supports a lot of formats, still relatively simple layout, has some nice functionality like converting/adjusting tags/normalisation that some players lack. However, in my eyes the development goes in the wrong direction:
- still no localisations (no respect for people speaking different languages?)
- no support for MIDI files (so you can't make foobar your only player if you use them)
- bloated with useless GUI configurability, which increases its size and prevents it on running on older operating systems such as Windows 2000

dhry reviewed v1.0 Beta 6 on Dec 29, 2009

I'm fine with the number of betas. They took years to even get to v1.0. Great program, in fact one of the all-time greatest music players ever created. I'm still holding off on installing because one of the earlier betas jacked up, didn't accept a lot of my plugins and then wouldn't let me revert back to the previous config with an older version, so for right now I'm happy to wait until a stable release is out - using 0.9.6.9 in the meantime. This many betas certainly isn't uncommon - Firefox 3.6 is already up to beta 5 and I'm sure there'll be a 6th..

4122 reviewed v1.0 Beta 6 on Dec 29, 2009

Awesome software as always.

For those complaining about the number of betas, the author has stated that this will be the last beta before going final barring any unforeseen bugs.

roj reviewed v1.0 Beta 6 on Dec 28, 2009

I was a little slow on the uptake on this but then again, I didn't use the software for the extra functions I normally do given time constraints until now.

As such, I must revise my earlier review.

I'm very disappointed.

The context menu is the issue.

Yes, I know it was mentioned that it was no longer customizable. I just didn't fully realize the ramifications.

Mr. Author, you have arbitrarily REMOVED functionality from the player that was beficial to your customers (yes, I know the software is free but here's a tip: users = customers). I don't know whether it was for the hackneyed oft-used excuse of it's easier to develope (Microsoft tried that witht he threading model in Vista and fell flat on their azzes) or whether it simply appealed to your aesthetics but in any event, it was WRONG.

Yes it's your player.

However, you (like many another developer) seem to have forgotten the cardinal rule:

You Work For Us.

There is no point to ANYTHING you do with it if you don't have your customer base in mind when you do it.

Hence, at the very least, you need to CONSULT them before making interface changes or you will rapidly find your application abandoned.

Microsoft was just taught this lesson very forcefully with Vista.

I for one like having my file functions in the main context menu instead of a sub menu (awkward at best) that is no longer possible. Would it have been so hard to leave it that way? The question is rhetorical and I'll answer it for you:

NO.

Usability is a BIG part of why people use software. The GIMP is a textbook case of a program with a lot of power crippled by a pathetic excuse for an interface and will never see mainstream use because of it. It can also be little things - things like refinements in an interface. Things like being able to personalize a context menu. Usability has NEVER been Foobar's strong suit but it looked like it had finally started to move in a more customer-oriented direction of late (I still remember how much angst it took for you to wise up and allow the placement of a volume control on the interface a braindead omission if ever there was one) and I had hoped that those days of ignorance were in the past.

It doesn't appear that such is the case.

Now, I do realize that it's too late for 1.0. However, I also expect to see a renewed interest in user input by both the author and the denizens of the Foobar forum for future releases. Furthermore, I do NOT expect to see any more banning of those who have dissenting opinions. Foobar isn't an exclusive little boyz club (The Faithful to the contrary) and users should have a say in how it progresses. That should not be stifled by a shrill and ignorant / arrogant group of people who are definitely in the MINORITY in terms of a global user base. At the very least, I expect to see a reinstatement of missing functionality in future releases. If it isn't, I'll find something else to use; at the very least XMPlay offers everything of any consequence that Foobar does, adds skinning, keeps the resource requirement low BELOW Foobar (despite the skinning) and best and most importantly of all, has a friendly, user oriented forum / user community and author who has often demonstrated that he cares what his customers think. The latter human parts of the equation have NEVER been present with Foobar. Unlike many of The Faithful here, I'm not married to this software and will treat it as the commodity that it is and not the religious experience that it is not.

You'll find I won't be alone.

So why the tone of this review?

It's become obvious from the Foobar forum and these latest developments that a healthy dose of reality and hubris is in order. There will likely be flames and other nonsense from The Faithful but that will of course only prove the point - in spades.

THREE stars for an excellent effort marred by lack of regard for the user base. It would otherwise have merited a FIVE. As an aside:

Releasing it only by torrent?

COMPLETELY indicative of the utter lack of consideration for users that I'm describing. Obviously it never occurred to you that some users (particularly older ones - there are people over the age of 30 who DO use the internet and are interested in a quality audio player) who don't use and perhaps have never even heard of bittorrent.

Apply some intelligent and constructive thought next time.

DKDude reviewed v1.0 Beta 5 on Dec 20, 2009

Great player small footprint.

Keep up the good work.

Virtual_ManPL reviewed v1.0 Beta 5 on Dec 19, 2009

@ Blaxima - yep, I know I use Chromium/Fx and Im you enemy, because you use Opera... ;p course its faster more powerful for me with extensions etc...
but we stand in the same line against IE and web written on that browser...
NVM, its not topic about browsers

I know that fb2k is powerful, but plugins like TTA, Monkey's Audio, ALAC, OptimFROG should be in the box...
Nice skin is needed out the box too, like in programs Fx (will be having nice skin in v.3.7/4) or 7-Zip, cause most of the ppl want play sth (most used formats) in good looking player (in da box yo)...

and I dont use DSP's course I like "original" sound ;)

P.S. 4.75/5 cause annyoing bug for me was fixed :D

audiolover reviewed v1.0 Beta 5 on Dec 19, 2009

If you are looking for a true audiophile audioplayer that just plays bitperfect, Foobar is the right choice. Customize everything to YOUR liking, no useless skins and options. Easy to make the lay-out without any fancy stuff you do not need for playing music. The remarks about all the plug-ins and add-ons you need to load/install yourself has a major advantage: only install what you need, in other words you are not stuck with stuff you do not need!
It is freeware and yes, maybe the forum could be better but hey: at least it HAS an active community that helps!

Bobbitchin reviewed v1.0 Beta 5 on Dec 18, 2009

WOW and here I thought VLC player was plain looking. Why isn't anyone even trying to make good looking software anymore?

Blaxima reviewed v1.0 Beta 5 on Dec 18, 2009

Virtual_ManPL, perhaps you are used to a crippled web browser that only becomes as functional as another after many plug-ins but don't dare paint foobar with the same brush. Out of the box the only thing foobar lacks is skinning which yes requires the elpalylist, panel stacker and/or ColumnsUI plug-ins but it has:
Built in DSP's including a resampler (though I prefer the sox one) and replay gain
It has crossfader, eq, masstagger, converter, etc..
ALL right out of the box

This IS a quality piece of software that gets better with plug-ins but is extremely powerful without them

Best audio player hands down, across America and back again. The politics at their forum doesn't change that either (though I haven't gone back there for years now)

roj reviewed v1.0 Beta 5 on Dec 18, 2009

Now THIS is an audio player.

Quality audio courtesy of either ASIO or WASAPI, ReplayGain, file manipulation features, no silly "media player" frills, no "charge for an enhanced version", no extraneous fluff that isn't necessary.

Some slight skinning would be nice (not even anything freeform but just the ability to make it "shiny") but that isn't a "must have" and I'll take a player with audio quality over one with skinning.

Just get my Christmas Gift out the door, already! :) :) ;)

Great job Peter.

FIVE stars for excellence.

jorgosch reviewed v1.0 Beta 5 on Dec 18, 2009

Good player, but the the main obstacle is that the developers try to create an active community while at the same time continuously slapping them in the face.

First arbitrarily blocking plug-ins which they didn't like and banning everybody who complained from their forum was only the beginning. Where previous versions allowed the users to sort the right-click menu to their taste, the new version 1.0 introduces a forced menu order, where the few internal plug-ins are well accessible but all the plug-in get thrown into one single "who cares" entry with in my case 200 actions from where it's nigh impossible to find what you need.

Well done, Peter & Co for again changing stuff without previous notice and letting everybody clean up your mess because you don't care.

Virtual_ManPL reviewed v1.0 Beta 4 on Dec 14, 2009

4,5 - first start in notepad mode isnt good for excite new users...
and too many plugins you need to become this player fully powerful and useful...

I prefer AIMP2 instead, but foobar2000 is second on my list

skapig reviewed v1.0 Beta 3 on Dec 7, 2009

Continues to work great and has improved quite a bit with v1.0.

However, what foobar could really use is a better online community site to function as a centralized repository for plug-ins and themes (like Mozilla has done for FF). They have featured some popular ones which is nice, but it can be a pain to track down others.

anomoly reviewed v1.0 Beta 3 on Dec 5, 2009

FIXED the annoying playback/next sound glitch!
The reverse plugin still works and is now a 'legacy' plugin. Name one other audio player which can play in reverse. aimp couldn't touch this on it's best day.

itazev reviewed v1.0 Beta 3 on Dec 5, 2009

i tried to use it several times but it's poor without plugins. And the plugins development are idle and for older versions.
main reason i left it is that foobar is so complicated with all those version incompatibility plugins. i prefer aimp2

The Seeker 11 reviewed v1.0 Beta 3 on Dec 5, 2009

The best audio player going. If you don't use it, you don't deserve to live.

roj reviewed v1.0 Beta 3 on Dec 4, 2009

emanresU deriseD:

Actually, no I wasn't. That statement was based on MY initial reaction to the configuration menus and their plethora of options ("Oh crap - where do I start? All right Roj, one step at a time").

Get it out the door already - I want my Christmas present early! :) :) ;)

Blaxima reviewed v1.0 Beta 3 on Dec 4, 2009

Foobar just keeps making enough "under the hood" improvements so as you either benefit from the improvements directly or never realize they're there.

I agree with roj whole heartedly. I HATE things that try to be a swiss army knife and bloat themselves up or even worse. Take grocery stores for instance, I find it odd to say the least that I can pick up my produce in aisle 2 and motor oil in aisle 8. Somethings should just avoid being a jack of all trades and thankfully foobar does and it is hands down the best audio player because of it.

It's light on resources and puts it's emphasis on sound reproduction rather than being pretty although there are many plugins to help with that too

emanresU deriseD reviewed v1.0 Beta 3 on Dec 4, 2009

"The usability is top notch, although it does require that one have a brain before attempting to configure it."

Aha, I think roj may be taking a swipe at me. But just to note: It takes more than "a brain"... It also takes patience and the inclination; two things I don't always have an abundance of when it comes to software with poor usability. (But of course it doesn't do one's eggshell ego as much good to try insulting someone for not having enough patience or interest.)

I still haven't tried this version, and now that I have 0.9 the way I want (more or less), I'm loathe to find out how screwed up it all becomes once I make the switch.

B__B reviewed v1.0 Beta 2a on Dec 4, 2009

Pretty good player, IMHO.

Richardky reviewed v1.0 Beta 2a on Nov 30, 2009

the ability to sculpt it to meet your needs is what makes this audio player the best .

TGB72 reviewed v1.0 Beta 2a on Nov 30, 2009

The best music player ever made.

roj reviewed v1.0 Beta 2a on Nov 30, 2009

Fatbas****:

It's NOT a media player (and thank God for that).

It's an AUDIO player.

I despise media players. They are Swiss Army Knives of MEDIOCRITY that cater to those who like one-size-fits all software. They do a bit of everything and NONE of it well.

Winamp and Windows Media Player are the poster children of this sad genre. They are fat, horribly inefficient, generally lacking quality audio features (SRS is NOT quality audio). (Winamp is yet to have a quality ASIO or WASAPI driver, as one example) and consume vastly more resources than they warrant.

On the other hand there are those of us who like lean, mean software that does one thing in excellent fashion. Foobar is for that class of user.

I have not always been a fan of this software. In the beginning it offered far more hype than substance. As time passed, it has matured wonderfully although the interface is still a disaster (a little extra memory footprint and skinning capabilities are not at odds with each other).

The audio quality is excellent with features (ASIO and WASAPI support) to ensure that it remains so. The feature set is geared towards audio enthusiasts. The usability is top notch, although it does require that one have a brain before attempting to configure it.

In short, your view of the software is utterly unwarranted but understandable when your misconceptions of what it is to be used for are taken into account.

FIVE stars for excellence and a continuing series of roundhouse punches to the faces of bloated "media players".

FatBastard reviewed v1.0 Beta 2a on Nov 30, 2009

This software is crap. There are MUCH better mediaplayers out there...

4122 reviewed v1.0 Beta 1 on Nov 23, 2009

Was running v0.9.6.9 with a ton of components & a very complex configuration. Took a chance on installing v1.0 Beta 1 fully expecting half of my setup to break because of dhry's comments, but I was very surprised.

Everything came back up working just as well as it did before the upgrade. No components were banned, no functionality was screwed up. It was a good day.

Good job, Peter!

emanresU deriseD reviewed v1.0 Beta 1 on Nov 21, 2009

dhry: You might like the "Autosave & Autobackup" plugin. It lets you automatically create ZIP archive backups of your settings, including whatever files/subdirs you want to include:

http://www.foobar2000.or...mponents/view/foo_jesus

dhry reviewed v1.0 Beta 1 on Nov 20, 2009

Gunna have to pass on this version. Soon as I installed it, the usual disabling of half of one's addons took place. Disgruntled, I installed the older v0.9 back on top and wouldn't you know it, the entire configuration was lost in the process of regressing. Of course, I subsequently discovered that they actually tell you this on the release notes page. Fortunately I had backed up my preferences and playlists - a habit I've been doing since 0.8.2 which used to crash with monotonous regularity, decimating your preferences in the process.

I'm going to have to agree with a previous reviewer - this is definitely the Firefox of music players, except without the extensions.checkCompatibility option. For everyone fond of their existing plugins, don't upgrade yet - at least not until your plugins have been recompiled with the newer SDK. If you do, back up your prefs (I'd actually back up the entire dir). The developer definitely needs to apply for a job with Mozilla - his philosophy about sh1tcanning plugins for no reason other than that they haven't been "certified" for a particular version (aka compiled with an SDK which probably spits out the same code byte for byte except for the version identifier) definitely jibes with theirs. Still love the program; hate how the upgrades trash your nest.

Edit: Thanks, Sqwertyuiop Dingleberries. That autosave plugin is definitely useful - installed and set it to keep 10 backups. Still not going anywhere near this version for the moment, though.

Infidelus reviewed v1.0 Beta 1 on Nov 20, 2009

Great application, sadly let down by the forum support (IMHO) and for which it loses 1 point.

Support should be just that. What it shouldn't be is being ignored for days after asking a question and then jumped on and having software you don't even use blamed for the problem you're experiencing. Again just MHO.

Anyway, rant over. Enjoy ;)

4122 reviewed v0.9.6.9 on Nov 20, 2009

Foobar is the Firefox of music players with all the good and the bad points of being such. I love Firefox's plugin functionality so Foobar with its plugin functionality is a good fit for me.

Chinch,
Being new to Foobar can make things seem like an overwhelming experience at times, but rest assured that there are components available that will display album art & lyrics. You just need to figure out how you want them displayed and then find the components that will do what you wish.

chinch reviewed v0.9.6.9 on Oct 30, 2009

love my foobar.. reluctantly tried it, i was a winamp guy since the first betas... but i kept hearing about it over and over.. after so long i had to try it to see why everyone rants about it so much. the default UI looks quite simplistic and haggard... but then you realize, with plugins and things, you can make this player look like anything in the world. i have seen some BA looking custom GUI's for sure. it's lightweight. it's modular (a lot of the extra functionality is optional, via plugins)... a lot like firefox and its plugins. i can't use IE anymore.. not really cause i'm an IE hater... just without my extensions... IE feels so lacking.

so i have only 1 complaint about the foo. it can do everything under the sun from convert between nearly any formats, tagging, totally customizable interface, replay gain, batch processing, the list goes on forever.... but WHERE IS THE ALBUM ART FUNCTIONALITY??? i mean adding it (you can view it fine). also what about adding lyrics? just kinda irritattes me that i can do every single thing from start to finish in foorbar, but then i've got to use tag&rename to embed the artwork and lyrics. (also a highly recommended program.. tag&rename is awesome for tagging). am i missing something? also i'm waiting for the author of the ipod plugin to make things fully cool with itunes9 format and latest firmware. i would LOVE to get rid of itunes... i'm just scared to use the ipod plugin for fear that it might cause corrupted DB or something on it (since i heard they changed up the internal DB/layout of everything in iTunes9, throwing everything off.with most all existing ipod utilities and plugins that previously worked. thanks apple. itunes also freezes and crashes every time i try to do anything with my ipod touch 3rd gen. even though this is a brand new smokin computer. foobar -- less than a second to come up. itunes? less than a second to FREEZE up.

so what about the album art deal? i heard there once was aworking plugin for this, but became incompatible at some point. am i just missing the method to add art to each individual file, or at laet in a batch operation? i could do it with all my folder.jpg's probably.. but thanks to WMP, all my nice high-res album art has been shrunken to 200x200 turd art, even though i told it NOT TO TOUCH my tags or update them in any way.

if you use foobar and win7, make sure you get the win7 plugin that gives you the taskbar popup w/ mini art preview/controls/thumbnail and song progress bar on the docked icon like IE or explorer. excellent addon. waiting for this to be native.. and for god sakes let me embed album art from foobar so I can get rid of extra programs that I only need for one specific function the first lacks (happens all the time with a lot of software). i'll end up having like 3-4 programs installed that do essentially the exact same thing as each other.... except that one feature i really need. that makes me have to depend on 3 programs instead of 1... always like that ;) we need more frequent updates too!.. foobar!! send some new features/improvements outr way!

q350348361 reviewed v0.9.6.9 on Oct 1, 2009

???????????????

dhry reviewed v0.9.6.9 on Sep 23, 2009

You might not be after user-friendliness so much as WinAMP-style functionality. f2k was designed to be plugin-oriented and slim - AFAIC the default look is more than enough, but I have installed a series of plugins such as prettypop to make it work a tiny bit better. Everything's hotkeyable or clickable depending on the UI you've installed. Go here to check out some sample UIs.. http://pelit.koillismaa.fi/fb2k/strings.php?s=vote

Bottom line is that F2K can be made to do just about everything any other player can do, but it just takes a little more work out of the box. Fine by me - the best programs (PowerPro and AutoHotKey to name a couple) work like that. I've been using it since it came out and it's perfect - apart from the petty politics you see on the forums from time to time and the author's holier-than-thou, Apple app-store-like attitude. Then again, that's what drives the quality of the app, I guess. Pretty damn good for something that's free.

emanresU deriseD reviewed v0.9.6.9 on Aug 24, 2009

Thanks dihrty but prettypop doesn't relate to my "Now Playing" complaint at all. What I want is ONE location where tracks being played ALWAYS are. Not this pain-in-the-rump "Cursor follows playback" (WTH?) nonsense.

But in any case, prettypop is a very nice little plugin nonetheless and I now use it. I've been through every single plugin on fb2k.org.

I have since managed to make the genre/artist/albums columns work, using foo_uie_albumlist (at least I think that's the plugin that provides the "Filter" functionality).

I'm also enjoying the foo_lastfm_radio plugin.

But handy plugins do not a user-friendly application make.

netean reviewed v0.9.6.9 Beta 1 on Aug 10, 2009

don't get me wrong, I do like foobar, it's functional and useful and plays well. But c'mon it's been in beta development for what... 5-6 years at least?
Surely it's time to drop to the 0.9x series and move to version 1?

FFS even Gmail came out of beta a few weeks ago.

dhry reviewed v0.9.6.9 Beta 1 on Aug 10, 2009

Best music player out there.
"Now playing" plugin (for Uqwtyui Dpoqwyetz's benefit): http://www.maroonspoon.com/foo_prettypop/

emanresU deriseD reviewed v0.9.6.8 on Jul 23, 2009

Thanks for the input and the information, but I stand by what I said before. What I was getting at isn't that fb2k can't be made relatively usable, but rather that it takes too much time and effort. Back before I developed an abiding contempt for anything to do with J. River Media Center, I enjoyed the fact that I could install it, and have it the way I wanted without hours of confusion and annoyance.

With fb2k, I can have it set up to be bearable, but to get to that point I have to try this plugin, that plugin, this configuration, that configuration, this layout, that layout, and so on and on and on and on.

And even when I settle on a set of plugins, I have to wonder if they'll stay updated in step with fb2k. And of course, they never have official support of any kind, and very often, you can't even get unofficial support at all. (These are some of the same basic criticisms I have for Firefox. Roj criticizes Firefox on the same grounds, so it's ironic that he doesn't for fb2k.)

As a case in point, I had been using the "Columns UI" interface. After reading one of the foregoing reviews, I reverted to the default UI and tried the Facets plugin. It seemed ... OK, but I couldn't get it "just right". Then I remembered that Columns UI had a Genre/Artist/Album column feature, so I tried it. I could get the Genre/Artist/Album columns in place, but I found that when I'd select a genre/artist/album, the playlist would not change to reflect the selection. (Which kind of defeats the purpose!) I screwed around with it for 15 minutes but could not figure out how to make the playlist change when I'd select a different genre/artist/album. So I reverted to the tree view again, which works, but isn't what I prefer.

In MediaMonkey, genre/artist/album... Just works. No nonsense, no screwing around, no relying on third-party plugins that indtroduce their own bugs and version dependencies. This is what I'm talking about. And it's just one example.

And how do I enable viewing "smartlist" type views like I used to in JRMC? Things like "Last 100 tracks played" and "Tracks without lyrics" and "Tracks without ReplayGain info" and "700-MB of random rock tracks". In JRMC, it's clear and easy how to do this. In MediaMonkey, it's clear and easy how to do this (I just checked in MM and it took literally around 5 seconds to figure out how to do it). In fb2k, I have no idea how to do this, and I doubt it's even possible. Instead, I seem to have to select the entire library, sort the resulting playlist by a certain column (e.g. "Lyrics"), and manually sift through it. Each and every time. Far from ideal. Not the same. Not on the same level of usability and functionality.

And yeah, I'm going to say it again: I hate the fact that fb2k lacks a "Now Playing" feature, as seen in JRMC, MM, and any other decent player.

Rather than blowing anything else out of the water, fb2k's usability simply... Blows.

zeeZee reviewed v0.9.6.8 on Jun 24, 2009

playlists sitting in browser like tabs makes this awesome. windows media does have this.

Blaxima reviewed v0.9.6.8 on Jun 8, 2009

This is the one piece of software that I can honestly say has never let me down. Every time I see a change log mentioning bug fixes my response is "really" because I haven't come across any in all my years using it. It really is a rock solid piece of software(politics aside).

@cowagR
http://www.hydrogenaudio...dex.php?showtopic=41664

anomoly reviewed v0.9.6.8 on Jun 8, 2009

You can stop buying into a proprietary way-overpriced format for one. A friend has one of those sacd players and I couldn't figure out why one would want to use them to begin with (at any price)?, He also loves blu-ray, which I suppose is great if you happen to own a $5,000 tv set.
Not only the best gui but the best installer. Love it
@cowga
couldn't u just play disc through a very nice snd card like the m-audio audiophile192 HD (up to 24/192), via wmp for the decode, and then record that directly possibly to a second HD card. I suspect the original 20 bit depth can be digitally preserved via the hrdware to a fully digital file which essentially alleviates the disc scratch problem. Isn't that what this boils down to? bit depth?

cowgaR reviewed v0.9.6.8 on Jun 8, 2009

@Blaxima:
thx, so quick answer is it can't (too many "intelligent" morons out there, the sad picture of foobar community).
So I need to use WMP to play these wavs [all my library is stored on raid disks].

Or use foobar with HW HDCD enabled DAC, which is impossible once I'm already using D10 cobra with my notebook and I haven't seen one on the market yet.

Original post:
Can anyone confirm that foobar doesn't have the ability to play HDCD files?

e.g. 20bit wavs encoded in 16bit which needs to be decoded good...not in 16bit only. What I heard is that even 24bit setting won't help it. Moreover WMP is showing some HDCD icon when playing/decoding these music files...

any link/help appreciated, HDCD is deprecated format by SACD but there are still few albums only in this format so what can I do.

jorgosch reviewed v0.9.6.7 on May 24, 2009

I was an avid supporter of foobar before and I still think it's a very good player, but the recent politics of getting rid of unwanted plug-ins by just removing the supported hooks look a bit like dictatorship to me... and now you get BANNED on the foobar forums for just asking about blacklisted components or even the contents of the blacklist itself. It's time to look for alternatives.

ZenoLabs reviewed v0.9.6.7 on May 23, 2009

It rules, babe!

magOwl reviewed v0.9.6.7 on May 22, 2009

"Easy to organize music with, the same way one would with J. River Media Center or MediaMonkey? Filtering, categorization, rating--these are all as easy to figure out and perform on a daily basis as with the others? Yeah--right."

In my opinion foobar blows those apps you mention out of the water on all counts. I've tried em all and none of them comes close to what I can do with foobar. But that's just my opinion.

I use two plugins, masstagger & facets, which are both found on the main foobar download page (facets in one of the off-site links at the bottom), plus a couple of custom tags, to organize and keep my collection in check. Well.. to be honest I have a couple of other plugins, but nothing that affects organizing/categorizing/filtering.. and I don't rate my music, I know what I like :) but that would be easy to implement if I wanted to.

And I like the interface, I use the built in one.. album art on the top left, playlist(s) on top right and facets at the bottom... and it looks fine, no clutter, no outlandish elements, no distractions. It keeps my collection in order, plays it, and does so without any fuss.

emanresU deriseD reviewed v0.9.6.6 Beta 1 on May 11, 2009

Who said anything about wanting it to be "pretty"? Not me.

I hate skins (because they're so often poorly implemented). And my complaints about the UI aren't solved by plugins. If you have to spend hours hunting down, configuring, and updating plugins, you're already come across something I hate about applications like this and Firefox: They omit functionality that should be built in. I don't install software because I need a full-time hobby or a weekend project.

But I HAVE spent hours fiddling with plugins for fb2k. I have it in a "bearable" state of usability, but it will never be what I want it to be. If you can't discern "usability" from "attractiveness", I don't care. If you are happy with this level of usability, I also don't care.

As far as sound goes, I would never brag about "playing flat". Personally, I only care about my ears being happy, not artists or sound engineers. I've found a "Noise Sharpening" plugin that really does make certain moderate-bitrate files sound better. I also like using "loudness" so I don't have to crank the volume to ridiculous levels in order to get the most out of the bass and treble.

BTW, I can hear well over 20 kHz. I can also see just fine, but that doesn't mean I don't like to adjust my monitor's colors. Purism doesn't amount to a hill of crap if it reduces your enjoyment.

anomoly reviewed v0.9.6.6 Beta 1 on May 11, 2009

http://customize.org/foobar
That's a laugh. The "how to use skins" page is bare a** blank
My favorite plugin? foo_input_reverse.dll

Capn_Tripz reviewed v0.9.6.5 on Apr 27, 2009

Hey f2k. Thanks for the link and the site

Oh, the review... Foobar is the ultimate app for music (calling it a player is far short of it's capabilities.) Foobar is really intimidating right out of the box because it has soooo many options. If you just let the music play (get the plug-ins from somewhere like www.rarewares.com) you can forget the complexity knowing it will play. Work your way to audio nirvana from there. However, the interface is butt ugly and skinning the UI to really work well is a challenge for folks with little artistic or organizational imagination (me). It is probably not that hard once you do it one time, but it drives me nuts (I am mental.) It will convert, burn discs, play anything anyway you want it to sound (great for laptops) and just so much more. It is an investment in time that will just keep giving back. I recommend www.hydrogenaudio.com forum on Foobar as a great place to get help and really make Foobar do things you never dreamed of. If I got any of the links wrong, Google it up and you will see the correct ones.

When you need a powerful, predictable audio app, you can always turn too Foobar and it's always free. It's an incredible piece of code and a lot of thanks to those who do all the wonderful things for the price of a beer.

roj reviewed v0.9.6.5 on Apr 27, 2009

I play flat.

I don't like "pretty sound".

That's for posers.

And yes, when you play flat the majors do sound alike.

And they SHOULD.

Especially if you use ASIO / WASAPI.

Now if you want to butcher your sound with "pretty pretty" garbage, that's your choice and your right.

I kind of like to hear what the engineer and artist intended to the best of what my speakers can deliver (and trust me, they ain't ten dollar wh***s).

FIVE stars despite the fact that the stock interface shipped by the author stinks.

dhry reviewed v0.9.6.5 Beta 2 on Apr 20, 2009

Um, why are people still going on about how f2k doesn't have a 'pretty' interface?! Did anyone even visit the link I posted before? http://customize.org/foobar if you missed it the first time around. It DOES have a customizable, skinnable UI for wankers who like that sort of thing. Personally, I don't - but we really do need to check the plugins for f2k before we start claiming it looks crap yeah? I guarantee, use one of the skin UIs for it and it can look like a Vegas ho, just like Winamp or Sonique. Again I say: the best player out there, hands down, bold on, italics on, blinking text on, INCLUDING SKINNABLE UI. (deep sigh)

bold off, italics off, blinking text off.

Morningdove reviewed v0.9.6.5 Beta 2 on Apr 19, 2009

For those few folks with a tin ear or ten dollar speakers that believe all players sound alike, take note of the DFX sound enhancement plug-in. It demonstrates that audio can be colored to suit the taste of any user (or programmer). Sound enhancement can be, and is, hardcoded into audio players. For an obvious example of this, take a look at "our own" Windows Media Player where you can actually see several built-in enhancements. Others are less obvious.

Additionally, foobar offers an *18* band equalizer, further adding to it's ability to produce higher quality sound.

At the risk of being called a "liar" I stand by my prior statement that IMO foobar2000 has the best audio quality of any player in my collection.

And finally, as "beauty is in the eye of the beholder", foobar2000 has a very pleasing UI. If you would rather have a Mickey Mouse head with Play and Stop buttons to decorate your desktop, a different player would definitely be more to your liking.

emanresU deriseD reviewed v0.9.6.5 Beta 2 on Apr 18, 2009

Wow--how people miss the point. Simple? Yes. The same way a hedge trimmer is easy to use, but have fun using it to perform bypass surgery. Easy to organize music with, the same way one would with J. River Media Center or MediaMonkey? Filtering, categorization, rating--these are all as easy to figure out and perform on a daily basis as with the others? Yeah--right.

roj reviewed v0.9.6.5 Beta 2 on Apr 17, 2009

Sound quality in all the majors is now moot and irrelevant and any claims that A or B is superior to the others are a lie. Why? Because they're all using essentially the same algorithm to decode, jacked out to n degrees of precision. If you're using ASIO or an equivalent with your player of choice, it matters even less.

What does that leave? Feature set, ease of use and sppearance.

Foobar has good features. It now is much easier to use and configure than it was early in its lifespan. As far as looks go, it stinks. When you have quality sound across the board with all the players and a good feature set again across the board, appearance to complement one's desktop is one of the few ways left to favorably differentiate yourself from the competition.

Foobar fails abysmally there.

Pure propellerheads of course are utterly incapable of grasping this subtle but obvious concept as they lack the required circuitry.

FIVE stars.

Morningdove reviewed v0.9.6.5 Beta 1 on Apr 11, 2009

IMHO foobar2000 has the best sound quality of any audio player in my collection.

I personally find the GUI pleasing. Perhaps, in part, because I favor the way it handles the music library and information display and because it doesn't look like the control panel of a spaceship. The window colors can be set to compliment the XP Zune theme, adding to it's appeal. The only thing missing is a nice set of control buttons, but I can live with that.

anomoly reviewed v0.9.6.5 Beta 1 on Apr 10, 2009

I can't seem to remember judging music EVER by the way it looked. As far as a pc 'stereo' setup, maybe you wankers need to get better speakers and start complaining about how they look too. All this needs is a decent remote.

pedromoreno reviewed v0.9.6.5 Beta 1 on Apr 10, 2009

How many times will I have to say this? And I hope a good many will agree: Foobar2k's interface is not ugly, it's simple! Perpahs too simple to suit the taste of some, but I actually like it. Sound quality in F2k is great, and the GUI does its job in a clean, simple way. If simple is ugly my friend, then that's only a matter of taste.

dhry reviewed v0.9.6.5 Beta 1 on Apr 10, 2009

FFS. Could people PLEASE stop wanking off about how it's ugly and needs a facelift. If looks REALLY are more important to you, get the customizable UI componentry and quit whining. Go here (http://customize.org/foobar) to see what you can do with it. This player is absolutely perfect in every way, INCLUDING UI flexibility.

klaupe0815 reviewed v0.9.6.4 on Apr 9, 2009

**** design. **** anything else but quality.
Got my cambridge 540 v2 today. got my canton 409 speakers today. Got my pro-ject usb-box today. tried itunes -> terrible. tried winamp -> terrible. tried 5 another players-> terrible. found some strange feeware named foobar2000 -> Call me fanboy. I just have no reason to continue searching. It just SOUNDS right.
(As ugly, as it is ;) )

roj reviewed v0.9.6.4 on Mar 30, 2009

Doesn't kill off Explorer extensions any more.

Good stuff - but still ugly as sin and needs a facelift. ;)

FIVE stars.

music 101 reviewed v0.9.6.3 on Mar 15, 2009

Amazing sound.
This player means business: quality over flashy buttons, performance over eye candy. Period.
A must have for all hardcore music lovers.

I'm currently using version 0.9.6.4. beta, and i have to say that the sound quality dominates any other players i've used in the recent past, INCLUDING AIMP2 !

The 0.9.6.4 version includes a dsp plugin called "Resampler" , which resamples the output frequency up to 96000 mhz !

Using this plugin with the highly efficient 18 band EQ will produce an unsurpassed music listening experience never heard before on any music player out there!

Goodbye Aimp2 !
may you be UNINSTALLED in peace....

pmerritt reviewed v0.9.6.3 on Mar 10, 2009

http://img246.imageshack.us/img246/9162/ibiza.png for some reason the link went dead last time.

roj reviewed v0.9.6.3 on Feb 26, 2009

Jumped to this from 0.9.6. Still has the BUG that kills off the IMGBurn shell extension in Explorer.

BAD!

BAD CHILD!!

FOUR stars.

netean reviewed v0.9.6.3 Beta 2 on Feb 20, 2009

foobar is good, really it is.. I used it for a while and liked it, only changed when I discovered AIMP (which, for me, suits my needs slightly more)

HOwever, this is still version 0.9.. c'mon this has been "beta" for years and years and years. As it is (and has been for ages), it's stable. Make it Version 1 so that all those people who won't try beta software will.

Joco reviewed v0.9.6.3 Beta 2 on Feb 20, 2009

@pmerritt: "It supports basically every audio format you throw at it"

Foobar doesn't play well MIDI file. JetAudio is better or MIDI. I agree however that foobar is a good player. Simple but performant.

pepone reviewed v0.9.6.3 Beta 1 on Feb 19, 2009

foobar2000

anomoly reviewed v0.9.6.3 Beta 1 on Feb 16, 2009

Alac (m4a) was updated.
The hell with a gui. My flac files are wasted on my junky sndcrd & mobo anyways. My 2.1 altec lansing's only mask this.
The installer asked for internet access for some reason.
Foo_ dop was updated as well and now there is a pod(cast) catcher plugin from same page.

pmerritt reviewed v0.9.6.2 on Feb 11, 2009

This is hands down the best audio player i've used. It supports basically every audio format you throw at it and it is very configurable. This audio player supports plugins and there seems to be a plugin to cover about everything you might want it to do. In the previous reviews a lot of people complained about the GUI and i admit the default gui is extremely.......plain. However, due to the excellent plugins available i found a skin on the web that i fell in love with (i did not create the skin). Here's a look at it and i think that anyone who sees this has to admit that foobar2000 can indeed look nice. http://img243.imageshack.../2364/foobar2000qf7.png

roj reviewed v0.9.6.2 on Feb 2, 2009

To all the Faithful:

While I do use this player and am very happy with the sound and feature set, Stop Defending The GUI.

It's FUGLY.

A square box with text in it goes back to the mainframe era. This is 2009. Get a grip. Hell, even Firefox has skins.

That being said, even this plain interface has bugs. When transparency is used (OMG he actually deigned to put in transparency!! That's not minimalist!! Good GAWD, the BLOAT!!!), sometimes the player elements (volume control, progress status bar, etc.) do not display correctly and are blanked out. That's annoying.

I've long held that this player has quality plumbing and an exterior only a mother could love.

I'm going to nominate it for the software equivalent of "What Not To Wear".

FOUR stars (hire a consultant to give it a makeover, PP)

Oh, and I don't give a ratz azz for the myriad little fanboiz who, their feathers ruffled, will now flock to the aid of their darling. What is, IS, the player is fugly and nothing you say can change that. Try spinning the propeller on your beanie slower.

anomoly reviewed v0.9.6.2 on Feb 2, 2009

cd art display works oob with this. Just add the "foobar200" script in front cover options after selecting foo as your player of course. Try it!
@roj ABOVE
What an idiot. Do you want to watch your music or listen to it? Gui has like 8 different clickable configurations which themselves are also totally customizable. There is not another music manager with a gui that even comes close. That's a fact. On top of that it has multiple color schemes. If that's all too difficult maybe you need to head on back to itunes where you belong.
This version alone has been downed well over 200,000 times. Get a clue.

ailef reviewed v0.9.6.2 on Feb 1, 2009

once i began to use foobar, then i forgot all others players.
i used winamp then they added things like burner and video player as what i want for my music is a music player only.
and foobar is that, a music player.
they changed the equalizer so i always use the old dll to get the old equalizer cause it's what i want for equalizer, marks to know where i am : +1db or +5, what is no more present on new equalizer for the moment.
and all plugins u need are present, especially kernel sreaming, asio, wasapi (same thing as kernel streaming or asio for vista).
i stopped using builds over 0.9.5.6 on vista cause there's no more option to choose wich files u want to associate to foobar, instead u got the vista option to do that and it sucks,
this prob is not on xp of course as it doesnt have the vista option to control progs files association.
people looking for music player only use foobar for sure, there's no better prog just to play music. and u'll find all plugins u need to play what u want, even for online radio, u'll find all plugins to read all kind of streaming.

mocilo74 reviewed v0.9.6.2 on Feb 1, 2009

I´m using this wonderful piece of software for more than 4 years. It´the best mp3 player I came across. I tested a lot, but this one is top notch. Clean, functional, easy to use, no blender, full optimisation. 5*

darthbeads reviewed v0.9.6.2 on Feb 1, 2009

Still buggy and amateurish. Still proselytized by rabid fanboys who refuse to take off their rose-colored sunglasses and tin-foil hats to see that this player is, indeed, FUBAR.

Cooledit reviewed v0.9.6.2 on Jan 31, 2009

nice and clean

anomoly reviewed v0.9.6.2 Beta 3 on Jan 26, 2009

I had windows 7 "ultimate/bloat" running yesterday and installed foobar (WMP still sucks balls). It seemed to work OK but the wavpack decoder and the dts decoder were not compatible in that environment.

anomoly reviewed v0.9.6.1 on Jan 2, 2009

Doesn't compare alright simply because there is no comparison. Aimp? That's a laugh. Winamp? Not on your life. Haven't used that crap since I learned about pc's in general.
I do not have any file associations with foobar for the very simple reason it has a superb library feature. It does not change anything when I install it either. Updates perfectly, installed or portable.

ikr6pWeaUwA1DJb9 reviewed v0.9.6.1 on Jan 2, 2009

Great program with ASIO support. The best media player for APE and FLAC files I have come across.

NOTE TO DEVELOPER:

Just updated from 0.9.5.6 to 0.9.6.1 and the installer deleted the file shell extensions for DBpoweramp, MP3tag, and ImgBurrn in WinXP32. I had to manually re-add the deleted string values.

The installer ran in [previous] mode as it should. It then deleted the Classes\foobar2000.xxx keys where these three programs had written their shellexs and created new Classes\foobar2000.xxx keys without these values.

; ADD section

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\foobar2000.CUE\shell\Burn using ImgBurn]
@="Burn using ImgBurn"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\foobar2000.CUE\shell\Burn using ImgBurn\Command]
@="\"C:\\Program Files\\ImgBurn\\ImgBurn.exe\" /MODE WRITE /SOURCE \"%1\""

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\foobar2000.CUE\shell\Mp3tag\Command]
@="\"C:\\Program Files\\Mp3tag\\Mp3tag.exe\" \"/cue:%1\""

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\foobar2000.FLAC\shell\Mp3tag\Command]
@="\"C:\\Program Files\\Mp3tag\\Mp3tag.exe\" \"/fn:%1\""

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\foobar2000.FLAC\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\dMCShell]
@="{2C49B5D0-ACE7-4D17-9DF0-A254A6C5A0C5}"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\foobar2000.FLAC\shellex\PropertySheetHandlers\dMCPropDetails]
@="{2C49B5D0-ACE7-4D17-9DF0-A254A6C5A0C5}"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\foobar2000.M4A\shell\Mp3tag\Command]
@="\"C:\\Program Files\\Mp3tag\\Mp3tag.exe\" \"/fn:%1\""

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\foobar2000.M4A\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\dMCShell]
@="{2C49B5D0-ACE7-4D17-9DF0-A254A6C5A0C5}"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\foobar2000.M4A\shellex\PropertySheetHandlers\dMCPropDetails]
@="{2C49B5D0-ACE7-4D17-9DF0-A254A6C5A0C5}"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\foobar2000.MP3\shell\Mp3tag\Command]
@="\"C:\\Program Files\\Mp3tag\\Mp3tag.exe\" \"/fn:%1\""

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\foobar2000.MP3\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\dMCShell]
@="{2C49B5D0-ACE7-4D17-9DF0-A254A6C5A0C5}"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\foobar2000.MP3\shellex\PropertySheetHandlers\dMCPropDetails]
@="{2C49B5D0-ACE7-4D17-9DF0-A254A6C5A0C5}"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\foobar2000.WAV\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\dMCShell]
@="{2C49B5D0-ACE7-4D17-9DF0-A254A6C5A0C5}"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\foobar2000.WAV\shellex\PropertySheetHandlers\dMCPropDetails]
@="{2C49B5D0-ACE7-4D17-9DF0-A254A6C5A0C5}"

psycros reviewed v0.9.6.1 on Jan 1, 2009

If there was no such thing as Winamp I might use this. Its pretty responsive and has just enough essential features to serve as a primary player. Its not exactly an aesthetics champion, though.

Darkman00 reviewed v0.9.6.1 on Dec 31, 2008

I use foobar and like it :)

But .. What's this about AIMP?
I hear good things about it .. but never tried it yet.

Is AIMP as good as foobar? .. or which one is a better one you think?

I guess i should give AIMP a try one if this days..
Just to see what it is all about if nothing else :)

some guy reviewed v0.9.6.1 on Dec 31, 2008

dosnt compare to AMP or Spider , lack to many features . Change the name to sounds like something my virus program would pick up lol

dejavu reviewed v0.9.6.1 on Dec 31, 2008

Great work! Five Stars!

darthbeads reviewed v0.9.6.1 on Dec 31, 2008

Is it my primary audio player? Yes.

Is it a 5-star app? Absolutely not.

Sinister reviewed v0.9.6.1 on Dec 31, 2008

No out-of-the-box Monkey's Audio support and no MIDI support. I prefer AIMP.

anomoly reviewed v0.9.6.1 Beta 1 on Dec 18, 2008

You can't compare foobar to xmplay anymore. Xmplay's only function is to play-nothing more, & it's skins are completely too small to be readable on today's ws monitors (I use the NNP skin). Cover art? what's that? Plus xmplay will crash if importing a large folder (It only likes it in small increments). Under foo's, view-layout-quick setup, menu you have an albeit simple but easy menu for the skin, with cover art and all elements easily replaced and resized on the fly. This alone makes foo a star among stars. It's installer gives the option for portable mode and it's library interface is the best I have ever used, bar none.

My only complaint is the lack of stream support. For that I have been using TotalRecorder which, imo, has the very best stream capabilities of any audio application I am currently aware of.

The only thing priceless about visa humor is in the fact people 'still' get a kick out of it while they are taking it in the *ss. "on top of your rediculously high & totally unregulated interest rate fees, don't forget to give us an extra 20 spot each year just so you know who holds the leesh" now that's priceless

darthbeads reviewed v0.9.6.1 Beta 1 on Dec 18, 2008

Foobar2000: Free

Internet access: $49.95 a month.

Watching to fools argue on the internet: priceless.

roj reviewed v0.9.6.1 Beta 1 on Dec 17, 2008

Undesired Username:

I'm not trapped in 1990. I like skins AND usability. i'm not buying into the "anything more than a box is a waste" BS - that's stupidity and you can dress it up in a tutu and make it dance, but it will still remain stupidity.

Form CAN complement function - and should. XMPlay managed it and still uses less resources then Foobar. Now that the inner functions are all but perfected, it's time for the next evolution of the package. If the same tenets that made the guts so attractive are adhered to, the shell they live in won't devolve into a bloated mess a la Winamp.

Standing in the way of that is pure psuedo-minimalistc rubbish.

As to the manual config, that is indeed a pain in the butt - and should be part of the badly needed interface tuneup.

FIVE stars.

Undesired Username reviewed v0.9.6.1 Beta 1 on Dec 17, 2008

Who is talking about "sexy interfaces", roj? Not me. When I complain about the foobar2000 interface, it's all about usability. I despise skins and cutesy garbage.**

I managed to crawl my way to a foobar2000 interface that suits my tastes, but it took figuring out which components to add, how to configure them, and how to screw around with field formatting strings. And I still rue the lack of a "Now Playing" equivalent.

If you think that an easy-to-use GUI (rather than a pain-in-the-rump manual method) for customizing things like columns constitutes a "sexy interface", well whatever.

** In reply to the vehement rebuttal above: I'm not "trapped in 1990" either. Nor did I say that "anything more than a box is a waste". It's just that I find skins implemented in a stupid way about 99.5% of the time, so the mere mention of them makes me cringe. Take SnagIt 9 for example. I didn't mind the looks of its skins at all--I actually liked them. But the revised GUI was agonizingly slow. (I realize SnagIt is not a media player. It makes no difference; the point is with regard to skins, not software genre.) The same is true for skins in most cases--rather than controls that are easy to see and use, skins make them tiny and inscrutable, and at the resolutions I like to use, require the skills of a microsurgeon to live with. And when you find a skin you like, application updates invariably make the skin incompatible.

And THAT is why I generally hate skins.

Hey, you know what? Here's an analogy: I love the idea of cell phones--the convenience and safety is phenomenal--but sometimes, the way people use them, and the way I'm chained to my own cell phone, I wish it were 1990 again. Another nice idea, badly overused and misimplemented.

Nighted reviewed v0.9.6.1 Beta 1 on Dec 17, 2008

Foobar rocks (although I still prefer Winamp).

Apple fanboys...take some Midol? lol

cowgaR reviewed v0.9.6 on Dec 2, 2008

foobar? 10/10

@roj: another nonsense comment from you, betanews crowd is slowly getting used to it.

no other player beats iPod touch in sound quality, if (I haven't heard all of them) yes, then there are very few.

For first, APPLE plays lossless audio tracks (and not your stupid mp3/AAC formats which simply can't compare) and unless you wan't to play .wav w/o tags, you are still playing lossy music.
Or you will tell me you load some rockbox...ah yay.

For second, its DAC chip is of high quality, and stop denying that. I am not sure but I think it is Wolfson and is definitely comparable, if not better, than the one in the competition out there.

For third, you can bypass integrated amplifier (because of size it isn't stelar) and do what many ppl are doing. Connect your iPod to ANY headphone amplifier through DIGITAL OUT port w/o altering music with the weakest link (which is allways integrated amplifier)

You can't do it with a competition (Samsung, Sony, Cowon...) as the music will still go through preprocessing of integrated one.

And even ultra small (size of a shuffle) china's headamps for 10$ will give you 10 times beeter sound than players you mentioned, and connect there some CMOY's one (you can buy one for 50-70$) and it will give you music BEYOND COMPARISON.
You can't be sane if you would be starting to compare it with the sound you are getting from mp3 format (compared to apple lossless) and playing on a player with integrated amplifier, no matter which brand.

And what about connecting Ray Samuels one (hornet is more than enough) if you can afford it and I bet you never ever heard such a great sound from an "mp3 player".

So please roj, keep your s*** at home, your hattred on apple company in your garage and write some insightful comments or be silent.

This way you only look stupid, as at least you could mention SONY's players as everybody know they sound great, but you simply can't beat digital output, lossless audio and headphone amplifier.

Note: there is no reason to amplify music which is compressed and already went through an integrated amplifier (no matter how good) which only made it worse, unless you want to use big cans. Yes it WILL HELP (if you keep your player sound volume very low) but it will not be the same as if you would put un-amplified source to headamp.

I am not an APPLE fanatic, I do hate few of their manners, but saying Apple iPod are s*** is more of a fashion than a truth. roj is very fashionable divX guy ;-)

anomoly reviewed v0.9.6 on Dec 2, 2008

To roj: That's good to know except I was comparing PHONES not some wankers mp3 player and in that respect I am correct. When portable audio devices can easily and comfortably hold ALL my music I will probably have to get one.
The only gripe I have with Foo is it's inability to play streams.

PRoBiSoNe reviewed v0.9.6 on Dec 1, 2008

First comment [to individual #1] Who needs a sexy interface? Have you tried to play with the different gui styles? It looks clean and tight. You probably run the XP Luna theme too I bet! LoL!!!

Second comment [to individual #2] The directory depth work fine, sees all my files. Upgrade your Windows 98/Me FAT32 system, that might fix your problem! LoL!

Final comment...
Foobar2000 is the shiz for audio! bar none! 5 solid stars, period! Now sit! ;)

Amrit reviewed v0.9.6 on Dec 1, 2008

Mmm, now with the auto-track of the music-library foobar doesn't find all music in my collection. It seems that it can't find music if the musicfiles are somewhere to deep in a folder structure. 3 points for this version.

Still the greatest player available, and the only option as far as I know if you're using cue-sheets and different file formats, wv, mpc etc. I'll wait and see if it's fixed with a update, or I find another solution, otherwise I'll go back to the previous version.

edit: Vista 64bit - AMD X2 6000

gehtnix reviewed v0.9.6 on Dec 1, 2008

Great player, would rate "5", but it still has an ugly interface.

roj reviewed v0.9.6 on Dec 1, 2008

@anomoly:

You need to get out more. Apple has some of the WORST audio quality of any of the DAPs one can purchase and is easily eclipsed by (in ascending order of audio quality):

Zune
Samsung (the P2 lineup)
SanDisk (the Clip and Fuze)
Cowon iAudio (the entire line)

No One looking for superlative quality audio in a DAP buys Apple. Trendiness? Definitely. Conversation pieces? Assuredly. Quality audio? NEVER. The hardware (never mind the software) just isn't there.

Back to Foobar, Thank You PP for the early Christmas present. :)

FIVE stars (despite the missing automatic population of CDs for playback from freedb and the total lack of sexiness of the interface).

Edit:

To the twits and their inane comments about sexy interfaces:

No junior, I don't run Luna. Try this:

http://roj.deviantart.co...bit-Way-To-Fly-95003365

Kidz today...

anomoly reviewed v0.9.6 Beta 5 on Nov 23, 2008

@cmagic
Foobar has an ipod manager plugin
http://fb2k.org/show.php?id=157
I am not lucky eww enough to own an ipod.
(their devices still have the best screens and audio engines however)

HaST reviewed v0.9.6 Beta 4 on Nov 7, 2008

I used foobar2000 for some years, until now the best player I've seen. Customizable, simple but complex, fast, great quality...

But since 1-2 months I'm using Songbird with some great advantages: open source, web oriented (integrated with web 2.0 services), cross platform, extensible with extensions, translated to various languages... The new 1.0 release have great speed improvements.

Foobar2000 it's a great player thought!

Ain Soph Aur reviewed v0.9.6 Beta 3 on Nov 3, 2008

The usability and interface could still use some serious improvement. If you don't know what I mean, you either don't bother customizing your player, or you don't notice having to spend hours learning how to do so.

ok, customizing is not easy, but if you want a very good interface, just download this one:

http://br3tt.deviantart....2-0a-Released-101694696

or this one:

http://dawxxx666.deviant...-INVI-4V-style-94625348

no need to customizing your self ;D

Undesired Username reviewed v0.9.6 Beta 3 on Nov 3, 2008

The usability and interface could still use some serious improvement. If you don't know what I mean, you either don't bother customizing your player, or you don't notice having to spend hours learning how to do so.

cmagic reviewed v0.9.6 Beta 2 on Nov 2, 2008

Wow.. nice media library.. Just checked foobar updates. To be frank, I've never use ANY media library. iTunes could not read my files. Last time I used Winamp's and it simply crashed my computer when tried to catalog my 3000+ files.
Now, mine reached 9000, and foobar catalog it without I ever notice it :D And, what's more? Filter.. Type anything there, and it will give you your list. Now, put regex support, and the rest can rot in hell.

Since I have to use iTunes for my iPhone, I made a folder called iTunes outside my library files, but actually foobar is the only one that can fill it in so that iTunes can copy them to my phone. If anyone know how to manage iphone from foobar, I would be happy to ditch this bloated iTunes plague out of my computer. I could use its space for anything else useful.

anomoly reviewed v0.9.6 Beta 2 on Oct 29, 2008

As of this latest release anyone who gives any rating less than a perfect TEN is a DB. With the completely unnoticeable auto refresh of your local music library nothing even comes close.
Now all I need is a great soundcard and a rockin receiver with some Orb speakers and I'd be in music heaven.

crowbar82 reviewed v0.9.6 Beta 2 on Oct 27, 2008

I just love it!

PS: "Improved compatibility of file type associations with Windows Vista", finelly!

VoODoOChilD reviewed v0.9.6 Beta 1 on Oct 26, 2008

Highly Customizable, eaZy on the system resources, and provides ALL the options to manage one's audio collection & for FREE! Used em all & y lie have them ALL on my system aswell :), but for my daily audio xtacy foobar is a must!
Many thanks to the developers! :)

Diam0nd reviewed v0.9.6 Beta 1 on Oct 20, 2008

Best audio player around.

Changelog:
0.9.6
Media Library now automatically keeps track of any changes made to its folders; no more need to manually rescan them.
Improved compatibility of file type associations with Windows Vista.
No more delay when playing/enqueuing files from Windows Explorer.
The installer now includes “portable mode” that works in limited user contexts and doesn't make any changes to system configuration, registry, etc.
New Converter user interface.
Built-in Matroska support.

Blaxima reviewed v0.9.5.6 on Oct 8, 2008

@DudeBoyz - There is a mini player option in many of the skins that were made for PanelsUI. Of course the powers that be made that component obselete so if you want the best audio player to look good then use version 9.5.2 like I do

photonboy reviewed v0.9.5.6 on Sep 24, 2008

I periodically install updated versions of Foobar2000 but end up removing it.

Why?
I still prefer the free program WxMusik. It's similar to Foobar2000 but I prefer the layout.

DudeBoyz reviewed v0.9.5.6 on Sep 23, 2008

First, I have GOT to give the author of this some Props for featuring Aenima by Tool in the screen shots on his web page. Anybody who recognizes the absolute brilliance of that album has GOT to be cool in my book. :)

Ok, now onto the review:

Interface handling is a bit better, thanks to the Quick Appearance Setup. I just chose "Album List + Properties (tabbed)" and went with that.

Turned off the "Library Viewer Selection Playlist" which is under the Media Library part of the preferences dialog, and that helped make things less confusing.

So basically, all the albums are on the left and you create a variety of playlists, one per tab. That part is pretty effective. It's a really good way to handle playlists.

I have about 5 tabs with different mood music. Tool, NIN, Filter in one tab, Boston, Asia and other 80's rock bands in another, some Tori Amos and Sarah McLachlan type music in another, some techno stuff in another. You just save the whole bundle and when it starts up you are good to go.

From a purely organizational / interface standpoint, I like the way it works with Playlists better than iTunes, Spider Player and Music Match 7.5.

It may take a bit of effort to learn the nuances of the interface, but once you do, it seems to be a pretty capable app. Still a bit more confusing than it could be in terms of the interface configuration, but it is improved.

I really do wish it had a "mini-player" mode like Music Match and iTunes have. It would help keep a busy desktop better organized.

If I'm missing something and there actually is a way to do that, someone please let me know. Thanks.

Earwicker reviewed v0.9.5.6 on Sep 23, 2008

The best by nautical mile.

DaMiEn™ reviewed v0.9.5.5 on Aug 17, 2008

Simple, easy to configure and light on the eyes. One of my favorites.

whp reviewed v0.9.5.5 on Aug 12, 2008

I've heard about foobar being minimalistic audio player. It is and please take it as it is. Add skinning, internet radios, video and some other features and people start looking for some other minimalistic audio player :).

Undesired Username reviewed v0.9.5.5 on Aug 5, 2008

It amazes me that someone could severely criticize the GUI and then still rate it a 5. Yes, I understand that the software does a lot, and that the sound quality is great. But if it's a pain in the rump to use, doesn't that count for at least .6 star? If not--if the crappy GUI is not even worth docking .6 star--then it's also not a point worth mentioning (so thoroughly and emphatically) in the first place.

I switched from J. Retard Media Center and am so used to that program's handy "Playing Now" feature, it took me a long time to get my bearings with foobar2000. I eventually got it figured out, but it was much more hassle than it should have been.

antigin reviewed v0.9.5.5 on Aug 5, 2008

Archamazing program! It has the only minus - it isn't os-independent.

echohead reviewed v0.9.5.5 on Aug 5, 2008

as perfect as an audio application can be.

roj reviewed v0.9.5.5 on Aug 4, 2008

Good sound.

Good architecture.

Utterly Pathetic UI for an app developed in the 21st century - you'd think it was designed by one of those propeller-headed Linux weenies who terminally can't spell "UI".

Now that the player mechanics are done, It is mandatory that the author find someone who knows how to design a GUI (and the niceties appellate to one) to develope a simple but effective skinning engine so that the exterior of the player lives up to the interior subsystems.

It's my mainstay and gets a FIVE for the audio quality, ASIO and WASAPI support but it SERIOUSLY is in desperate need of a facelift. It doesn't lose points for the GUI only because I'm hoping the author will get a clue and remedy the situation.

I'm sure the Anti-GUI fanboiz will rage at this but the words "Grow Up" are the most charitable comment that can be aimed at them.

PS:

Still no auto-freedb for playing CDs - a silly omission at best (I'm being polite).

darthbeads reviewed v0.9.5.5 on Aug 4, 2008

Foobar2000 is good. It does what it says on the box. It is above average. It is, quite simply good. Thus, 4-stars.

Frankly, no, I don't think it's excellent. I don't think it's superior in every way. I don't think it is the uber example of what a player really can and should be.

It had the potential to go through some serious and meaningful development with components that were forcefully made obsolete by a nearly facist regime move on the part of the dev(s). This was tragic, and left me with a very, very sour taste in my mouth for this app.

While it isn't nearly as polished, I've moved over to Songbird, which at least has a transparent and truly collaborative development.

And, frankly, Songbird, and it's community, lack the ego and megalomania that surrounds FB2K. Which is rather refreshing.

Undesired Username reviewed v0.9.5.4 on Jul 30, 2008

It may be flexible and powerful and all that happy horsecrap, but its interface is a crime against humanity. I'm still trying to figure out how to view/edit lyrics with foobar2000 without using something like MiniLyrics.

Diam0nd reviewed v0.9.5.4 on Jul 7, 2008

Best player around both in terms of sound quality and flexibility. UI sucks tho.

Canar reviewed v0.9.5.4 on Jul 7, 2008

Once again, Peter has proven his commitment to good quality by adding new, wonderful features and removing old, obsolete functions that slow down the program and promote poor development practice. There is no better audio player, and there hasn't been in years.

Ryusennin reviewed v0.9.5.4 on Jul 7, 2008

Foobar is a decent MP3 player (and nothing else), but Peter Pawlowski seriously needs to learn respect. There is a reason why he was asskicked away from Winamp.

roj reviewed v0.9.5.4 on Jul 7, 2008

It is getting MUCH harder for me to nitpick this app. :) :) ;)

Auto freedb on cd insert?

Please?

Excellent work!

FIVE stars.

Blaxima reviewed v0.9.5.4 Beta 3 on Jun 30, 2008

Like jorgosch I too am less than impressed with the people thinking that chasing terrestrial out of the foobar community for what they claim was a poorly written plug-in (which also happened to be the most popular one) is appropriate. While the player is and has been top notch I just can't respect the elitist mentality that has seen someone over at the foobar forums even lock down any threads dealing with PanelsUI. Then they have the nerve to try and replicate someone else's work who they were so negative towards! Whether the plugin was poorly written or not or created some kind of security threat to the user that SHOULD be the users choice.

As long as I can update the plugins and keep my core I will do so otherwise thanks Peter for v9.5.2 because it does everything I WANT it to do but like I said the player itself is by far the best but -1 for the creators doing their best steve jobs impersonation

elitegangsta reviewed v0.9.5.4 Beta 3 on Jun 30, 2008

Love the player, quality, lightness, support. Only think for me is, I cannot figure out (if there is even a way to do so) to hide the media library viewer and just have a small play, stop, skip bar in a very small compact window. Best audio player out there though bar none.

Diam0nd reviewed v0.9.5.4 Beta 3 on Jun 30, 2008

New built-in DSPs: Crossfader, Skip Silence

wow! niiiiice)

Diam0nd reviewed v0.9.5.4 Beta 2 on Jun 23, 2008

Best player for windows.

boaz reviewed v0.9.5.4 Beta 2 on Jun 23, 2008

I have been using Foobar for a long time. It's a lean player, utilizes a much smaller memory footprint than it's highly graphical GUI counterparts. I personally don't want, or need, a highly graphical interface. I just need a stable player, that plays major formats & CD's, that sounds great.

*** K.I.S.S. = Keep it Simple stupid ***

egg83 reviewed v0.9.5.3 on Jun 2, 2008

Does the job of playing many types of music files, great sound, the best music player on the market, bar none.

jorgosch reviewed v0.9.5.3 on May 28, 2008

I was an avid supporter of foobar before and I still think it's a very good player, but the recent politics of getting rid of unwanted plug-ins by just removing the supported hooks look a bit like dictatorship to me...

roj reviewed v0.9.5.3 on May 27, 2008

To anomoly: "Anybody that uses foobar should use eac to rip their disc."

Um, who said I was ripping a CD.

Where exactly does it say that in my post?

I want to PLAY a CD.

If I put the CD in, Foobar should AUTOMATICALLY access freedb and populate the track titles. XMplay does this. Winamp does this. Windows Media Player does this. It's not rocket science.

READ. Then reply.

FIVE stars but a ways to go in comprehending the term "user friendliness" although progress has been made.

gate1975mlm reviewed v0.9.5.3 on May 27, 2008

Best Media player on Windows hands down!

anomoly reviewed v0.9.5.3 Beta 2 on May 20, 2008

Foobar is a player. To "I expect this in the next release" cd ripping is lame. Anybody that uses foobar should use eac to rip their disc. Foobar's cd ripping is just for convenience. THE best ripper is eac-period.
At least it is easy-peasy to display cover art, and in general use it now. The, before, inability to show cover art by default is what kept me from using for quite a while

Diam0nd reviewed v0.9.5.3 Beta 2 on May 19, 2008

Best player around

pihug12 reviewed v0.9.5.3 Beta 1 on May 12, 2008

Nothing new in 0.9.5.3 for the "average users".

yabun reviewed v0.9.5.2 on May 6, 2008

Still loving the Foobar2000. A GIANT thanks to Peter P.!!

Roj, sorry to hear about the failing vision. Just a tip, though, when someone works hard to code and maintain awesome free software (or bad free software for that matter), comments like "I'll expect this feature in the next beta" come off ugly and unappreciative. I hope you were kidding.

roj reviewed v0.9.5.2 on May 3, 2008

When my vision went to hell over the last 20 months (I went form 20.25 to 20/400), this player allowed me to still enjoy music and see playlists thanks to its very customizable, if plain, interface and exceptional audio quality.

The addition of context menus in Explorer and a volume control on the main interface were a Godsend. It is now my default player (yes, Roj now uses Foobar). It's EQ is superior to any other player as well.

Well done PP - it matches (even exceeds) the hype.

Now if only it was skinnable to offset the plain appearance...

EDIT:

Minus one star for a seriously DUMB omission of a feature that every player and its dog does:

Automatic retrieval Of CD Title Information From FREEDB.

C'mon people, this is almost as stupid as not having the volume control on the main interface and it took two years to get that.

I'll expect this feature in the next beta.

FOUR stars.

Edit:

I have been monitoring Foobar for some four (?) years now and I recall when it was OnlY Hype with No Substance. It has come a long way. I also know that those advances were anything but swift and it took a LOT of prodding for the dev to do the most elementary of logical things such as putting a volume control on the main interface. He grew the app into an audio powerhouse over time but he still needs to get a clue about user friendliness (I will concede he's getting there).

So NO, I'm NOT kidding when I type comments like "I'll expect it in the next beta" - it should have been there several releases back. When common everyday features are omitted, it's difficult to excuse, especially given the lineage of this app - it's pretty long in the tooth. Because of that, you'd think that simple UI features that everyone takes for granted would be included but for example, the volume control, Explorer extensions and various other run-of-the-mill items are relatively shiny new additions to this app. This mindset has hampered its acceptance by users and it doesn't take a nuclear scientist to see that undeniable fact.

other freeware apps, particularly players, DO have these features, have had them forever and their authors hhave no problem grasping the concepts outlined above.

That is why my tone may appear harsh - anything worth doing is worth doing well.

All that criticism aside, it's still a premier audio app and the interface grows less rough-edged 9finally!) with each subsequent release.

darthbeads reviewed v0.9.5.2 on Apr 21, 2008

One you've got the Facets plugin installed, and have customized your layout to your liking (which can, admittedly, take some time the first time around), Foobar is the tits.

why hello there reviewed v0.9.5.2 on Apr 21, 2008

Excellent player. Not a Winamp hater here, but this is just better. Tabbed playlists, very customizable UI, very customizable global key commands, control over color and style, loads instantly, handles giant playlists (50,000+ songs with no problems here), plays without a hiccup while you play cpu intensive games, etc.

No, you can't skin it to look like Hello Kitty's head or whatever, but it plays music extremely well.

jorgosch reviewed v0.9.5.2 on Apr 21, 2008

Granted, soundwise there may not be a lot of difference anymore between Winamp and foobar2000 at default settings. For the casual user Winamp certainly does everything and does it well. But the thing is, you have little control over what is happening under the hood.
This is where foobar2000 comes in. You can tweak virtually everything, from tags over output up to design.
Winamp is the prefab car that does everything it's supposed to do and foobar2000 is like that custom machine that you spend 2 years making in your garage and that is the envy of the neighborhood.

DakotaSunRunner reviewed v0.9.5.2 Beta 2 on Apr 19, 2008

I have used this and I have removed it. I too am a person who likes winamp better as it does all that I need and want. I was never fond of this GUI or how it works. I have no idea why this software gets such good ratings and a following as it sure is no beauty. But it does work and does it well, just not for me I guess.

n8thegr8 reviewed v0.9.5.2 Beta 2 on Apr 14, 2008

Its a good program and it does its thing well, but I just don't use it. Not sure why this thing gets so much love. At least they have finally improved the default interface. It was terrible before.

I still prefer to use Winamp because it just works the way I want it to. I can't find another player that just somehow works like I would expect. And one major thing keeping me from switching to another player is the minimal interface which I can have always on top of my window title bars, yet provides quick access to all the necessary features. I love this. I am sure I could probably get it from Foobar, but with way too much effort.

And as for the sound quality, I am sure that upgrading my speakers would provide much more improvement than the software. And I am not about to do even that because I am no audiophile.

I certainly don't think its a bad program (hence the 4 rating) but it certainly does not warrant the fanboy following it gets.

Diam0nd reviewed v0.9.5.2 Beta 2 on Apr 14, 2008

echohead: amen brother!!! :D

foobar > *

echohead reviewed v0.9.5.2 Beta 2 on Apr 14, 2008

if every windows app were coded like foobar2000, steve jobs would be homeless right now.

-21grams reviewed v0.9.5.2 Beta 1 on Apr 10, 2008

To cut a long story short:
foobar eliminates competition!
It's been my default audio player for the past 2½ years.

Conrad.TDI reviewed v0.9.5.2 Beta 1 on Apr 9, 2008

The best gets better. The new Oscilloscope and Spectrogram are fantastic!

yabun reviewed v0.9.5.2 Beta 1 on Apr 9, 2008

Fantastic music player.
Feature requests include:
1) Listing and filtering on Ratings without requiring UI_Columns or UI_Panels.
2) Builtin CD Burning plugin or "Export Playlist To Burrrn" or something easy/simple/free.

And that's about it. Again, awesome player that's not a resource hog like some (I'm looking at you iTunes and WMP).

Diam0nd reviewed v0.9.5.2 Beta 1 on Apr 9, 2008

Amazing player! iTunes must die.

echohead reviewed v0.9.5.1 on Feb 27, 2008

the anti-itunes.

webcrawler reviewed v0.9.5.1 on Feb 25, 2008

One of the finest programs for Windows.

Diam0nd reviewed v0.9.5.1 on Feb 25, 2008

THE music player for windows.

nLctr reviewed v0.9.5.1 Beta 2 on Feb 20, 2008

I've been using foobar2000 almost since the start of it and am still using version 0.8.3 because it does everything I want it to do. I have tried and the latest versions and while there are some improvements in features and overall performance, they have lost some of the things and changed some of the specific behaviours that make a difference to me.

Probably a lot of it has to do with plugins and the fact that foobar2000 seems to change its plugin API with every release doesn't help it.

I'm staying with v0.8.3.

Blaxima reviewed v0.9.5.1 Beta 2 on Feb 19, 2008

@dpcdpc11

I don't like that the per user setting is missing too but have a look here
http://www.softpedia.com...rtable-foobar2000.shtml

New layout isn't all the impressive especially when the guys working on it criticised the author of panelsUI which seems to be the most used plugin

BUT its still a must have piece of software (not in beta) for every Windows user

AntiochMedia reviewed v0.9.5.1 Beta 2 on Feb 19, 2008

Absolutely love foobar after resisting and using WinAMP for the longest time. I've used foobar now for over a year and resisted the new UI for 0.9.5 beta (in favor of Columns UI) initially - but have now embraced and love it. I would like FooBar to incorporate the ability to edit ID3 tags from the playlist like iTunes (and like the optional ColumnsUI Interface). That functionality is the only thing I'm missing.

Diam0nd reviewed v0.9.5.1 Beta 2 on Feb 18, 2008

Best audio player around.

dead_thinker reviewed v0.9.5.1 Beta 1 on Feb 18, 2008

Great software!

Canar reviewed v0.9.5.1 Beta 1 on Feb 12, 2008

Every release brings foobar2000 to levels of perfection found in no other software. It's not only an incredible audio player, it's also a shining example of how to develop good software for Windows.

Power? Check. Simplicity? Check. Extensibility? Check. Attractiveness? Check. Accessibility? Check.

On top of that, there's no crappy skinned UI to force you to relearn everything. Just nice Win32 UI that changes with your Windows theme.

I've been using this program since the first public version, and I keep finding new things to love about it. This program keeps me using Windows.

dpcdpc11 reviewed v0.9.5.1 Beta 1 on Feb 12, 2008

been a Foobar user for a long time now... but i'm sticking with the 0.945 version for now... where did the Per User setting go in the installer window?? i like my foobar to be portable... now i can't make it portable... and the 0.95+ version has some issues with the kernel streaming output[crashes like crazy]... hope they fix this soon and i really want the Per user setting back!!

bolaris reviewed v0.9.5.1 Beta 1 on Feb 12, 2008

----0% CPU USAGE!-----

...enough said.

philosopher_dog reviewed v0.9.5.1 Beta 1 on Feb 11, 2008

Ok Ok. I take my previous bad review back. I'm in! It's a tweaker's dream come true. Personally I'm mostly using it for internet radio streaming, and I've found nothing touches it. Screamer? Give me a flipping break. It's dead. The developer has left it a buggy mess.

roj reviewed v0.9.5.1 Beta 1 on Feb 11, 2008

Damn! When this boy got UI Religion, he got it in a big way...

FIVE stars.

Diam0nd reviewed v0.9.5.1 Beta 1 on Feb 11, 2008

If you are after flexibility and quality of sound this is THE player to choose.

BUSIAK reviewed v0.9.5 Final on Feb 7, 2008

Still the best but seek forward/backward don't work when playing aac file. Please, restore the keyboard control of the track (left,right). That was good for me. That's all, thanks!

dejavu reviewed v0.9.5 Final on Jan 2, 2008

Yes...Yes...!!! At this moment I'm listening "Mess Around" with Ray Charles. foobar a Superb player by Peter Pawlowski! Thank You!

matt2971 reviewed v0.9.5 Final on Jan 2, 2008

After an age of small improvements (and no complaints cos it was already so great) comes a whopper of a GUI update... and yeah, he got it right.

The only media player I know that the user has full control over.... unbeatable.

JEdwardP reviewed v0.9.5 Final on Jan 2, 2008

I can't judge the new default interface, because I never looked at it; I'm still using the simple yet highly effective interface I tweaked via ColumnUI (and no, that wasn't difficult, and didn't take hours. It was instead quite easy, taking only 15 minutes).

This was, and remains, the best audio player I've ever used, and one of the best pieces of software overall.

I could only wish that it ran a bit better in Linux (under WINE) than it does. Rhythmbox is the closest thing to it in Linux, but with a few nagging issues resolved, it would easily be the best player for both Windows AND Linux.

turistas reviewed v0.9.5 Final on Jan 2, 2008

The Best.

roj reviewed v0.9.5 Final on Jan 2, 2008

FIVE stars for excellence.

He FINALLY got it right.

petiot reviewed v0.9.5 Final on Jan 2, 2008

everything that has been said before ... best player ever, and it is portable. the new customizable interface is great and easy to use in regards of what you can do with it. Put many non-freeware software developper to shame.

biggman15 reviewed v0.9.5 Final on Jan 2, 2008

I love Foobar2000 but I think it's time they change it's name to FoobarXP... because they feel the need to drop the only good version of Windows... but whatever...

The Seeker 11 reviewed v0.9.5 Final on Jan 1, 2008

Issues fixed in 0.9.5 final

Bug: Preferences / Media Library / 'Scan' button not working correctly.

Diam0nd reviewed v0.9.5 Final on Jan 1, 2008

This version was an amazing work!

TGB72 reviewed v0.9.5 Beta 9 on Dec 31, 2007

Getting better and better, v 0.9.5 final is out!
http://www.foobar2000.org/download.html

sld reviewed v0.9.5 Beta 9 on Dec 30, 2007

It plays audio, it converts audio, it organises audio, and it is minimalistic to a fault. :p

Have used it for 2+ years and going strong with it. It is free, but those who work and can spare the cash should donate some to the software author.

Without this player and its extensive and efficient controls, one would need to use multiple software to do the job well.

roj reviewed v0.9.5 Beta 9 on Dec 27, 2007

Canuckistani:

It is quite possible that while the formats play quite nicely, the supporting infrastructure for the player requires features that only XP and above have. For example, my favorite player (XMPlay) has an Explorer extension for adding music that works very well with Windows XP and 2000 but doesn't work with Vista. Why? Because XMPlay uses DDE calls to implement that functionality and DDE is no longer well supported with Vista.

Now that's no loss to me because quite frankly, those who knowingly and willingly moved to that retroactive abortion known as Vista deserve whatever lumps they get but the point is this:

You're running an 8 year old OS and you can't expect the world not to pass you by. New features and functionality will come along and by staying with an older OS (as I will in perpetuity with XP / XP64) you take your chances. Eight years is a long time.

As an aside, the good news for XP users is that thanks to the rather obvious failure of Vista, MS has been forced to extend support for XP to 2012 and has announced that within the last couple of weeks. Those of us running that OS have a good long run to look forward to.

FIVE stars.

Canuckistani reviewed v0.9.5 Beta 9 on Dec 25, 2007

Foobar 2000 is, beyond doubt, the best music player out there. However, this version has a giagantic flaw: when I try to install it on Windows 2000 I get an error telling me I must have Windows XP or higher. There is absolutely no reason for this as most music file types can be played in DOS fer chris' sakes! Not happy, not happy at all.

Point Zero reviewed v0.9.5 Beta 9 on Dec 25, 2007

The best audio player by far !

monzi reviewed v0.9.5 Beta 9 on Dec 25, 2007

This program is ugly and it sucks. Use winamp!

ShunYea reviewed v0.9.5 Beta 9 on Dec 25, 2007

I always uses 0.9.4.3 edition

Sinister reviewed v0.9.5 Beta 9 on Dec 24, 2007

9 betas? I guess the release is going to be rock solid!

roj reviewed v0.9.5 Beta 8 on Dec 22, 2007

The volume control is FINALLY on the main interface where it belongs!!!!!!!!! PP **finally* got a clue!!! AWESOME!!!

Welcome Foobar to the 21st century.

I can finally give this player FIVE stars for excellence.

cricri_pingouin reviewed v0.9.5 Beta 8 on Dec 18, 2007

Updates are not only about fixing bugs (which I never encountered in foobar2000 myself lately), but also about adding features. Of course, if you do not bother improving a software, you probably won't need to keep on fixing bugs!
Besides, if you do not update a software often enough, people complain. If you update it too often, people also complain. I guess that an acceptable update rate should be voted by law.
As for me, foobar2000 works great. I like the increased flexibility of the interface in the latest builds, along with the comprehensive set of pre-defined looks. One thing I'd like though is to download foobar2000 as a compressed archive instead of an installer. After all, it doesn't need the installer, and I always end up installing, copying files to my pen drive, and uninstalling.
Despite this personal gripe, I'll give it a 5 nonetheless. Just the converter plugin makes it well worth it for me.

And| reviewed v0.9.5 Beta 8 on Dec 18, 2007

@ deltablues

That sounds somewhat naive. Most programs have a lot of code. New bugs come everytime you add new features. Furthermore, if you are changing the program to something new, bugs will appear.

A work in progress as they say.

Btw. I like foobar, just to difficult to customize.

deltablues reviewed v0.9.5 Beta 8 on Dec 18, 2007

Seems there is a new download every other week for Foobar Player. Cannot the programmer get it right?. I personally use Quintessential Player but would not if I had to do an upgrade on a monthly basis.

norz reviewed v0.9.5 Beta 7 on Dec 12, 2007

To see changes between beta versions, have a look at thie hydrogenaudio thread 'Known issues in 0.9.5 beta 7 and feature proposals':
http://www.hydrogenaudio...dex.php?showtopic=58351

anomoly reviewed v0.9.5 Beta 7 on Dec 10, 2007

Cool. Removing ALL from playlists & now I have a 29MB folder that is portable from the drive with all the sound on it.
Install-copy pertinent and all is updated (after upxing foobar's exe).
Nice. Now have more colored theme options.

TGB72 reviewed v0.9.5 Beta 7 on Dec 10, 2007

The best. I love the new interface. The album list and file operation components are amazing.
Many thanks to the authors.

Diam0nd reviewed v0.9.5 Beta 7 on Dec 10, 2007

Best audio player for windows.

anomoly reviewed v0.9.5 Beta 6 on Dec 3, 2007

The playlist drag & drop support allows me to browse by artist. VERY POWERFUL. Took a minute to do so with all 184GB. Runs directly from slave drive harboring all my music(37.1 MB folder with entire collection playlisted how I like). You need to tell it to save settings in the install/run folder first.
If it could play internet radio it could replace xmplay altogether-oh well. Maybe next year.
At least these betas have full functionality as far as simple customization and album art support without having to browse the world wide web to do so-finally.

cowgaR reviewed v0.9.5 Beta 6 on Dec 3, 2007

some guy: in any coding practice book you would example of variables / values as:
foo
bar
baz

so I guess foobar name was created by naming the program after Peter Pawlowski's cat ;) maybe you can find something in forums I don't know, that way or this way it is still the best musich player on ANY platform...

echohead reviewed v0.9.5 Beta 6 on Dec 3, 2007

"lol but winamp is teh 1337! and u forgot 'bout videos! fubar cant play vids! wut kind of music player cant play all my pr0n? and wut 'bout teh SKINS?!?!?! u cant have music witout skins!!!!!1!11!11!11111ONE"

fb2k ftw. new spectrum analyzer is amazing. plugins are great, program is extremely lightweight, etc etc etc

Beestie reviewed v0.9.5 Beta 5 on Nov 26, 2007

Light, fast, easy to configure. Very powerful. Very reliable. Can't say enough good things about it.

Be sure to change (if you are ok with it) the file associations to foobar and away from Media Player or Winamp. I used to like Winamp till AOL got involved. Foobar is at the head of the pack now, imho.

some guy reviewed v0.9.5 Beta 5 on Nov 26, 2007

I don't no why but it sounds like something a virus scanner would pick up , lol

Nod32 has found the foo bar 32

Diam0nd reviewed v0.9.5 Beta 5 on Nov 26, 2007

L.O.V.E I.T.

anomoly reviewed v0.9.5 Beta 4 on Nov 24, 2007

Nice and powerful and a keeper.
Too bad it can't play streams like xmplay.
If it could it could most certainly replace xmplay.
Unbelievable that all the time, effort, & plugs which go into this and it doesn't support streams worth a s***e.
Speaking of which xmplay rocks foobar step for step.
Asio, direct sound, multitude of formats, etc.
So for a win32 music player I MUST have both.
Foo does play ac3 448 5.1 much better though.

Diam0nd reviewed v0.9.5 Beta 4 on Nov 21, 2007

Dwiebelhaus

Why would u need a linux version? There are hundreds of players similar to foo for linux already

Dwiebelhaus reviewed v0.9.5 Beta 4 on Nov 20, 2007

The only really good small player for windows , say.

where the hell is the Linux version?

kooshini reviewed v0.9.5 Beta 3 on Nov 5, 2007

Prob the best update of a program I've installed for a long time, love the new layout options foobar looks really nice now :)

Seek time is still long thou on some tracks.

Diam0nd reviewed v0.9.5 Beta 3 on Nov 5, 2007

Radical! :D

Issues fixed in beta 3
Regression: Installing 0.9.5 beta 1 or beta 2 on Windows XP requires administrator rights
Bug: Notification area icon reacts when a neighbouring icon vanishes after being double-clicked
Feature: Option to have mouse wheel affect the UI Element under the mouse pointer
Bug: Can't undo sort operations on non-force-sorted autoplaylists
Accessibility: Keyboard focus is trapped on the menu in certain situtations
Bug: Certain layouts are not rendered correctly after loading until the window is resized
Bug: Tab characters not expanded properly in status bar (temporary workaround)
Bug: Can't load theme files into scratchbox through drag&drop
Bug: Hitting page up button after selecting an album through clicking on group header navigates to the top of the playlist instead of just up by one page
Bug: Weird selection behaviour when selecting several playlist in the playlist switcher with the right mouse button and shift

joen reviewed v0.9.5 Beta 2 on Nov 1, 2007

good improvements, but ColumnsUI is still better than the default UI IMO. It's really almost as easy to setup but so much more powerful. ColumnsUI has a layout editing mode now as well. For example I love the fact that you can add your own custom buttons, which is not possible with the default UI.

tannenwheel reviewed v0.9.5 Beta 2 on Oct 31, 2007

WOW. totally impressed by the new inovations. just when i thought the cats were napping infinitely.

i stopped using collumns_ui for the moment. the magic of "layout editing mode" got me, together with facet/albumlist's realtime database tracking

norz reviewed v0.9.5 Beta 2 on Oct 29, 2007

Known issues in 0.9.5 beta 2 and feature proposals:
http://www.hydrogenaudio...dex.php?showtopic=58351

AntiochMedia reviewed v0.9.5 Beta 2 on Oct 29, 2007

Blaxima: I love Foobar and use Columns UI. It took me a while to install the skin that you suggested - and well, it's neat - but for noobs, even that installation guide would not be easy.

anomoly reviewed v0.9.5 Beta 2 on Oct 29, 2007

Ok. so now it has album art abilities with a somewhat likeable interface. Version 0.9.5 beta 3 not beta 2. wxMusik still has a better gui hands down PERIOD. That's with no configuration, plugins or anything.
Foobar is portable and has utilities I have found nowhere else such as 'fix mp3 header' & 'rebuild vbr stream'. Those two utilities alone are worth the price of a download.
BUT, I simply REFUSE to spend 19,000 hours on some hopped up gui which does nothing but stream audio data to a soundcard/speakers.
XMPlay has a simple gui (won't take but a few minutes to find a skin) and can handle any url radio station as well as any file format including asio. Foobar choked when I gave it http://wmc1.liquidviewer.net/kpoa.
And NO I really don't care to try and figure out if foo can stream this. more wasted time

stisev reviewed v0.9.5 Beta 1 on Oct 25, 2007

Let me start off by saying I've been a die-hard Winamp user my entire life. Needless to say, I'm really appalled by the direction Winamp has taken (towards bloat & bugzville). I decided to give Foobar 0.95 beta a chance. I haven't looked back since.

While I'm still in love with Winamp 5.11 + Enhancer + Albumlist, I'm hoping foobar can provide similar functionality. I'm sure it will, with time.

5/5!

Blaxima reviewed v0.9.5 Beta 1 on Oct 23, 2007

Let me just debunk some of these uninformed posts.

1)Not easy to customize for noobs

- Go here and tell me that this is hard to do
http://lassekongo83.devi...om/art/FooBear-65777342
Not all panels are needed and this is an advanced setup.
Neowin has the same questions asked over and over because people are too lazy to read.

2)No ASIO support

- Then whats this (under Output)
http://wiki.hydrogenaudi...obar2000:Components_0.9

3)Winamp uses less memory.

- Maybe in the bizaro world. I use winamp WITHOUT modern skin support and it still uses more than my foobar.

4)It needs to be installed

- If you choose not to have the per user setting it will create a config file in the parent folder making it 100% portable.

Look, if you don't or can't read more than a few lines of instructions than this isn't the player for you.

But if a flexible player that plays more formats than other audio players (like DTS without a DTS card or apple lossless), that can be customized with some reading and imagination and is extremely light on resoursces...then give this a try.

belthurgp reviewed v0.9.5 Beta 1 on Oct 22, 2007

Kudos to the author. This release lets the user play around with the UI and pick what the like the best. Between foobar and wmp, one doesn't need any other player.

Methsrine reviewed v0.9.5 Beta 1 on Oct 22, 2007

1/5 because of error report

mattinsurfers reviewed v0.9.5 Beta 1 on Oct 22, 2007

I AM IN LOVE!!!

This is the BEST player I have ever used in my 18 years of reinstalling windows.

Good on ya Mr Pawlowski!

taxis reviewed v0.9.5 Beta 1 on Oct 22, 2007

I like foobar's unobtrusive interface (although for many other users its simplicity seems to be rather a drawback). It is not perfect (e.g. it would be very convenient if it could play MIDI files, too), and I would prefer it not to be restricted to "newer operating systems" in order to give up its minimalistic interface. Otherwise, the player works very well for a "newbie" like myself.

Dreimanis reviewed v0.9.5 Beta 1 on Oct 21, 2007

five stars for what i use. an excellent tabbed playlist feature. i don't get libraries, i get playlists and foobar excels at that. for me foobar and winamp, and wmp, all three get five stars for they all are excellent players.

roj reviewed v0.9.5 Beta 1 on Oct 21, 2007

This player has come a very long way form the lofty but unfulfilled claims at its inception. It has excellent sound quality and the author has begrudgingly improved the UI over time. However the audio quality is not groundbreaking; XMPlay amd Winamp both have DirectSound, dithering and soundshaping and ASIO support (Kernel Streaming can be roundly ignored since it was, is and always will be an unsupported hack under XP). Claims of lean resource usage can be similarly debunked as both XMPLay and VUPlayer use less. Winamp is the champ when it comes to a media library and also UI friendliness and flexibility.

So where does that leave Foobar?

It leaves it as a good, competent player with excellent audio quality, very granular configurability, a passable but nondescript UI at best and reasonable resource requirements.

That's a good score but hardly deserving of the rabid adulation it receives in certain quarters.

FOUR stars for a player that I would use if I wasn't already using XMPlay, which offers everything meaningful that Foobar does plus skinning and superior resource management.

simko reviewed v0.9.5 Beta 1 on Oct 21, 2007

beginners can use this program fine , doesnt need to be configured at all if you can live by the as is interface,

Ryusennin reviewed v0.9.5 Beta 1 on Oct 21, 2007

"As someone stated before, not for newbies."

Not for serious users either. Somewhere in between.

Joco reviewed v0.9.5 Beta 1 on Oct 21, 2007

Hey, I like very much the new "Quick Appearance" option. This is really a huge help to customize the GUI. Is it possible to add a rating feature?

Floodland reviewed v0.9.5 Beta 1 on Oct 21, 2007

Oh yes! The best gets even better.
As someone stated before, not for newbies. But if you are able to look at the preferences you can customize it to look exactly as you want using minimal resources and best audio quality. 6/5 if possible.
This version includes great improvements on the GUI. ColumsUI is not necesary anymore to show album art: Default UI improved a LOT.

DudeBoyz reviewed v0.9.5 Beta 1 on Oct 21, 2007

Not the best or easiest to customize / configure, but pretty decent over all.

A Mini-mode and other UI config options should be more intuitive, I feel.

Extreme flexibility is one thing, but without being easier for new users to setup and such, you may lose access to a broader audience.

anomoly reviewed v0.9.5 Beta 1 on Oct 21, 2007

STILLL ugly as hell and still nothing short of a freakin pain n the azz to 'customize'. wxMusik at least gets the concept right and doesn't need ANY downloads to work. As far as playing everything, I'll stick with xmplay which doesn't even need to be installed.

soulutionswe reviewed v0.9.5 Beta 1 on Oct 21, 2007

Best and probably the most customizable audio player out there. I really dig the new interface!

LRN reviewed v0.9.5 Beta 1 on Oct 21, 2007

Wo-o-o-o-ho-o-o-o!
At last:
1)Decent UI right from the box.
2)Random playback order!!! True damn random playback order!!!

Isys reviewed v0.9.5 Beta 1 on Oct 21, 2007

Foobar has been my default player for years because of the great look and sound. However, to say customizing is simply a matter of downloading some files is a ridiculous oversimplification. I agree with kronix2, configuring it can take a while and requires a lot of research by newbies. Just take a look at the length of the Foobar2000 Customization Topic on Neowin.

Diam0nd reviewed v0.9.5 Beta 1 on Oct 21, 2007

OMFG!!! LOVE the new UI! :D I wish I could give it a 10.

The only problem is that covers NEVER show, I've tried a whole bunch of MP3s already and well, never once it actually showed a cover :'''( ANYONE HAPPENS TO KNOW WHY THIS MIGHT BE HAPPENING?

Blaxima reviewed v0.9.4.5 on Oct 15, 2007

Reviews by people who haven't a clue what they are talking about are beyond riddiculous!

All plug-ins can be found here
http://wiki.hydrogenaudi...obar2000:Components_0.9

It can look better than most skinned players if you take the time to download some files(yes thats all).

Extremely feature rich for those interested in sound quality and functionality.

Can play every audio format including DTS files without the need of a DTS soundcard aswell as apple lossless(by downloading 2 plugins, tuff I know)

If that doesn't sound like something you could use then this isn't the player for you. You're probably better off with something like itunes or something else shiny.

kronix2 reviewed v0.9.4.5 on Oct 15, 2007

This is a nightmare to customise. Not only do you have to hunt around for multiple files in order to get your foobar looking half decent, but you even need specific versions of plug-ins for some skins to work.

There's no simple AIO click and install skin pack which comes with the required plug-ins. It's beyond ridiculous.

CharlieGimbert reviewed v0.9.4.5 on Oct 15, 2007

Not bad at all but i like my Winamp. And if i want faster mp3 player, i use 1by1 (don't let name scare you, it ain't no spyware/ad-aware player).

Earwicker reviewed v0.9.4.5 on Oct 15, 2007

Simply the best. By a comfortable margin.

Nice work guys!

philosopher_dog reviewed v0.9.4.5 on Oct 15, 2007

If your time isn't worth anything, this player's for you. You have to practically take a course to configure this player. It's ugly out of the box, and doesn't even have columns, unless you add the plugin. Personally I have better things to do with my time than configure Foobar2000. I personally recommend 1by1 if you just want a player that plays your files, takes winamp plugins and does almost anything the average mortal needs, with a small footprint, and no need to spend your life reading help files and tutorials.

Diam0nd reviewed v0.9.4.5 on Oct 15, 2007

Top notch. BEST playback quality. The most flexible.

dhry reviewed v0.9.4.5 on Oct 15, 2007

Without a doubt, the best and most configurable multi-format audio player out there. And, at time of writing, the ONLY player to support Musepack SV8. Absolutely, positively CRAPS on WinAMP.

nerrad reviewed v0.9.4.5 Beta 1 on Sep 24, 2007

The best player there is. FB2K just keeps getting better. The best part besides sounding great, is the ability to make it mine. There's components for it all over the internet. The UI is only as lame as the user, and as basic as you want it.

Mine:
http://www.floydster.com/foobar/fb2k.png

christoofar reviewed v0.9.4.5 Beta 1 on Sep 24, 2007

Foobar + MP3Toys is the schizitz!!

Diam0nd reviewed v0.9.4.5 Beta 1 on Sep 24, 2007

Tao2005 > lame. jetaudio will occupy all your screen. good luck!

foobar really IS a top-notch player for those looking for quality, and NOT some visual glitter.

sld reviewed v0.9.4.5 Beta 1 on Sep 24, 2007

It's heartening to see Foobar2000 on the cutting edge.

This player is for those who are NOT visually superficial and who want a shot at squeezing the cleanest DSP chain out of their music player.

In any case, my setup looks like iTunes, haha. I keep my cake and eat it too!

Tao2005 reviewed v0.9.4.4 on Sep 22, 2007

I did expect better from freeware. This program is lame. The UI is basic. Only does certain files. If your looking for something that'll blow this out of the water. May I suggest JetAudio. JetAudio is a, broadcaster for streaming your own audio. Supports a lot of extentions. Media Center, and Player, etc. Supports skins. Also a good media player for Free. The Full Version enables you to use extentions and plug-ins.

Gee where does that leave foobar. Only a player I guess.

cricri_pingouin reviewed v0.9.4.4 on Aug 24, 2007

After a brief passage to XMPlay, I'm back to foobar2000.

improvelence reviewed v0.9.4.4 on Aug 24, 2007

Quick, nice for playing a single song. I would never use this for managing my entire library though.

Perezoso reviewed v0.9.4.4 on Aug 21, 2007

Very nice player for english speaking users. But its lack of support for localization (read: language translation) is a _MAJOR_ drawback. The author's narrow minded attitude on this issue is inexcusable.

ghammer reviewed v0.9.4.4 on Aug 21, 2007

A nice player, but not the Second Coming.

@drumcat- It is freeware, but not opensource. However, opensource is rather useless to most as most couldn't follow 'Hello World' code.

Canuckistani reviewed v0.9.4.4 on Aug 20, 2007

The sound in this version seems very crisp. I like it.

drumcat reviewed v0.9.4.4 on Aug 20, 2007

Far and away the best audio player out there. It rips, converts to high-end codecs, like mp4/m4a, ogg, and flac, and plays any audio without any additions. Is the UI sparse? Ya. You can change it if you want to; I do. But for a 2MB install, tiny footprint, and total control for $0, this is a MUST have. It is the best software you haven't heard of, and it's free and open source.

Imagine the simplicity and coolness of WinAmp2, back in the day, carried forward. That's Foobar2000.

Zygi reviewed v0.9.4.4 on Aug 20, 2007

Tao: http://www.hydrogenaudio...dex.php?showtopic=53703

Blaxima reviewed v0.9.4.4 on Aug 20, 2007

The absoulute best audio player available for windows. The only player that (with a plugin) can play dts files without a dts soundcard. There are so many plug-ins for this that you can make it do pretty much whatever you want including look better (reviewer below). It is also extremely light on resources.

This is one piece of software no windows user should be without.

5* and then some

Tao2005 reviewed v0.9.4.3 on Jul 13, 2007

Good player, Sorry @$$ UI. Needs to be back on the drawing board.

Fr@nKy reviewed v0.9.4.3 on Jun 27, 2007

It's a bit hard for starters but I find myself happy using only Columns UI with a costumised layout. You know you can make it look awesome kicking iTunes and Windows Media Player asses in aesthetics! But for that you'll need to learn how to code for foobar2000 :P

Neverthless I think that foobar2000 + Columns UI makes a perfect Media Player if you only want to listen to music and don't stare at a beatiful skin and Album Art (you can get that also if want it) all day :P Foobar2000 looks good when it's minimized LoL

mattinsurfers reviewed v0.9.4.3 on Jun 20, 2007

Trusting the comments by my computer nerd peers on betanews, I spent 30 minutes using foobar200 and removed america offlines winamp within 30 minutes. and did it without any hesitation after using winamp for 10 years! In the past I have trailed media monkey, jetaudio, wmp and others, foobar2000 is SOLID! The only thing that was a head ache was getting album list to show up in Columns UI by painfully searching in the forums and looking for new versions of add ons via links, also accidentally clicking on "reset all" after getting the layout perfect! ;-p

Regarding DatPhuc
DatPhuc was using itunes. Another iTunes horror story!

Here is a good tip. if you are using winamp, select a playlist and mass select all songs and write your playlist name to the "comment" and make the switch!

Ball Sacks reviewed v0.9.4.3 on Jun 14, 2007

It fills a void for people out there looking for near complete control over their media player. I find it's not a question of having a media player that has a million and one bells and whistles, just one that allows you to customize to your requirements. You wouldn't believe how hard it is to find a media player out there whereby you can compile a playlist and get the player to stop straight after each track is played within the playlist. Sounds like a simple request doesn't it? Foobar2000 can do this! I don't need a 40 mb media centre to take over my pc, no, I want a simple program that doesn't suck up all my available resources or even worse freeze. To the guys who created foobar 2000, well done!

grimpr reviewed v0.9.4.3 on May 22, 2007

One of the few absolute must multitools for audio files on windows, foobar2000 excels at managing,tagging,converting massive amounts of audio files and lists with ease and speed, the cost is a spartan no gimmicks interface which after a while makes a lot of sense as practical utilitarian design. As a sound player holds its merits high,but its main purprose is managing huge amounts of audio files,which shows from its design. It has a very good following of audiophiles and music collectors,somehow lackluster variety of 3rd party plugins compared to the more popular winamp. Foobar2000 devotees swear by the programs audio fidelity output which is excellent but from my tests and setups nothing comes close to the clarity and clear output on the same hardware from Xmplays BASS engine and Videolans decoder. In the end,all of them are excellent freeware programs,superbly engineered but with different purproses. i use foobar2000 for replaygaining my collection,masstagging and managing the directory hierarchy, Mp3tag for converting tags and album arts and XmPlay as my main player for its excellent BASS audio engine.

All of them very highly recommended.

PhucDat reviewed v0.9.4.3 on May 13, 2007

I just uploaded my iPod songs and playlist onto foobar and it changed half my song titles to the retarded four letter nonsense you see when you browse through iPod with windows explorer. I'm scraping it.

White_Flame reviewed v0.9.4.3 on May 1, 2007

it makes up for its ugly looks and its inability for noobs (like me) to find things with its incredibly awsomeness that is foobar!

Mystiqq reviewed v0.9.4.3 on Apr 23, 2007

I give it a five. However, any "newbies" who do not know or care how to modify the existing foobar will not get the "whole experience". For my taste, the default configuration lacks, its simple and works but thats about it.

meteecee reviewed v0.9.4.3 on Apr 22, 2007

over the last few years my entire music collection has been coverted to mp3's, just passed the 1TB mark and have tried many players, i don't belong to any subscription svcs and judge them on "sound" and how well i can manage my library (which includes the size and clarity of the font)
winamp, sonique,(i imagine i need to include itunes .) etc., i recently installed a simple utility called XMplayer which "out of the box" has great "sound" . .i use Real Player Plus w/DFX Audio Enhancement and Plantronics Volume Logic, nothing has come close in all aspects.
Today i installed foobar and i knew to expect a simple interface .
but where's the "sound" ??
i know i have to search for plug-ins but from it's performance "out of the box" i never see it reaching a level where it can replace my current player.
Does it get any better ?
Will it ever sound any better ?

hhravn reviewed v0.9.4.3 on Apr 21, 2007

What cowgaR said! Been using foobar since sonique died, and it gets better with every release.

What you get it, its what the developers want. Simplistic. Minimalistic. Great. You have a ton of options to stick whatever kind of components inthere, and make it look however great and funky you want it to.

Sounds as it should, extensible beyond anything.
*****

cowgaR reviewed v0.9.4.3 on Apr 21, 2007

if you're new to Foobar, don't mind the 'tards giving it less than 5, who can't even find a volume slider (it's there). Giving it 10 (if I could)...

yes, the interface is spartan (THIS IS SPARTAAA!) but by any means ugly or too much simplistic, you can use foobar without any other plugin with a great experience. It is just better looking with plugins...

without any question gazillion light years ahead of any of its competition...

Sully9663 reviewed v0.9.4.3 on Apr 21, 2007

Simplicity at it's best.

Blaxima reviewed v0.9.4.3 on Apr 20, 2007

I'm not going to rip on the reviewer who said plugins are spread all over the place. Instead I will show you that maybe he or she is unaware that they're all here
http://wiki.hydrogenaudi...obar2000:Components_0.9

It does take time to get it to look good but it really is worth it. Its the only player that can play dts files even if you don't have a dts compatible soundcard(requires the dts plugin). Its extremly light on resources and does have the best set of features and sound quality. Don't expect to just install it and be wowed,its not Vista (obviously joking). Just learn to use it and you will see that it is far from "basic". Truss me

This is probably my favorite piece of software so 5* all the way, everyday and twice on Sunday!!

Dreimanis reviewed v0.9.4.3 on Apr 20, 2007

an excellent player. love the tabbed playlists feature.

brunok reviewed v0.9.4.3 on Apr 20, 2007

foobar2000 is a great audio player, with basic features but with many plug-ins that truly shows the potencial of this player. Also, sound quality is ok.

However, it takes a long time to customize it the way you want it, and even some basic features are quite annoying to install. Plug-ins are spread all over the internet, so it's hard to find a good database with up-to-date plug-ins.

Some people just don't have the time to fully customize this player to be as good as other audio players, that's why I gave it a 3. I'm using Windows Media Player 11, mainly because it has a great library and a great search function.

cricri_pingouin reviewed v0.9.4.3 Beta on Apr 17, 2007

The review just preceeding mine was clearly written by someone who relied on prejudiced assumptions and not on actual hand-on testing (as it is too often the case). Foobar2000 is feature packed and has many plug-ins available. The sound quality is also excellent. 5 from me.

XV reviewed v0.9.4.3 Beta on Apr 16, 2007

1. Simply
2. Less Features
3. No Plug-in
3. Mid Quality

belthurgp reviewed v0.9.4.3 Beta on Apr 16, 2007

-anomoly
Foobar is not for folks who like shiny things. Foobar plays music. And it does that like no other player. Oh yes, it can also do other stuff that most other players can do.

If you want shiny stuff and not take pains then go get Winamp. It's for wimpys...

anomoly reviewed v0.9.4.3 Beta on Apr 16, 2007

"many guides, etc". Yeah TOO many, and they all point to MANY more guides. FUGLY gui, terrible customization support, library interface is a joke, and anything it can do can be done with other free software. I am using jetaudio7 atm and all I have to do is embed my covers-that's all; and I did not have to surf the internet for an hour just to skin it. Still, nothing beats xmplay-nothing.

Blaxima reviewed v0.9.4.3 Beta on Apr 16, 2007

If looks are really that important to you then put in the effort it takes to make it look EXACTLY how you would want it. There are plugins that can let you achieve the look you want.

As far as an audio player I have yet to find its equal. I'v been using it for years and still others can't do what it can do, such as play dts files without a dts soundcard

Truely a 5* program

EDIT:Learn to use a program before you post on it!!Slider is there and there are keyboard shortcuts

NO PLUGINS?? IS THAT REVIEWER FOR REAL?? What do you call these then http://wiki.hydrogenaudi...obar2000:Components_0.9

Get a clue

the artist reviewed v0.9.4.3 Beta on Apr 16, 2007

WHERE THE

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK

IS THE VOLUME SLIDER?

Diam0nd reviewed v0.9.4.3 Beta on Apr 16, 2007

I agree, looks indeed can mislead. This is especially the case. Nevermind the GUI, this player in NUMBRE UNO in terms of quality, flexibility and features.

drumcat reviewed v0.9.4.3 Beta on Apr 16, 2007

Foobar deals with tags easily, plays back at 24bit/96000 upsampling, and can assign keys to global shortcuts. I have F10 mapped to random, and it's very convenient.

It recaptures what Winamp2 did so well, but plays modern codecs, and is very pliable. Don't let the looks of the default player intimidate. If you don't run visualizations, this player is for you.

TGB72 reviewed v0.9.4.2 on Feb 25, 2007

I tried foobar some time ago (v0.8) and I didn't find it nothing special comparing it with other players, even more it has the most minimalist interface what in my opinion is a con. Now I came again to this player because I found on it the most easy way to properly transcode some files like ac3 or dts to other formats, and I've to tell that I'm not disappointed with this aspect of foobar. So in conclusion I found the converter & dsp manager the strong points of foobar, the sound quality is good but there are betters (like Apollo 37zz), the interface and media library still very poor.

screamin_jesus reviewed v0.9.4.2 on Feb 18, 2007

Very good player, great sound quality, fast and HIGHLY configurable, doesn't take "hours" to setup there are many guids and setup tutorials to be found online. The most stable player I have ever used and supports many formats

Kozurei reviewed v0.9.4.2 on Dec 20, 2006

I was tired of Winamp's lack of support of Unicode for scrobbling purposes, since I listen to lots of Japanese stuff. Sure, it's not fancy at the start, but it's functional. If you want a simple custom color style, just find the UI Columns plugin, very easy even for newbs. It'll take awhile for me to really appreciate the functionality, but FB2k puts out. Works with my Logitech media keyboard too, which is nice.

1uk3 reviewed v0.9.4.2 on Nov 29, 2006

The best player but would be so much more attractive to new users if it came with a nice skin.

5/5 though for functionality.

Canuckistani reviewed v0.9.4.2 on Nov 29, 2006

I never "doll up" my copy of foobar2000. Sometimes, ugly is a beautiful thing. ;-)

Blaxima reviewed v0.9.4.2 on Nov 29, 2006

Disregard completly the claim of spyware. Isn't it funny that only ONE person has ever said anything about that. Thats because there is NO spyware with this app.

Foobar is the best audio player due to its size(memory), sound quality and the ability to add countless plugins that can change the way it looks to just about anything.

I too gave XMplay a try and if people think foobar is ugly......oh boy. The defualt skin for it has to be one of the ugliest I've ever seen. Not a bad player but lacks much of the functionality that through plugins can be achieved with foobar. XMplay has skins but they do not allow you to display only the info you want and exactly where you want it, with foobar you can.

JEdwardP reviewed v0.9.4.2 on Nov 29, 2006

I've tried XMPlay, and yes, it's quite good. I stick with foobar, though, because:

Its decoders are updated more frequently than XMPlay's (and yes, this DOES matter to me in some cases --- for example: XMPlay's WavPack plug-in is far enough out-of-date that it won't play files encoded with the new --optimize-mono switch).

The default interface of foobar is Spartanly clean, plain, and simple --- some people hate it for this, but I LOVE this about it. XMPlay's default skin is ghastly --- highly colored and inconveniently tiny in its font and buttons. Yes, I could hunt down a better skin, which I did in fact do, but still found foobar's interface to be more comfortable.

Foobar can make use of a couple plug-ins that I find useful such as the ABX comparator, and foo_shutdown.

So while I freely admit that XMPlay has the POTENTIAL to dethrone foobar as my audio player of choice, as of today it hasn't happened.

Five more stars for the best audio player I've ever used.

constust reviewed v0.9.4.2 on Nov 29, 2006

crap spyware

dejavu reviewed v0.9.4.2 on Nov 29, 2006

The Best!

Earwicker reviewed v0.9.4.2 on Nov 29, 2006

Love it. It's the audio player of choice, no bloat, no ghastly cyberish interface, and some great plugins - I especially like the sample rate converter.

Excellent.

ModderXManiac reviewed v0.9.4.2 Beta 2 on Nov 24, 2006

XMplay does the job better for several reasons.

It's less than half the size, it's easy to skin(like it should be) I can have a playlist of over 1,000 songs open on XMPlay and it uses hardly 2 megs of rams(with a skin and visualization in use).

It supports all the codecs this does and more, in a smaller package, and uses EVEN LESS resources even with what looks like a bloated interface and visuals.

anomoly reviewed v0.9.4.2 Beta 2 on Nov 21, 2006

the only software I know that people like & is a joke to configure? and support is similar to alice in wonderland. supports asio which is good

Floodland reviewed v0.9.4.2 Beta 2 on Nov 20, 2006

Mandeep:

1) Best audio quality
2) Simple and unbloated user interface
3) Simple interface, but it let you configure everything you may need
4) Powerful and professional plugins available
5) Pretty low resource usage (memory, CPU)
6) Authentic Freeware: It never tried to report anything to anyone nor install crap in your system.
7) Support all audio format I tried to listen
8) Is fassstt
9) No instalation required: just copy the folder and you save all your settings (no dependencies or useless registry crap)
10) Stable like rock. Never hanged here (and I listen music MANY hours a day)

Do I need to say more?

The only thing I think it should show by default is a volume bar, but it is not a big deal as you can add it later and most keyboards now include volume control keys. So 7/5 if possible

BUSIAK reviewed v0.9.4.2 Beta on Nov 14, 2006

The Beauty of Simplicity !

cloud23 reviewed v0.9.4.2 Beta on Nov 14, 2006

Mandeep, this program is made to be fully customible, so therefore, the better it looks more time is spent. Also this program is best on low processing computer, like a laptop for energy saving as well.

Diam0nd reviewed v0.9.4.2 Beta on Nov 14, 2006

Definately a winner!

Mandeep reviewed v0.9.4.2 Beta on Nov 14, 2006

I always like to test out new applications. I've always used WinAMP because of it's simplicity but with some free time I decided to try foobar. The tests between the two players at Hydrogenaudio forums claim there isn't a sound quality difference between the two players. So if that's the case then what makes this program so great? The hours it takes to find a good config so that it doesn't look ugly? The hours it takes to make it so the program is actually efficient? Please someone enlighten me.

2xG reviewed v0.9.4.2 Beta on Nov 13, 2006

Once configured, foobar is truly the best audio player out there. Heck, I gave up switching to Linux because I couldn't find an equivalent audio player(AmaroK sucks). It's very flexible and configurable.

No, it doesn't have a shiny shaded, textured, or embossed interface. No, it is not for the average computer user. Yes, it takes hours to figure out. Yes, that's what makes it genius.

My main annoyance is the big learning curve, but damn, it's worth it. Best audio player ever.

dono1216 reviewed v0.9.4.2 Beta on Nov 13, 2006

Terrific program. This program is probably too advanced for most people, but for tinkerers it's great.

For newbies, first thing to do after installation (and after setting the music library) is install "Columns UI" (google it). Then read the forum at http://www.hydrogenaudio...510107&showforum=42

and find a look that you like, then download and use it.

Enjoy. If an -even- lighter & faster program is what you want, check out Musikcube (though it's somewhat rudimentary and development is stagnant).

lordgibbness reviewed v0.9.4.2 Beta on Nov 13, 2006

When you get this for the first time download columns_ui. There you will find a nicer interface and a real volume bar. :)

belthurgp reviewed v0.9.4.2 Beta on Nov 13, 2006

Been with FooBar for a number of years and it's been improving ever since. As rightly said below, this is an advanced player for people who want outstanding sound quality and this one delivers it.

constust, if you want good eye candy, go somewhere else. And just because of "fan boys" you gave foobar a 1 shows how immature you are.

JEdwardP reviewed v0.9.4.2 Beta on Nov 13, 2006

Still the best audio player I've ever used.

And, as has already been mentioned more than once here, the default interface DOES HAVE a volume control for those who want/need one.

It can be adjusted in either of two ways:

1) Place your mouse cursor over the dB figure in the status bar (bottom righ-hand corner of the app.), and use your scroll wheel to change the volume level.

2) For those who do not have a scroll wheel on their mouse, or who simply want to use a graphical slider, a la Windows Volume Control applet, simply left-clicking on the aforementioned dB figure will pop-up such a slider.

antigin reviewed v0.9.4.2 Beta on Nov 13, 2006

constust, if you need interface like WinAMP, just install a WinAMP or WinAMP-like-player. Who need equalizer presets, that either finds and downloads, or does them itself. Please, use WinAMP, do not bother this topic. Read description carefully, especially a word "advanced". If you need a volumebar, you must set it. If you need something else, you must set it also. If you need a disco-future style look, you need hands, patience and a bit of brain. If you are a noobie, then read a forums, manuals or try to find help from advanced user.

PS: Put though hundred times the lowest rating, but all the same from it you will not become cleverer.

HotBlack77 reviewed v0.9.4.2 Beta on Nov 13, 2006

Just keeps getting better. By far the best audio player.

constust reviewed v0.9.4.2 Beta on Nov 13, 2006

Quick first impressions...

Not even a volume control slider?

Interface needs a ton of work. Like how about just a player mode? Here's a hint: http://img70.imageshack.us/img70/3859/wakb0.png

Should come with some default equalizer presets out of the box.

Originaly a 2 but because of the fanboys, I'm dropping it to a 1.

Diam0nd reviewed v0.9.4.1 on Nov 4, 2006

Most flexible. Best audio quality. A complete winner. Highly recommended! :D

BUSIAK reviewed v0.9.4.1 on Oct 16, 2006

Full respect to Peter Pawlowski. Great job! Exampel for others like me. But I'm not so good as you are Peter for now. Now I'm gratefull to you for your application. I think It's the best player in the world. Easy/Simple looking but strong inside. So much power in this few kilobites. Thanks again.

Diam0nd reviewed v0.9.4.1 Beta 1 on Oct 10, 2006

The best audio player. WinAmp got pwnd long time ago. GOD SAVE FOOBAR!

Changes in v0.9.4.1:
- Improved compliance with Vorbis Comment and APEv2 tag specifications - thanks to Spoon for pointing inconsistencies
- Added gapless playback of MP4 files encoded with new iTunes
- Various bug fixes

cloud23 reviewed v0.9.4.1 Beta 1 on Oct 9, 2006

In this new beta, not many changes from the older version,Does the same, not to use much resources so thats the main thing that foobar has over other players.

gawd21 reviewed v0.9.4.1 Beta 1 on Oct 9, 2006

I have never found a better program yet! This beta holds true to this too.

WebWarp reviewed v0.9.4.1 Beta 1 on Oct 9, 2006

Shuwdown speed ... Now who would EVER shut down this wonderfull app :(

norz reviewed v0.9.4 on Sep 26, 2006

Changes 0.9.4

* Properties dialog improvements
* Startup/shutdown speed optimizations
* Added LAME version and partial settings detection for MP3 files
* Replaced old “Fix MP3 Header” command with a new set of MP3-related utility commands
* “ID3v2 Writer Compatibility Mode” with workarounds for common bugs in other software’s ID3v2 implementations
* “Copy” button in components list
* freedb support now included with the installer
* Rewritten embedded cuesheet metadata handling
* Rewritten ReplayGain info editor dialog
* ABX bugfixes
* Added WMA tag editing support

JEdwardP reviewed v0.9.4 on Sep 25, 2006

The shutdown speed optimizations are noticeable and welcomed. For those who may be missing fooassoc.exe, all its functionality remains within the program. Just see File>Preferences>file types.

adamlau reviewed v0.9.4 on Sep 25, 2006

They should have left fooassoc.exe in the package.

sld reviewed v0.9.4 Beta 3 on Sep 23, 2006

Just when most people thought it couldn't get any better...

I can feel the shutdown speed increase. It's one of the little things that add up. Kudos.

mengo reviewed v0.9.4 Beta 3 on Sep 16, 2006

this is just another amazing peace of SW. there is still not a player that even comes close. think i tried the must of them. Keep up the good work.

i would like a better jukebox function thou :-)

ccombe reviewed v0.9.4 Beta 3 on Sep 15, 2006

best audio player bar none - keeps getting better and better - check out the new track info mod component and single playlist columns very impressive

Joco reviewed v0.9.4 Beta 2 on Sep 12, 2006

My path Winamp -> JetAudio -> FB2K. With other nice skins, I got annoyed by their microscopic buttons and tiny display of the playlist. Foobar is much more usable, the playlist and frequently used buttons are easily accessible. Foobar is even compatible with Media keys on MS keyboard. FB is fast, small memory footprint, has equal if not better technical features than other players and it is free. If it is not enough to please people, then I would like to know about their audio requirements.

Smoothie reviewed v0.9.4 Beta 2 on Sep 12, 2006

Great app, have used WMP / iTunes / Winamp in the past, but foobar2000 beats them hands-down in terms of stability, speed and 'liteness'.

I don't see how you can find the interface ugly - it's just a list - and it makes finding what you want exceptionally easy.

For me, a music player is for listening to, not looking at. So, foobar2000 is perfect for keeping in the system tray and occasionally opening for quickly finding tracks. The sound quality seems fine (I'm no audiophile) and the few plugins I've tried seem to work fine.

If you're tired of the bloat and just want to try something that does the job, give this a go. I was surprised to find that it was by far the most appealing of the ones I've used.

WebWarp reviewed v0.9.4 Beta 2 on Sep 12, 2006

Just keeping better and better :D

sQin reviewed v0.9.4 Beta 1 on Sep 8, 2006

the default, not tweaked foobar2000 generally isn't better than apollo, winamp or other simple players.
Much work needed to match iTunes simplicity and style

Zygi reviewed v0.9.4 Beta 1 on Sep 8, 2006

@improvelence: you don't have to add 50k tweaks or plugins, where have you heard that bulls*** ? Itunes is too bloated for me, i don't need another resource hog in the background. MPC is great, but its video player after all and thats what for i'm using it. It looks like you're too lazy to find hairs on your head if you can't use foobar. My sis is using foobar and she isn't any genius when it comes to computers.

moserw reviewed v0.9.4 Beta 1 on Sep 8, 2006

I have just started using it after years of Winampm, MediaMonkey, J. River Media Center etc. I really really don't think the interface/GUI is all that ugly. Sure it could look a lot better, but that would probably add to the RAM and System Resources footprint. IMHO its an exceptional player and needs to be checked out without fail. I have not yet started with the plugins, but must say I am definitely impressed.

http://www.nela.in/

englishmen reviewed v0.9.4 Beta 1 on Sep 7, 2006

improvelence the tweaks and plugins is what i the all the other people like about it, you can do what you want with it. It does not come with a load of crap that no one wants you make it what you want.

improvelence reviewed v0.9.4 Beta 1 on Sep 7, 2006

Works excellently after 50,000 tweaks and plugins. Overrated. Sound quality is not that great. Itunes and MPC is all you really need. This program uses much more RAM than it should.

benZin reviewed v0.9.4 Beta 1 on Sep 7, 2006

Definitively a must have.

Zankur reviewed v0.9.4 Beta 1 on Sep 7, 2006

simply superb.

tannenwheel reviewed v0.9.4 Beta 1 on Sep 6, 2006

now there's a "compatibility mode" said to be "non-specification compliant, slow, activates worarounds for common bugs". tell us what it's like. rofl. don't know what it realy does, but tagging tool "mp3infp" says tags written in this mode are "id3v2.3" (not id3v2.4 as otherwise). jet my id3v2.3 compatible hardware player does not recognize these tags. oh well. thought about upgrading my foobar0.83. naaahh!

WebWarp reviewed v0.9.4 Beta 1 on Sep 6, 2006

Now the beta came online :)

thx!

The Seeker 11 reviewed v0.9.4 Beta 1 on Sep 6, 2006

Changelog:

* Properties dialog improvements
* Startup/shutdown speed optimizations
* Added LAME version and partial settings detection for MP3 files
* Replaced old "Fix MP3 Header" command with a new set of MP3-related utility commands
* "ID3v2 Writer Compatibility Mode" with workarounds for common bugs in other software's ID3v2 implementations
* "Copy" button in components list
* freedb support now included with the installer
* Rewritten embedded cuesheet metadata handling
* Rewritten ReplayGain info editor dialog

johnk119 reviewed v0.9.3.1 on Aug 13, 2006

"Dont judge the book by it's cover" This program is like an ugly women with a beautiful heart.

dono1216 reviewed v0.9.3.1 on Aug 13, 2006

To: Crono, I'm a "standard-user" (=bachelor's degree in computer science) and I don't know how to customize the ugly UI. I'll re-read the wiki someday when I have the time.

Anyways this program is *really* good.

Velocition reviewed v0.9.3.1 on Aug 13, 2006

I just love how foobar2000 continues to give me what I want, and without the bloat. The new tab UI is a great improvement since the start of the 0.9.x series. This specific build (0.9.3.1) is rock solid, and so have been most of the builds since build 0.8.3.

kooshini reviewed v0.9.3.1 on Aug 13, 2006

This is a 5 star app - however recently i have found that some mp3s for example (Josh_Wink-Ministry_Of_Sound_Session-SAT-09-08-2006-1KING) decide that they are only 25:42 in length when wmplayer thinks they are 51:25 plus the seek times on long mps are still a little slow. Apart from that , del *.othermp3players :)

HurricaneGame reviewed v0.9.3.1 on Aug 13, 2006

Best audio player around. Much better than Winamp.

juhani reviewed v0.9.3.1 on Aug 13, 2006

I'm a new user too and I simply love it. Works much better than winamp for me. -peace-

crowbar82 reviewed v0.9.3 on Aug 6, 2006

Agree with Crono.

Im a new Foobar user and I think this app deserv a 5

Crono` reviewed v0.9.3 on Aug 6, 2006

Great app, but developers should add some predefined display formatting for columns UI etc, just in case some standard-user doesn't know how to personalize it and doesn't want the "ugly" default.

klevo reviewed v0.9.3 on Aug 6, 2006

Best audio player, because its small footprint and the best playback quality around.

FlAshdobe reviewed v0.9.3 on Aug 5, 2006

I can't live without this!

HurricaneGame reviewed v0.9.3 on Aug 5, 2006

One of my best audio players.

The Seeker 11 reviewed v0.9.3 Beta 4 on Jul 31, 2006

In regards to the volume control, you can just hover your mouse over the dB panel and use your scroll wheel accordingly.

sld reviewed v0.9.3 Beta 4 on Jul 31, 2006

And you'd think people would've gotten used to the lack of a volume control, I mean, what's a keyboard for, keeping your house keys?

I use Winamp too, so keep your rants off me. I am equally at ease with either player, but Foobar gets the stars for technicality and simplicity (from a geek's perspective, of course).

Looks like people who used to diss its user interface are resigned to it. ;)

dejavu reviewed v0.9.3 Beta 3 on Jul 25, 2006

Best Player! Great explanation JEdwardP!

JEdwardP reviewed v0.9.3 Beta 3 on Jul 24, 2006

Ape support still exists via plug-in, and you don't even need to visit a third-party site to get it. I don't have many Ape files, since I prefer WavPack, but this version plays what few I do have as well as 0.8.3 did.

As stated by another reviewer, for those who want a volume control on the GUI, there ALREADY IS one; just click the Db level on the status bar, and the volume control will pop up like a menu.

Another five stars for the best player I've ever used. Nearly two years, and counting, and I've never looked back.

roj reviewed v0.9.3 Beta 3 on Jul 24, 2006

Slowly but surely, the niceties are being added. However, there are still issues. APE support is one obvious drawback. Fix that - everyone else has. Lack of a volume control ON THE INTERFACE PROPER (no, I'm not ever going to let go of that until it's fixed - it's ommision is moronic).

However, there is discernible progress, albeit at a decidedly slow pace.

THREE stars (a volume control on the interface replacing the useless little graphical doohickey display next to the progress slider will get it four stars).

ghammer reviewed v0.9.3 Beta 3 on Jul 24, 2006

No major improvements over 8.3
The ID3v2.4 thing?
Bah, the same as foobar's old insistence on APE tags on MP3 files. It's his program, sure.
My files though.

And no, I don't think fb has the reach to force hardware makers to adapt ID3v2.4

Pulled APE support out as well.
No thanks, I'll stick with 8.3, works just fine the way it is.

lordgibbness reviewed v0.9.3 Beta 3 on Jul 24, 2006

To answer the question below: Context menu (i.e. right click in playlist) > File Operations > Delete File(s)

Regarding ID3 tagging I believe that quite a few people wanted ID3v2.3 when foobar 0.9 was first released, but I suppose v2.4 is the latest (and greatest) and so perhaps this will be the catalyst required to get other software (and hardware) to start supporting it. For example, mp3tag has now started supporting ID3v2.4 (although it is optional).

P.S. There is a volume control (on the default UI) if you click on the decibel reading in the bottom right corner. However, if you use Columns_UI interface it comes with a volume contol!

Joco reviewed v0.9.3 Beta 3 on Jul 24, 2006

“File Operations / Delete File(s)” now uses Recycle Bin:

Where is "File Operation" ? I don't see it anywhere. While listenting a song. If I don't like, I would like to remove it from the play list AND delete the mp3 from the file system. How to do that?

EDIT: Thanks for lordgibbness help. Right click was the first thing I checked. Actually, "File Operations" only appears if MassTagger plugin is installed.

Blaxima reviewed v0.9.3 Beta 3 on Jul 24, 2006

I had jumped around from player to player but when I finally gave foobar a chance (v.8.3) I've never looked back.
Foobar has
-The best sound quality
-Highly customizable (with just a few plug-ins)
-Lots of great plug-ins
-A very helpfull community
-Very light on resources
-Aside from getting you laid (which some might need to release that tension) what more could you want out of a FREE audio player.
So while it might be missing some things it does what it does extremly well so the negative feedback is really not based on the program just features that some feel justifies such hostile reviews. If you have a problem with the features perhaps you should write a program that suites your needs instead of letting others do that for you. Again the bottom line here is that its a great player period.
Did I mention that its FREE

demetrisk reviewed v0.9.3 Beta 3 on Jul 24, 2006

I would be unhappy if I had to use another audio player.

HOWEVER, what tannenwheel complains about is a real issue. ID3V2.4 is around since 1999, and it should be supported by all players by now, but the fact is that it is not.

I you want interoperability with other players, software or hardware (of which almost none has proper support for ID3V2.4), the behaviour of fb2k can be a pain in the neck. For example, if I want to share mp3s with friends, I have to load them to Mp3tag and save the tags as ID3V2.3, to be sure that non-Latin characters will appear properly.

For this, and only for this, I give 4 to one of the best pieces of software I have used on Windows. We want optional write support for ID3V2.3!

tannenwheel reviewed v0.9.3 Beta 3 on Jul 24, 2006

it does not support id3v2.3 tags. and configurability of the way it taggs is verry limited. for no reason exept the personality disorder of the author and the blue & green meme of the conformistic coauthors or bboard idiots who are willing to melt with that s*** to feel on the king side. a standart is something that has been interspersed, not something that is defined by stinky powerhungry wishfull thinking. id3v2.4 is not a standard because you say so. it's only a standard when every device supports it, wich will take another three years or so. i guess i will have to stick with foobar 0.83 till then and i ll send a lot of voodo asskicks toward your personality disorder. flame me now mother****ers.

also the gui's (collumnui & masstager's) acces to tagging features could be much better. i use macros and menus from a third party tool (powerpro) to have perfect acces and i think it's ****ing lame that no one recognizes how much masstaggingoperations with keyboard could be improved without real efford exept better ui design. not my problem though. if you are happy with needing twice as long to masstag than go ahead.

antigin reviewed v0.9.3 Beta 2 on Jul 18, 2006

Fabulously GRrrreat player. You give a pure qualitative site (foobar2000 package), all you need materials (offsite and links) and tools (components and done scripts through the web), that you could construct your own house for all your needs. Get it! If you are the housewife, then forget about it idea and stay away from this player.

Danny7 reviewed v0.9.3 Beta 2 on Jul 18, 2006

Getting better and better.
It's good to see a native support for more codecs.
This player is so tweakable that every person can his own unique design and look.

lordgibbness reviewed v0.9.3 Beta 2 on Jul 18, 2006

"it's nothing more then a basic mp3 player that does nothing more special then the other popular onces on the market."

foobar2000 is actually a very advanced piece of software that supports replaygain, tagging&renaming, scripting, asio and kernel streaming output, many input formats, many more plugins, album art, lyrics, etc.

Peter gives it to you in its most basic form, but can be extended with the multitude of plugins available. I have just scripted myself a nice playlist design with album art and track info, a media library and visualisations and it now looks nothing like the picture above (take a look at the pics on the fb2k forum for good examples).

I'm sure that once the development work settles down and design issues are finalised that you will see a 1.0 release (possibly even including a different interface).

There is actually a 'final' release of v0.9.2 at the moment, this beta version will eventually become v0.9.3. The betas don't need to be used by everyone so in your case I would recommend using the 'final'. I don't see a problem with a beta being put out for testing by those who wish to test it...

belthurgp reviewed v0.9.3 Beta 2 on Jul 18, 2006

the best.

styckx, i don't know what to tell you or call you...go back to sleep.

Canuckistani reviewed v0.9.3 Beta 2 on Jul 18, 2006

I think webcrawler hit the nail on the head. The hardware you are using will determine whether foobar2000 will sound the same as any other player or amazing. I use a Turtle Beach Montego DDL sound card, Denon reciever and Klipsch shielded bookshelf speakers instead of "computer speakers" which I gave up on for being too crappy no matter how much money you waste on them. With this quality of gear foobar2000 is like aural sex. ;-)

Diam0nd reviewed v0.9.3 Beta 2 on Jul 18, 2006

Best player ever.

styckx you are a friggin IDIOT.

styckx reviewed v0.9.3 Beta 2 on Jul 18, 2006

Holy crap, I've been off the net for close to a year, come back, and this god awful player is STILL in beta form, and still releases a new one once a week. RELEASE A FINAL. Jesus, even final releases are technically still "beta", bugs are never fully eliminated, release a final, space your releases out and act like a normal programmer. I swear to god they are playing off the name "beta" cause people instictivly think they are getting a sneak peek of some breakthrough new product. OMG I"M A BETA TESTER@$@#@# But the reality is, it's nothing more then a basic mp3 player that does nothing more special then the other popular onces on the market.

Mystenes reviewed v0.9.3 Beta 2 on Jul 18, 2006

Great an getting better each build ;-)

webcrawler reviewed v0.9.3 Beta 2 on Jul 18, 2006

Wonderful player. Don't know what some other reviewers say, but to me, the sound is superior to any other player I've tried. I use Sennheiser HD 280 Pro headphones with Createive SB Live! 5.1 soundcard and foobar is the only music player that gives the low ear-rumbling bass.

sQin reviewed v0.9.3 Beta 2 on Jul 18, 2006

i think wmp11 and winamp with dsps sound best with crappy speakers. Software player does not make sense to sound quality with better sound card and speakers. Foobar2000 improved a lot this year

dejavu reviewed v0.9.3 Beta 2 on Jul 17, 2006

I only use this wonderful Player! Five Stars!

improvelence reviewed v0.9.3 Beta 2 on Jul 17, 2006

Highly configurable. Still, foobar is overrated and the sound is not as great as everyone says, nor is the memory usage.

Darken reviewed v0.9.3 Beta 2 on Jul 17, 2006

Excellent player!

BUSIAK reviewed v0.9.3 Beta 1 on Jul 14, 2006

Simply the best and I like it

Diam0nd reviewed v0.9.3 Beta 1 on Jul 12, 2006

Best player ever!

benZin reviewed v0.9.3 Beta 1 on Jul 12, 2006

Plug-ins are they compatible with this version 0.9.3 beta 1 ?

JEdwardP reviewed v0.9.3 Beta 1 on Jul 12, 2006

After rating the 0.8x series 5-stars, I had to lower that for the 0.9x series, due to its lack of Speex support. With this beta however, Speex is now natively supported, and the bitrate changes even show in the status bar as they do with other VBR codecs.

So the best does indeed get better, and with that, a return to my accustomed 5-star rating. In one sentence, I could sum up why it's the best player for me: It has virually everything I want, and almost as important, virtually NONE of what I do NOT want.

webcrawler reviewed v0.9.2 on Jun 7, 2006

Best sound quality bar none!

I have Sennheiser studio headphones and SB Live! 5.1 sound card. I tried same mp3s on all other players and on foobar, and foobar has the best sound quality by far. I do not consider myself an audiophile, nor do I listen to music all that much, but the deep ear-pleasing subtle bass that my headphones are capable of, only comes out when I play my mp3s in foobar.

lordgibbness reviewed v0.9.2 on Jun 7, 2006

darthbeads, use columsn_ui with albumlist as one of the panels - see foobar gallery for an idea of what this may look like: http://www.hydrogenaudio...dex.php?showtopic=43077

Also, ghammer, the APL component in 0.8.3 was known to be buggy hence the reason that it is not in the fb2k installer. It is still available on the components page, however: http://www.foobar2000.com/components/index.html

matt2971 reviewed v0.9.2 on Jun 7, 2006

Perfect for the computer-savvy user (AKA geek apparantly) who wants a fully functional and completely user-configurable media player that uses the least resources possible. And has tabbed playlists.

If you're looking for a media player that looks flashy, and does lots of things apart from play music... then this isn't for you.

5*s as usual.

taxis reviewed v0.9.2 on Jun 7, 2006

Media player with support for many sound formats and many configuration options, at the same time rather lightweight. Personally, I also like that the player does not FORCE a skin upon myself, as I prefer a plain user interface.

It would be great if foobar could include rudimentary MIDI support, so there would be no need to switch to another player for those files.

ghammer reviewed v0.9.2 on Jun 7, 2006

Ok player.
Losing functionality with each release.
APL support is an example.
0.8.3 is still the best version IMO.

benZin reviewed v0.9.2 on Jun 7, 2006

Always on top !!

darthbeads reviewed v0.9.2 on Jun 7, 2006

Great music player = 5 points

Barely acceptabe media library = 2 points

Extremely unintuitive functionality to any but the geekiest user = 2 points

Average rating = 3 points

WebWarp reviewed v0.9.2 on Jun 7, 2006

Weeeee finally .. And now please don't rank this low you guys who doesnt border offering time to learn this great player to know..! Thx!

ArKay74 reviewed v0.9.2 Beta 5 on Jun 5, 2006

Who needs silly, dull-looking skins when XP has skinning?

Still my favorite player.

ModderXManiac reviewed v0.9.2 Beta 5 on Jun 5, 2006

I won't take back that I feel XMPlay and 1by1 make much better players. XMPlay, with all the codecs this has; is skinnable, better equalizer, even lighter on resources(with visuals), and is just downright more productive.

forgie reviewed v0.9.2 Beta 5 on Jun 5, 2006

Really wish they would add a better synchronization tool so I can add new music to the library without it having to do a full rebuild of the library. Currently torn between using Foobar or using Musikcube. Cmon Foobar guys, make my choice easier!

linh1987 reviewed v0.9.2 Beta 4 on May 31, 2006

Simple, best music player ever!

Frank Bicking reviewed v0.9.2 Beta 4 on May 30, 2006

ModderXManiac: If you would actually look at new versions instead of repeating outdated information, you would have known that there is a volume control. Just click on the x.xx dB display at the status bar.

With Columns UI you can even have a volume slider toolbar.

ModderXManiac reviewed v0.9.2 Beta 4 on May 30, 2006

XMplay is better hands down; supports all the codecs this does, skinnable, smaller, even lighter on memory & cpu usage, HAS A VOLUME SWITCH, better equalizer...need I go on?

ccombe reviewed v0.9.2 Beta 4 on May 30, 2006

Best music playeer ever bar none.
Also has a great community on the sites forum, you can get your questions, configs, custom buttons etc... everyone wants to help

tommie reviewed v0.9.2 Beta 3 on May 26, 2006

No HTTPS support.

anarkhy reviewed v0.9.2 Beta 3 on May 25, 2006

fully cuztomizable and free! love foobar and miranda!

JEdwardP reviewed v0.9.2 Beta 3 on May 18, 2006

The porting of plug-ins is coming along, but until the program can play speex files again, either natively or via plug-in, I'll have to rate it a 4, rather than the 5 I used to. It's still a 5-star application in other respects though.

PetePat reviewed v0.9.2 Beta 3 on May 18, 2006

Still using 0.8.3 because 0.9 is forcing id3v2.4 as a standard, while id3v2.3 is more compatible with more hardware/software and I use id3v2 only for compatibility purposes if i wasnt i would use ape for tag.
Still the best player.

benZin reviewed v0.9.2 Beta 3 on May 18, 2006

The best audio player.

reddie : Look at my reply under the yours.

Danny7 reviewed v0.9.2 Beta 3 on May 17, 2006

@dono1216
But it CAN play wma files.
From version 0.9.1 and up it's officially supported.

Five stars for an awesome customizable player.

dono1216 reviewed v0.9.2 Beta 3 on May 17, 2006

If it played WMA files, I'd use it more. (ducks)

reddie reviewed v0.9.2 Beta 2 on May 11, 2006

foobar2000 rulez ;)

how to change foobar into this: http://surreal.nm.ru/foobar2000.png ??

benZin reviewed v0.9.2 Beta 2 on May 9, 2006

Good, I love, *woot* ! :D The best audio player. It's fast, simply and powerful.
Winamp, die. iTunes on Windows, die.

Oh, the interface can be change of course.Columns UI is the base. Look at my foobar : http://img374.imageshack...g374/3480/foobar3pk.png
And many foobar can be looked at Google : http://images.google.fr/...F-8&sa=N&tab=wi
On foobar's forums, many tips to custom its.

foobar2000 is the Messiah.

tereshchenko reviewed v0.9.2 Beta 2 on May 8, 2006

photonboy, obviously you've never used Foobar2000 - its media library is one of the best and can do all you mentioned...

ye110mann reviewed v0.9.1 on Apr 27, 2006

No ASIO support since 0.9. It was supposed to be added in 0.9.1 but it's broken. Until it's fixed, I have to stick to 0.8.3. It's a shame.
[edit] ASIO support was fixed.

photonboy reviewed v0.9.1 on Apr 26, 2006

I give this a 4 because it's free and does the advertised job. However, other programs such as iTunes, WXMusik, Winamp, MediaMonkey and much more that I'd rather use:
http://fileforum.betanew...art=0&sortby=rating

Who cares about size? Most programs take about 1% of my CPU and less than .01% of my hard drive. I'd rather have an interface that sorts by album, artist etc. My collection is WAY too large to use Foobar.

nRadeo reviewed v0.9.1 on Apr 26, 2006

This player is nice, but ... not such a great design as winamp!
But, great for listening music.

DJHasis reviewed v0.9.1 on Apr 24, 2006

Like just you said bid!
It can play almost every kind of music, light-weighted for older pcs and it can also save streams and convert music!

bid reviewed v0.9.1 on Apr 24, 2006

If you don't care about fancy UI, this is one hell of a media player!

Canuckistani reviewed v0.9.1 on Apr 24, 2006

Got 9.1 from another source on yesterday morning and used it continuously all day. Built like a brick house - solid.

dejavu reviewed v0.9.1 on Apr 24, 2006

Great Software! Five Stars!
My wishlist to genu: please make a better software!

benZin reviewed v0.9.1 Beta 1 on Apr 19, 2006

Just excellent

Zerbe reviewed v0.9.1 Beta 1 on Apr 17, 2006

Great program, but I give it a 4 b/c I think some of the addons/plugins should be part of the program and not extras. A lot of the plugins have yet to be updated to support v0.9.

Eric20 reviewed v0.9.1 Beta 1 on Apr 16, 2006

Please, I really doubt that.
This is the best audio player ive used to date, and you can make it look however you want with the Columns UI addon.
I highly recommend this.

genu reviewed v0.9.1 Beta 1 on Apr 14, 2006

Wow, with all the respect I can make a program better then this in a few days in VS2005. There is like nothing special to it.

JEdwardP reviewed v0.9.1 Beta 1 on Apr 13, 2006

I never use WMA myself, so I can't bring back my usual 5-star rating on the basis of it being added (though I have no problem with it being included for those who DO need it).

My strike against the 0.9x series is that it has no support for speex files, which 0.8.3 did (via plug-in). Therefore, I can only give it 4, for now, but it is a five-star program in other respects.

Blaxima reviewed v0.9.1 Beta 1 on Apr 13, 2006

WHAT?!?!?!?!

I just finished getting version .9 lookin the way I wanted.

Oh yeah by the way this is the best audio player out there. Great sound quality and not so much as a dent of memory use.

AlexanderKraeved reviewed v0.9.1 Beta 1 on Apr 13, 2006

At last, WMA support has been added.

pyridox reviewed v0.9.1 Beta 1 on Apr 13, 2006

While this doesn't have the most beautiful interface, it uses less resources because of it's plain front-end. The engine produces superb sound quality too. I use this for playing my MP3 audio collection.

webcrawler reviewed v0.9.1 Beta 1 on Apr 13, 2006

Best player hands down. Best sound quality reproduction too! True, it's not friendly to a new user, but once you learn it, you love it.

benZin reviewed v0.9 on Apr 12, 2006

The best audio player. Good job, thanks :)

stopbuggingme reviewed v0.9 on Mar 27, 2006

I use winamp but think it's getting a bit bloated. I'm playing around with foobar and it looks like its got potential.

My criticism? It's not very user or time friendly for newbies to navigate through and learn foobar's expanded capabilities.

ccombe reviewed v0.9 on Mar 20, 2006

best version yet...
amazing how good this thing is
make sure u download the columns UI component to make it even better..

all we need now is the component developers to update their components and we are set

nerrad reviewed v0.9 on Mar 20, 2006

Brilliant! FB2K is the best audio player out there, period. None of the others come close. It's not loaded with all those ugly skins, doesn't try to take over all your media files, doesn't add stupid Services, doesn't keep crap running in the background, doesn't try to rename and rearrange all your music files, etc. Foobar2000 is simply a lean, mean playing machine. The audio output is excellent! Third-party plugins make foobar fully customizable. Supports multiple playlist, loads extremely fast, can tag your files and/or convert them to different formats. Built-in Replay Gain scanner is a bonus. This is the player everyone "in the know" uses. Go get it folks! Once you use FB2K, you'll never settle for anything else.

JEdwardP reviewed v0.9 on Mar 20, 2006

I temporarily give it a 4 rather than the usual 5, because it presently lacks support for Speex. Some formats previously supported via plug-in are now supported natively, but unfortunately Speex isn't among these, so I must wait for someone to update the plug-in and make it 0.9 compatible.

toms65 reviewed v0.9 on Mar 20, 2006

foobar2000 is one of those programs: once you started using them, you just don't use any other one. It's nice, simple, fast, it has all what an audio player needs and nothing else.

dejavu reviewed v0.9 on Mar 20, 2006

Perfect!

Canuckistani reviewed v0.9 on Mar 20, 2006

I've been using the final since Saturday morning. It's nice and stable with no unwelcome surprises.

photonboy reviewed v0.9 Release Candidate (Updated) on Mar 15, 2006

I really don't get the fascination. I've tried it and compared it to many others.

Wxmusik, iTunes and Musicmatch 10 are much better in my book. My CPU uses no more than 2% for them with my Audigy 2 sound card so CPU usage isn't an issue. This program only does a fraction of what these others do.

My main issue is the way it's organized. I like the iTunes method with the browser expanded to show albums, genres etc grouped for easy selection.

ccombe reviewed v0.9 Release Candidate (Updated) on Mar 14, 2006

quite simply the best audio player in the business..

extremly customisable and a developer community which keeps everything fixed and upto date.

can't wait till its final

benZin reviewed v0.9 Release Candidate (Updated) on Mar 14, 2006

The best audio player for Windows :)

cmagic reviewed v0.9 Beta 14 on Mar 8, 2006

Well, I got into foobar to replace Soundforge Actually. I couldn't stand with Winamp's stupid sound, WMP's too much effect sound, and many other bad colorization which is always introduced with players that too arrogant to admit that they only have a substandard wave alteration programming. So, I used soundforge solely to play my musics. But after I tried foobar, those days are over.. foobar has a quality that match wavelab and soundforge, but with player capabilities.

I just wondering what gets into those stupid interface oriented people? Let's say this... foobar is not designed to be on your desktop. I hate it when it appears on my desktop like Winamp or many other stupid music player. I used to put Winamp on my title bar to keep it away from me, but what gives? When I resize my window, it often gets in my way. So, who cares about appearance or interface.. The only interface I need is:
I open my music collection folder, right click album folder, and choose "play on foobar" or "Enqueue on foobar". Done. And foobar is the best for it. I don't care if it doesn't even have any button or window at all. Well, just keep that playlist anyway.

Also, what's the problem with you HAVE to see the interface? Music is meant to accompany you.. I listen to it while I am working, play some games, replace game's music, or entertainment me while I am asleep. volume control? See the speaker icon on tray bar? Click on it.. Also I am sure most modern keyboard are equipped with volume control button.

Even on my case, volume control bar has no means at all.. you can lower it all the way down, but my speaker will still play the music loudly. That's the way ASIO should work. foobar sends the music material directly into your sound card without touching it at all. And then, my Prodigy will send that data into digital out without touching it too.. that way, the music stream will reach expensive home theatre setup untouched. On high end sound card, that behaviour is to be expected.. so, unless you have an inferior sound card which can't enjoy foobar's best feature anyway, volume control on its interface is useless. Worse than that, volume control manipulates wave forms. If it is not done correctly, it will destroy your music material. Foobar chose to send 1db as 1db, 100db as 100db, leaving it untouched.

And, for someone that said they wait like forever, my music collection exceeds 7000 number, occupying about 100 GB on hard drive. And foobar has no problem on loading them all.

Moreover, foobar is one and only thing that able to play my music "correctly". I have a collection spanning from MP3s, AACs, FLACs, APEs, DTS-WAV, AC3s, OGGs, and many else. I can just put them in, and it plays correctly.. And it is the only thing in the world that can send DTS-WAV as "real" DTS to my receiver. Other player including winamp and WMP can only send white noises stereo signal to my receiver.

5 star... can't leave without it... HELL, can't even sit in front of my computer without it at all.

bouchonx reviewed v0.9 Release Candidate (Updated) on Mar 6, 2006

???(supports 7-Zip, RAR, ZIP, GZIP)???
It's a very good product...

But there is no 7zip support like in the 0.8.3!!!

???(supports 7-Zip, RAR, ZIP, GZIP)???

gate1975mlm reviewed v0.9 Release Candidate (Updated) on Mar 6, 2006

Agree the best media player!

allsiante reviewed v0.9 Release Candidate (Updated) on Mar 6, 2006

best. there. is.

Canuckistani reviewed v0.9 Release Candidate (Updated) on Mar 6, 2006

It's ugly, complicated, counter-intuitive and the best audio player out there for any price. Go figure.

Xilon reviewed v0.9 Release Candidate (Updated) on Mar 6, 2006

uhh I don't nkow how old the version your using is mate, but volume control has been in foobar since I started using it (0.8.2 or 0.8.3) so I don't know wth you're talking about there.

Foobar may be a bit "hardcore" or seem to be, but you don't have to personalise foobar... just install column_ui (to make it look a bit better, the default formatting strings are ok too) and head over to the formating string database (the link should be somewhere on the columns_ui wiki). It has heaps of really cool formating strings ready to download and import - just like a skin.

Personally I don't mind the vast posibilities of customizing foobar, in fact I love it... it allows me to totally adapt foobar to my current VS etc. It's just great!

anomoly reviewed v0.9 Release Candidate (Updated) on Mar 6, 2006

IF- it were easy to customize I would still be using it. I use jetaudio(skinnable)with a creative x-fi extreme snd crd. PLEASE- I am sticking with nero for any disk burning because it is robust & just works. The fact it took them so long to integrate a vol control is rediculous (I bought an imon knob rc so I don't give a fig anyways). However if I had a nice onko or such stereo system with some orb speakers I would migrate back to this-maybe. The fact it practically takes a programmer to make it look & act in a personal way I do not have time for-screw that.

Mystenes reviewed v0.9 Release Candidate (Updated) on Mar 6, 2006

i can't live without it

sQin reviewed v0.9 Release Candidate (Updated) on Mar 6, 2006

volume bar is present in latest Columns UI component http://music.morbo.org/beta.php

stopbuggingme reviewed v0.9 Release Candidate (Updated) on Mar 6, 2006

It's very good at being what it aims to be -- which is not a cool, easy and intuitive media player. But if you're keen, you can spend your time making it work exactly like you want it to.

matt2971 -- get over yourself :)

matt2971 reviewed v0.9 Release Candidate (Updated) on Mar 6, 2006

Foobar & Winamp both work, and that's all that ultimately matters.

The argument about which is best comes down to the age-old difference between people who strive for specialization, configurability, flexibility and other such ideas of perfection from their software, and those who just want a generalized, good-looking, and easy to use out-the-box without reading the manual piece of software.

It's a bit like an audiophile vs a normal stereo-system buyer.

My music system cost in excess of £2000, but is comprised of seperates made by a variety of manufacturers that most normal stereo buyers won't have heard of (Rega, Naim etc). It doesn't look particularly good stacked up, has very few gadgets, knobs and flashing lights, and certainly no graphic equalizer, but sounds much better than some flashy all-in-one midi system by Denon or Technics or the like. Yet, the buyers of those system may not care about that, and still get to listen to their music!

It's a geek thing really!

To sum up, those who use winamp also probably use:

- A shiny midi system or cheap seperates by the same manuacturer with flashing lights and a graphic equalizer.

- An iPod

- A brand new PC that looks great, but soon fills up with junk and runs well below peak performance

- An AOL internet connection!

- Internet Explorer

- An all-in-one Av/Firewall program, possibly from Norton.

Those who use foobar also probably use:

- A decent audio system

- A more value for money MP3 player that you plug into your PC as a USB hard drive without installing any software

- A slightly older, but tweaked to maximum performance PC.

- Anything other than AOL

- Firefox, Maxthon, another alternative browser, or possibly not MS Windows at all

- A firewall that does only what it's meant to do and free (Kerio 2.1.5 for example) and similar AV.

Which kind of bod are u?

:-)

Frank Bicking reviewed v0.9 Release Candidate (Updated) on Feb 25, 2006

Again for the blind people: The volume control is at the bottom right corner, where you see the x.xx dB value. Just click there with your left or right mouse button, and it'll open. You can also place your mouse cursor over it and use the scroll wheel.

Tame reviewed v0.9 Release Candidate (Updated) on Feb 24, 2006

0.9 beta was good so far. RC comes with more bugs removed. Awesome!

Master-, volume bar is available through plugin. No need to hasitate about it not to be present by default. Though it looks strange.

Master- reviewed v0.9 Release Candidate (Updated) on Feb 24, 2006

Still no Volume bar?

nookadum reviewed v0.9 Release Candidate on Feb 24, 2006

I don't know why the hell everybody is screwing themselves over whether they like foobar2000 or Winamp.

IMO, Winamp is great if you need a simple way to play your media and have a good looking desktop. But they need need to include lossless support in the box as well.

foobar2000 is great if you need to take full advantage of your sound card's capabilities and need the extra options for fine-tuning your sound experience. It does NOT sound better/worse than Winamp, and may be harder for new users to grasp, but it still has more in-the-box capabilities.

Either way, both have components developed by Peter P. So they're bound to sound the same.

People need to stop being retarded fanboys and look at it both ways. Me? I prefer foobar2000, but I don't *hate/despise* Winamp.

lordnaastik reviewed v0.9 Release Candidate on Feb 23, 2006

There seems to be a eternal debate about winmap vs foobar2k. personally i think both players are equally good and cater to different types of users.
foobar 2k is a great player because it combines power with simplicity.

3nos reviewed v0.9 Release Candidate on Feb 22, 2006

seems to be the best player i'd ever used, although I'm a fan of QMP.

keep the good works!

Frank Bicking reviewed v0.9 Release Candidate on Feb 22, 2006

The volume control is at the bottom right corner, where you see the x.xx dB value. Just click there with your left or right mouse button, and it'll open. You can also place your mouse cursor over it and use the scroll wheel.

gawd21 reviewed v0.9 Release Candidate on Feb 22, 2006

Snowflake, If you really need one go to File-Preferences-Playback and you will see a volume control there. For the life of me I don't know why you would need another volume control when Windows has to damn many ways already, plus most sound cards come with their own too, and if you have a newer keyboard then most likely it has one too.

Foobar 2k is the best audio player that I have ever used. Light fast and nice GUI. Keep up the good work.

sn0wflake reviewed v0.9 Release Candidate on Feb 22, 2006

Where's the volume bar? What are the advantages of installing this instead of Winamp Lite? If this is a compact edition why's it bigger than Winamp Lite? And why is there only a 33 KB difference in filesize between the normal and full edition. I simply don't understand what's so great about this app.
And yes, I did read about it, I have tried it, and I don't work for AOL.

Zankur reviewed v0.9 Release Candidate on Feb 22, 2006

Another excellent update to their program as i have said earlier this a gr8 audio player and not a jukebox or something...
Neither do i or their developers say it has better sound quality than winamp or other player...
Very simple to use and good player...
And i my humble request to ppl,plz don't review a product just to promote what you like...rate a product individually and not being influenced by you fav. product...

benZin reviewed v0.9 Release Candidate on Feb 22, 2006

Always good. I love Foobar, but Open in the tray disapear :/ Can i make it come back ? : http://img418.imageshack...g418/9091/foobar7yj.png

gate1975mlm reviewed v0.9 Release Candidate on Feb 22, 2006

Foobar2000 is the best!

Can't wait to the final version of 0.9!

ModderXManiac reviewed v0.9 Release Candidate on Feb 22, 2006

I was a dedicated user of foobar2000 for 3 months, until I found 1by1.
http://www.mpesch3.de/
It may not support as many formats or be as flexible as this, but it does what I need in a tenth of the size, and far less memory, and there's no real need for playlists, just have it play your directory.

I can have an archive of over 700 files displaying on 1by1 on a 233 mhz machine while using 2.5 megs ram, TINY!

Oh, and it has a volume bar ^^

AndyStarc reviewed v0.9 Beta 14 on Feb 20, 2006

I love this media player. It is not a memory hog, has a tray icon, and plays a lot of formats(mainly i use mp3 streams anyways).

To other people that say that there is no volume control on the program, there is, just click the 0.00dB text on the bottom right and you will see the simple volume control. In this beta, the equalizer is under the "View" alt-menu at the top.

NurEinTier reviewed v0.9 Beta 14 on Feb 14, 2006

If you like to tweak a program till you drop this program is for you.
Tons of feautures and tweaks.

I however fail to see the atraction of foobar.
Amazingly still no volume control.

Bixente reviewed v0.9 Beta 14 on Feb 14, 2006

The BEST there is !

benZin reviewed v0.9 Beta 14 on Feb 14, 2006

The ultimate audio player! I love it *Wooooot*

dhry reviewed v0.9 Beta 14 on Feb 14, 2006

This has consistently been the absolute BEST audio player for years. The fact that the UI isn't 'inviting' is misleading - the default UI can be modified to display any way you like (http://www.hydrogenaudio...id=269568&mode=flat), and there is an actual skinning plugin available which allows you to pretty much make the app look like WinAMP or whatever. However, anyone who cares more about skins/look-and-feel than about actual quality of playback is probably too far down the audio evolutionary tree to appreciate what this program is really about. F2K is slim, powerful and has more options actually geared towards functionality than any other player. Nothing even comes close, you only need to open the options dialog to see that this is true. Like unix's vi, it appears ugly at first, but once you get used to it you'll wonder how you ever lived without it.

endless17 reviewed v0.9 Beta 14 on Feb 14, 2006

has a pretty nice set of features, but not exactly the most inviting UI.

sQin reviewed v0.9 Beta 14 on Feb 14, 2006

now replaygain applied to MP3 works with any mp3 portable ;)

Zygi reviewed v0.9 Beta 14 on Feb 14, 2006

Nice one - keep up the great work, foobar slogan should be like nvidia "The way it's meant to be played" :D Winamp went bad way into bloatware playing everything and taking too much resources, when foobar is just perfect solution for all your audio needs :P

If you don't see atraction of foobar, stick to whats work best for you, but if you're critising program, get some strong points, before or i'll look like a fool. There is volume control, try + and - on numerical keyboard.

WebWarp reviewed v0.9 Beta 14 on Feb 14, 2006

"Beta 14 released, featuring reworked main menu structure, new keyboard shortcut assignment preferences page, rewritten HTTP streaming and ID3v2 support."

Zankur reviewed v0.9 Beta 14 on Feb 14, 2006

Excellent product,i dunno why people harp about qmp here,everyone knows that it doesn't play videos..etc..
Foobar is the simplest audio player with excellent sound quality..

Macross74 reviewed v0.9 Beta 14 on Feb 14, 2006

Great program fullstop for music.
Never really got into winamp or others, but this is great, clean and uncluttered.

Canuckistani reviewed v0.9 Beta 14 on Feb 14, 2006

Still not ready for final release and it shows. Nevertheless, it's nice to get a peek at what is coming up. I'm not going to rate this beta release as it would be kind of pointless. So, the usual 5 for much beloved 0.8.3 Full.

Xilon reviewed v0.9 Beta 14 on Feb 14, 2006

I switched to foobar about 1 or 2 years ago and haven't looked back! It's the greatest audio player out there and it had little to no bloat unlike the popular Winamp.

The only drawback of the betas is that many components don't work (but the most important one does - columns_ui :D), I'm sticking to the betas though because the autoplaylist component kicks arse

salmonmoose reviewed v0.9 Beta 14 on Feb 13, 2006

Neither Foobar nor Opera are opensource, they are free however, which is the right price.

foobar is by far the best music player on the market, I only hope they're hurry up and release the SDK so I could migrate to 0.9 from 8.3

The UI is excelent, it's highly customisable and very lightweight.

ModderXManiac reviewed v0.9 Beta 14 on Feb 13, 2006

namero, the gui is very customize-able, this you would find if you looked a bit harder, and they have some very attractive layouts on the homepage.

New Opera and Foobar on the same day!?! This is heaven!

Fast, small, nifty, expansive, open-source; excellent traits.

FlAshdobe reviewed v0.9 Beta 14 on Feb 13, 2006

So far the best player I have ever used!!!

I don't freaking get people who wants an better GUI for foobar2000, where the hell do you need a better GUI for it? music were meant to be listened not watched! and foobar2000's GUI is just nice and simple enough.

Thanks for the developers!

Floodland reviewed v0.9 Beta 14 on Feb 13, 2006

The best audio player by far. The best quality and use almost no resources. It can do it all for audio with powerfull DSPs.
It can load full tracks from removable media (but not from hard disk, smart), is hard to enumerate all the advantages, it just rules!
No friendly GUI, that's true, but who cares? I want quality, not fancy skins with colored buttons. Foobar has everything I need and more. Even an Ipod sync plugin, everything for free and without spying what you listen to (ejem, QCD)

kooshini reviewed v0.9 Beta 14 on Feb 13, 2006

This program is awesome *****

"computer geeks only" - ill come back to that

The program loads fast, you can configure it with (some) ease and it supports every media format under the sun.

I have installed this media player on my mum's, sisters and about 20 customer PCs and i have had no complaints so far. What you have to remember is all people want things to do is work and come up quick not look nice, that is a bonus.

A cominabtion of Foobar, Media Player Clasic and "Naked" version of windows is all you need in my opinion.

Namero reviewed v0.9 Beta 14 on Feb 13, 2006

very good program but an much better ui would be nice , minimalistic isnt always the best :)

lordgibbness reviewed v0.9 Beta 5 on Jan 15, 2006

I think foobar2000 is good because of what it can do straight out of the box - it can handle almost all music formats, which winamp cannot. It can display unicode characters (which is why it is so popular in China etc.) which winamp cannot. It also has a good mp3 decoder and support for replaygain which winamp does not.

Now, I do actually use winamp 5.08d lite as my main player because it comes without all the video/media library crap you find in the full version and is the last version to allow you to use any output plugin for wma files (not that I use them that often, mind) and then I just install all the plugins that I need.

To match foobar2000 for mp3 quality the shibatch decoder is worth trying out, and it supports replaygain as well. (Do remember to disable mp3 playback in the Nullsoft decoder though).

For me, there isn't really an all-in-one program that does everything to the highest quality, and so I use a selection of the best programs around. I rip CDs with EAC, encode with EasyLAME/RazorLAME (LAME 3.90 --alt preset standard), tag with Mp3tag, replaygain with foobar2000 and generally use winamp w/ Shibatch and ASIO for playback. And any CD/DVD burning with Nero 6 Reloaded. Seems to work well for me.

Mystenes reviewed v0.9 Beta 13 on Dec 20, 2005

best player, great quality, no useless things like skins/visualizations, just player!

munga42 reviewed v0.9 Beta 13 on Dec 19, 2005

+ COnfigurable beyond imagination
+ Fast win gui
+ really cool plugins

- Computer geeks only
- 1000 to many default options
- default ui could be better

WebWarp reviewed v0.9 Beta 13 on Dec 19, 2005

Hmm .. Never had this problem before.. Now it says something with cant play file .. Becaurse it has take .jpg files with .. don't use to this ??

But still great proggi :)

dejavu reviewed v0.9 Beta 13 on Dec 19, 2005

Foobar or not Foobar that's the question! Splendid software! Five Stars!!!

roj reviewed v0.9 Beta 13 on Dec 18, 2005

Power crippled by an unrefined geek interface.

Do a makeover to match the power under the hood and it might warrant serious consideration.

The lack of volume and equalizer controls in the main interface simply defies logic.

Three stars until the UI is intelligently fixed.

sadvietboi408 reviewed v0.9 Beta 13 on Dec 18, 2005

totally agreed with you benZin

benZin reviewed v0.9 Beta 13 on Dec 18, 2005

always good! foobar is the best audio player. Bsplayer for videos and VLC. Mpc in refort if need be.

SirMango reviewed v0.9 Beta 13 on Dec 18, 2005

Meta4, I find your review a bit offending to graphic makers. Some of them are very well know and respected. Saying that they have "sexual problems" is very arrogant. It is true that most skins aren't very quality but what you said is very irrespectful. Please keep those filthy comments for yourself unless they are pertinent.

This software is pretty good. Very small and straigh-foward. Does not have much eye-candy but it does it's job well.

Meta4 reviewed v0.9 Beta 12 on Dec 3, 2005

I used to use Winamp, but now Foobar is my fav. Pros & Cons:
Winamp looks nice although 90% of those skins are extremely childish. Made presumably by adolescent youths with identity or sexual problems. The default skin is probably the best.
Bottom line: I don't want to look at it. I want to hear it! After all I don't stare at my screensaver for a half an hour!!!
Good Plugins, but you have to get some in order for Winamp to be really good.
Winamp is a very good program no doubt about it but there are better programs out there.
One of them is:

Foobar:Looks really basic, not nearly as good as Winamp but the interface does the job. If we start with skins then we sink into childishness. It's unavoidable!
Music loading, Management, Tagging: Excellent!Very quick!
What matters most: The sound is excellent without having to look for third-party plugins.
Over all: Foobar provides a great sound and doesn't distract from it's objective.

GimieGimieGimie reviewed v0.9 Beta 12 on Nov 26, 2005

Ok, i've tried this version of Foobar2000 as well, (normal) and i've got to repeat the review i done for the full edition:

I don't know why this player has been rated so highly over Winamp, i read in a review the sound quality was better, i checked this with a few albums to find out if this was indeed Foobar's strength and i can tell you the sound quality for the mp3 format sounded EXACTLY the same as Winamp except the volume was a lot lower & couldn't be turned up any higher even using the + key on the keyboard.

The other thing i read why Foobar2000 was better then Winamp (which i have proudly used for playing my music collection for the last 7 years), was that Foobar's footprint was incredible small compared to Winamp, Foobar2000 Normal takes up 8 meg when playing songs, this is not a small memory footprint!

While Winamp v5.11 (while in classic skin mode), takes 11.5 meg.

Both consumed 0% CPU while playing songs during my tests.

Now I would happily use that extra 3.5mb of ram, considering Winamp has at least got a visible volume control, years of work put into it, an excellent customisable interface with excellent options, excellent sound, and good integration into Windows, all which are seriously lacking from Foobar, even though the program has been in development for years.

The other test Foobar2000 failed was loading my whole music collection at once, Winamp loaded my whole collection in under 5 seconds, while Foobar2000 took so long, i didn't wait past 2 minutes.

I have been so disappointed by Foobar2000 @ its ability to match what Winamp has offered for years, i'm not even going to bother getting the plug-ins.

First impressions count, and for me, Foobar2000 strikes me as being made by a 4 year old & doesn't hold a candle to Winamp & it's abilities, sorry to be so offensive, but i don't think it's THAT amazing at all.

If i wanted to match the memory footprint, all i need to do is download an old version of Winamp such as v2.91 (which can be downloaded here http://fileforum.betanew...Winamp_Full/972735976/1 and this version would still offer 50% more then the latest Foobar.

Now that being said, i believe every program has it's advantages & it's disadvantages, it's pro's & con's, all which suit an individual person's needs, it is my sincere belief that Foobar2000 will not suit the average joe publics needs, and that Winamp is better suited to this job & beyound.

It's certainly my (music) player of choice.

Foobar stikes me as being a nerd boys toy at the moment.

If someone could please tell me the advantages Foobar has over Winamp, i'll be more than happy to hear them because i am convinced that Winamp is getting more and more bloated with each version that's released, thus i do need to have an alternative player in mind for when Winamp is finally converted to the AOL side & becomes a liability like every bit of software that AOL controls.

tvadakia reviewed v0.9 Beta 12 on Nov 23, 2005

roj. Besides the obviousness of the volume control, would you please explain in intelligible detail why you believe the interface to walk the opposite of grace?

This IS audio we're talking about... what more do you need than what it presents (besides the "volume" control in which you so direly miss)? Help me understand what you, personally, require of an interface - including ease-of-use (how is an interface useful or not useful in this very example?), productivity (how does foobar fall short of playing your music the way you'd like it to be played?), completeness (does foobar fall short of your audiophile expectations in any way? - if so, how?), and aesthetic quality (does foobar just not meet your graphically oriented appeal? should it look like my Alpine car unit for it to seem like it functions better?).

You never gave anything substantial in your argument, so I'm asking for it.

Cheers.

benZin reviewed v0.9 Beta 12 on Nov 22, 2005

Excellent app!! Foobar **** around all the others audio players :)

Crono` reviewed v0.9 Beta 12 on Nov 21, 2005

grat app, but this beta is taking way too long...

Isys reviewed v0.9 Beta 12 on Nov 21, 2005

"now we'll see if intelligence and logical design concepts prevail."

Having used virtually every player out there, Foobar's 'stinky' interface is exactly what I've been looking for. One click in the sys tray and all my music is available with the tabbed playlists, unlike winamp where I would have to load each one seperately. My wife does'nt see so well so the ability to quickly increase the font size is a big plus. You hardly even notice the program with transparency enabled and there are dozens of colour schemes anyway. If that makes me dumb by your standards, roj, I could'nt care less. This app has the best design of any player ..period.
It would be nice if they got out of beta so ppl will start to make more plugins for it but it's fine to be going on with.

anomoly reviewed v0.9 Beta 12 on Nov 21, 2005

music in-music out. The only thing I have to complain about is the $360 for the creative x-fi elite pro sound card. $360?. Too bad onboard sound on all mobos is noisy & basically subpar to a 'high fidelity' sound system. 1st mobo I ever considered was the tube one from aopen, but almost all the other components on that board were behind the times.
The normal version includes...??? What does it not include?
NEED: mute on shutdown setting. I always get feedback if I close it with music playing. FIX IT-please. Banned gmail? lames

JEdwardP reviewed v0.9 Beta 12 on Nov 21, 2005

roj, I didn't say a volume control SHOULDN'T be in the interface. I said that I had no problem with it not being, because I didn't use it, and would want to get rid of it if it were. I wasn't specifically advocating NOT bringing the volume to the front, but rather explaining why I personally don't dock a rating point for it not being there.

In other words, I DO understand that most users would prefer the volume control to be in the interface, and if it eventually is made to be so, I say that's perfectly fine, as long as it, like the visualization box already does, includes an OPTION to NOT display it.

I would apply the same principle to an equalizer. Like you, I don't use them, I play flat.

But if one were ever added to the default foobar interface, it would bother me only if it HAD to be displayed. If it didn't, then I'd just switch it off and be at peace. The same would be so with a volume control.

matt2971 reviewed v0.9 Beta 12 on Nov 21, 2005

Two words: Tabbed Playlists.

5*s

roj reviewed v0.9 Beta 12 on Nov 21, 2005

"You have to look at roj's comments below as constructive criticism, although could be written a little nicer. "

alopecoid:

I'll grant you that it could be written with a softer touch, but...

...I'm just tired of all the apologists who vehemently defend the proggie with pitchforks and torches despite the glaringly obvious interface limitations. My comments stand.

Those who have speakers with a volume control:

Bully for you.

My Planar Media 14s *also* have their own easily accessible volume control but like the *vast majority of users*, I *still* have a use for a software volume control. If people didn't, there would be no reason for *every other player out there* to have one.

Similarly, I *hate* equalizers but you don't see me making silly statements like "well, I don't like equalizers so it shouldn't be on the interface and if it were I would remove it".

The guts of the program are pure gold. The interface stinks.

Fix it.

"These three simple things would do wonders for the popularity of this program. Why not attempt to spread this tool to as many users as possible?"

Stop it. You're making *FAR* too much obvious good sense. But, you've used the soft touch and now we'll see if intelligence and logical design concepts prevail. I must add though that personally I'm not holding my breath given the responses here.

For those who can't see the glaringly obvious value of a volume control in an AUDIO player, especially when most have no difficulty with the concept (and I'm speaking directly to tvadakia), I would say that you are in need of a LOT more help than I or anyone else here can give you.

Three stars for reasons already iterated.

GimieGimieGimie reviewed v0.9 Beta 5 on Nov 17, 2005

I don't know why this player has been rated so highly over Winamp, i read in a review the sound quality was better, i checked this with a few albums to find out if this was indeed Foobar's strength and i can tell you the sound quality for the mp3 format sounded EXACTLY the same as Winamp except the volume was a lot lower & couldn't be turned up any higher even using the + key on the keyboard.

The other thing i read why Foobar2000 was better then Winamp (which i have proudly used for playing my music collection for the last 7 years), was that Foobar's footprint was incredible small compared to Winamp, Foobar2000 Normal takes up 8 meg when playing songs, this is not a small memory footprint!

While Winamp v5.11 (while in classic skin mode), takes 11.5 meg.

Both consumed 0% CPU while playing songs during my tests.

Now I would happily use that extra 3.5mb of ram, considering Winamp has at least got a visible volume control, years of work put into it, an excellent customisable interface with excellent options, excellent sound, and good integration into Windows, all which are seriously lacking from Foobar, even though the program has been in development for years.

The other test Foobar2000 failed was loading my whole music collection at once, Winamp loaded my whole collection in under 5 seconds, while Foobar2000 took so long, i didn't wait past 2 minutes.

I have been so disappointed by Foobar2000 @ its ability to match what Winamp has offered for years, i'm not even going to bother getting the plug-ins.

First impressions count, and for me, Foobar2000 strikes me as being made by a 4 year old & doesn't hold a candle to Winamp & it's abilities, sorry to be so offensive, but i don't think it's THAT amazing at all.

If i wanted to match the memory footprint, all i need to do is download an old version of Winamp such as v2.91 (which can be downloaded here http://fileforum.betanew...Winamp_Full/972735976/1 and this version would still offer 50% more then the latest Foobar.

Now that being said, i believe every program has it's advantages & it's disadvantages, it's pro's & con's, all which suit an individual person's needs, it is my sincere belief that Foobar2000 will not suit the average joe publics needs, and that Winamp is better suited to this job & beyound.

It's certainly my (music) player of choice.

Foobar stikes me as being a nerd boys toy at the moment.

If someone could please tell me the advantages Foobar has over Winamp, i'll be more than happy to hear them because i am convinced that Winamp is getting more and more bloated with each version that's released, thus i do need to have an alternative player in mind for when Winamp is finally converted to the AOL side & becomes a liability like every bit of software that AOL controls.

GimieGimieGimie reviewed v0.9 Beta 11 on Nov 17, 2005

Wrong version of app rated.

JEdwardP reviewed v0.9 Beta 11 on Nov 17, 2005

I've never really understood the complaints about the interface. Yes, it's more menu driven than is common for a Windows program, but as long as it has obvious buttons for basic functions, I don't see that as a negative.

I also don't have a problem with the volume control being in the settings, simply because I wouldn't USE it if it were highly visible, and would actually WANT to get rid of it (my speakers have their own easily reachable volume control, and a remote).

I switched to Foobar from QCD two years ago, largely BECAUSE of its plain, simple, candy-free interface.

If this beta played Speex files, I'd give it the same 5-star rating I give the release version.

bryce_berny reviewed v0.9 Beta 11 on Nov 17, 2005

Foobar has supplanted winamp as my media player as of this year. AOL is simply becoming too involved with the winamp project, and all of the original Nullsoft developers have moved on.

With respect to that wxwusik player, I think the presence of http://www.cee.odu.edu/anim/an_dance.gif on the main page of their site indicates something about their project :\

alopecoid reviewed v0.9 Beta 11 on Nov 17, 2005

First off, I use this program. Almost every day. Now that I've gotten that out of the way...

You have to look at roj's comments below as constructive criticism, although could be written a little nicer. I couldn't agree more with him. I use this program for it's features. But before I can recommend this to a friend who is somewhat less technically inclined, there are a few really simple things that need to be done.

1. There should be a simple search box on the toolbar. This should filter your current playlist as you type, much like the way iTunes does, or even the search box that comes up when you do CTRL-F. And there should always be a playlist called something like "music library" that contains your entire collection.

2. Columns UI should really come setup by default.

3. The doggone volume control should come setup by default. Just do it.

These three simple things would do wonders for the popularity of this program. Why not attempt to spread this tool to as many users as possible?

Other things that couldn't hurt...

1. The development of a better integrated cd ripper. Something that could at least somewhat compete with EAC.

2. Open source. Just do it... it would speed up development.

3. Port to other operating systems. Linux, BSD, OS X peeps would love this. Don't tell me about WINE... let's not call an apple an orange please.

fazen reviewed v0.9 Beta 11 on Nov 17, 2005

Once upon a time I used 10 apps to listen/organize/tag/encode/burn music.

With foobar2000 and some plugins I am totally gratified.

A little bit hard to config but then it rules.

SG1969 reviewed v0.9 Beta 11 on Nov 17, 2005

photonboy: check out columnsui it's a plugin that allows you to have columns for artists, album, title, etc and it sorts the albums really nicely, plus you can customise the colours, etc.

photonboy reviewed v0.9 Beta 11 on Nov 17, 2005

I don't really understand the fascination with this program. I like to have better organization of the albums. Where is the volume control? For a program to just playback your music, I love another free program called Wxmusik:

http://musik.berlios.de/

(go through the settings and configure to your needs. I changed the color, added the "genre" column and changed the Watchfolder etc.)

FailedCRC reviewed v0.9 Beta 11 on Nov 16, 2005

best user interface ever

it is a searchable list of tracks

it has a trinagular button (play) which turns into two vertical bars (pause)
it has a square button (stop)
it has a seekbar

i'm bemused by roj's suggestion of vuplayer's superior implementation as no source is available...

ModderXManiac reviewed v0.9 Beta 11 on Nov 16, 2005

For cryin' out loud roj, you bash every program with an interface that isnt up to snuff.

This interface was designed with performance in mind, but still offers incredible customizability. You probably would have found this out if you had the mental capacity to look at the preferences menu.

Actually learn how to use the program before bashing it. I say once again roj, you bash every program that doesnt have a "pretty" gui.

This is the best audio player ever made. Winamp sucks, nobody with a brain uses it anymore since there are alternatives such as Media Player Classic on the k-lite pack for watching "shoutcast" and all those other data transmission standards that nullsoft came up with to put in their bloated player, and the friendly playlist of Foobar2000.

I feel very sorry for you roj, your missing out. Your ignorance is keeping you from using alot of good programs.

WebWarp reviewed v0.9 Beta 11 on Nov 16, 2005

Didn't think it was possible .. But it just keeping better and better....!!

One day, one day.. We'll reach version 1 - and the world will be a better place to live ind..

roj reviewed v0.9 Beta 11 on Nov 16, 2005

OK, let's be up-front about a few things.

This player lives up to its hupe of producing superlative sound, never mind the placebo / religion features such as ASIO support and the Kernel Streaming hack. It has excellent plugin support, well thought out configurability and clearly a lot of intelligent work went into its internals over time.

Unfortunately it is the worst example of interface design that one could conceive of for an audio player - period. This goes MUCH further than just poor - it's complete stupidity. An obviously useful feature such as a volume control is buried INSIDE THE SETTINGS and instead we have prominently displayed on the interface a completely useless cutesy-poo little frou-frou graphic a la Winamp where said volume control could reside. The EQ is imilarly buried inside the settings.

An interface designed by geeks for geeks a la so much of the open source dreck is one thing but it's quite another to have your application sport an interface designed by a mental midget.

For heaven's sake get a clue and find someone - anyone - who can design (not revamp - actually DESIGN) a half-usable interface instead of this retroactive abortion. A very worthwhile player is being utterly crippled by this terminal cluelessness.

Three stars for a player sporting superlative sound and configurability and all but crippled by an interface no one with intelligence could sanction. Sound = Five and Interface = One (actually Zero but they don't go that low here), Hence Three.

Seriously people, there HAS to be someone out there who can help you redesign this. If you put one tenth of the effort into interface design and usability that you have into the guts, you'd have a product that was quantum leaps above this one without flashy skins, etc.. Maybe the last beta before 1.0 could sport the new interface the way Windows gets its interface finalized roughly six months before it ships. VUPlayer isn't much different from this but at least it has a volume control. At the very least you might want to look at how that author implemented his solution. VUPlayer has sound easily equal to this one, less resource usage and no skins too. That's an example of *real* minimalism with usefulness and taste, unlike this poor excuse.

Now, I'm 100% certain that all the l33t fanboiz will jump feverishly to its defence (because that's how that community works) but being able to recognize shortcomings without making obvious excuses for them is the first step to actually improving a good application (which this is) into a great application (which this could become). I know from other reviews here and elsewhere that I'm certainly not alone in my assessment of the UI and I for one will cannot recommend it until same improves.

guti reviewed v0.9 Beta 11 on Nov 16, 2005

It has a volume control!

pseudo reviewed v0.9 Beta 11 on Nov 16, 2005

Needs a volume control.....on the interface.
And information needs to be better laid out on the website rather than being scattered on a forum website of fanboys.

zaga reviewed v0.9 Beta 11 on Nov 16, 2005

@jojosupp

Are you dumb?

sQin reviewed v0.9 Beta 11 on Nov 16, 2005

If you aren't creative enough, lazy man, then just go for winamp, musikcube and DONT rate this software, as you are incompetent to do that!

forgie reviewed v0.9 Beta 11 on Nov 16, 2005

If you want some flashy player go download winamp, but if you want a simple player that does what it needs to I recommend foobar/musikcube. Each lack major things in my opinion. Foobar lacks the ability to easily syncrhonize a library without having to completely re-add everything (pain in the a** when youve got over 7k songs). Musikcube has a fantastic sync feature, but it doesn't support m3u playlists without a plug-in which still won't associate itself with a m3u file which is a pain. Which ever player corrects their issue first will be the winner in my book.

jojosupp reviewed v0.9 Beta 11 on Nov 16, 2005

Terrible interface (requires plug-ins and tweaking to achieve functionality on par with the major players out there), poor user experience (uglier than MS-DOS), and boring design. Foobar is taking "minimalism" and pushing it to the extreme.

There's only one program I've tested that has a small footprint like Foobar, but comes with full music organizer functionality, and that's musikcube. If I wanted to use no system resources to play my music, I'd string up some command-prompt player with some spiffy codecs. If you have a real music collection, Foobar isn't worth the effort.

improvelence reviewed v0.9 Beta 5 on Nov 12, 2005

Its aight.

ye110mann reviewed v0.9 Beta 10 on Oct 28, 2005

Much smaller footprint, more customizable, and better quality sound compared to WinAMP. Coupled with an M-Audio Revo card and the ASIO plugin, you physically cannot get a better sound out of a computer.

Zygi reviewed v0.9 Beta 10 on Oct 6, 2005

I have used winamp in the past, but after first launch of foobar2k i have never ever used winamp again, it's pill of junk with buggy mpeg encoder implementation (2.XX). My friend was using winamp on senheiser headphones and he always heard difference between mp3 and original cd (even on 320kbit). I have showed him foobar and did fast abx test on some wav'es and mp3 (lame --preset standard). He couldn't hear any difference between them.
foobar2k is fully functional, simple and genius, you can customize every small thing. I realised i don't need any whistles, bells, skins, themes and all that junk, because 99% of time, my player is hidden in tray, what counts is cpu usage and mem footprint (i got fast comp, but i listen to music when i play games, so i need all cpu and ram i can get).

Zygi reviewed v0.9 Beta 5 on Oct 6, 2005

I have used winamp in the past, but after first launch of foobar2k i have never ever used winamp again, it's pill of junk with buggy mpeg encoder implementation (2.XX). My friend was using winamp on senheiser headphones and he always heard difference between mp3 and original cd (even on 320kbit). I have showed him foobar and did fast abx test on some wav'es and mp3 (lame --preset standard). He couldn't hear any difference between them.

@darthbeads: foobar is fully functional, simple and genius, you can customize every small thing, did you ever worked on dos or linux console ?!? Where the **** do you see command line in foobar ??! There is gui everywhere, if you don't like it go back to winamp or wmp. I realised i don't need any fu.... whistles, bells, skins, themes and all that junk, becuase like dille already said, 99% time my player is hidden in tray, what counts is cpu usage and mem footprint (i got fast comp, but i listen to music when i play games, so i need all cpu and ram i can get).

@uberfly: because turning volume up impact on quality, if you don't know it already, you can use '-' and '+' keys without any plugins - try it.
BTW. I haven't seen any volume control plugins in v0.9

Xilon reviewed v0.9 Beta 10 on Oct 6, 2005

Woah! Did I miss beta9???? :O :( well great that this is out! only 20 more betas to go lmao!!

arfer reviewed v0.9 Beta 10 on Oct 5, 2005

I've been using foobar for about 2 years now, and it is my favorite audio player for win32. It's easy to configure, easy to control, stable, and has a great minimalist interface.

Apart from the generic player features which it has, little gems of functionality make foobar stick out from the rest of the players, at least in my humble opinion. For instance, you can highlight a track which will be automatically played after the currently playing track. Little features like that, which add up to one excellent player!

3rd party plugins (such as extra stereo, continuator) are easy to install and enhance all aspects of foobar (input, output, visual, etc). Development has been constant, and is a project you can tell the development team cares very much about.

foobar is amazing, so go check it out.

- arfer

benZin reviewed v0.9 Beta 10 on Oct 5, 2005

Yum Yum ! The ultimate audio player. The suound is extraordinary! Very smart and very fast!

bunghole reviewed v0.9 Beta 9 on Sep 27, 2005

Foobar is good for what it intends do and for the quality way it achieves its goals. But it's just not my thing.

I prefer XMPlay because it's kind of a mix of Foobar and Winamp. An easy GUI combined with great sound and tons of plugins. Plus it's only 316 KB (even smaller than Foobar originally was, if I remember correctly).

http://www.un4seen.com/

pegasus2 reviewed v0.9 Beta 9 on Sep 26, 2005

Excellent sound quality! Work with audio files night and day and nothing beats this! GUI still silly & Dossy - after all the complaints, something could have been done about it years ago.

dille reviewed v0.9 Beta 8 on Sep 26, 2005

Amazing peace of a software. Don't understand some of these comments like need a plugin to control volume huh??? Maybe if you guys actually used the damn program for more than one minute you would realize how powerfull this program really is.

Also I personally love the user interface. I tend to have my music player 99.99% of time minimized/hidden, so what's the point of having memory/cpu eating skins in your program? Weee... lots of blinking lights... doh.

Look under the hood and you will find a really complex plugin system with high quality components. You can tweak almost everything in the program. Foobar also has a amazingly powerfull tagging system, you can rip/encode music into your fav. audio format. etc. etc... there are so many features in this program that I don't know where to start.

Foobar is all about sound quality, if you want to take max. out of your soundcard this is THE software. If you want lots of blinking/fancy graphics crap with bloat please use WinAmp, Windows Media Player and so on...

Give it a try!

lordgibbness reviewed v0.9 Beta 9 on Sep 26, 2005

Has a lot of potential. Winamp 5 Lite is still my main player, but foobar2000 will only get better.

darthbeads reviewed v0.9 Beta 8 on Sep 26, 2005

totally overrated. i would rather waste some cpu (of which i have plenty to waste) than my time trying to figure out how code a friggin music player so that it is actually functional. i feel like i am back in MSDOS when i use foobar!

ModderXManiac reviewed v0.9 Beta 9 on Sep 26, 2005

Best music player around.

Winamp sucks.

Canuckistani reviewed v0.9 Beta 9 on Sep 26, 2005

Butt ugly interface, the preferences are a cats breakfast and it's still the best audio player around. Go figure.

SamiChang reviewed v0.9 Beta 9 on Sep 26, 2005

What can I say!!!! I love this program :D

uberfly reviewed v0.9 Beta 8 on Sep 23, 2005

Overrated. Why do I have to go find a plugin for this program just to adjust the volume? Am I just not thinking out of the box enough? Let the flames begin...

[deXter] reviewed v0.9 Beta 8 on Sep 10, 2005

Those who want fancy looking players that do lots of unnecessary stuff and waste your CPU, RAM and not to mention time and make you forget the fact that all you really want to do is to just listen to the damn song- then foobar2000 aint for you. Go away. Stop giving bad reviews.
--

foobar2000 is:

Plain and simple. Plays all audio formats. Doesnt hog CPU or RAM. Can work fully in background. Can be completly controlled by hotkeys. Has options to give the highest quality sound for your soundcard. And more stuff that you neednt meddle with if you dont got no time.
--

PS: No noticable bugs in this beta.

dumaiso reviewed v0.9 Beta 8 on Sep 4, 2005

Is this better than JetAudio? I didn't tryed it yet.

Master- reviewed v0.9 Beta 8 on Sep 4, 2005

Winamp is still a lot better.

vsam reviewed v0.9 Beta 8 on Sep 4, 2005

A nice free player, sounds good even with my nb's integrated soundcard. I gave a 3:

1. Asian character support is impossible in the current 0.9betas, and the author seems not give a damn about it. Even in earlier versions, you need to find the right settings or even plugins to correctly display. No such problem with other players.
2. Volume control.
3. New versions always incompatible, have to wait a while to find the proper plugins.

Nesavaldzinaamais reviewed v0.9 Beta 8 on Sep 3, 2005

Volume crashes on this version, all music files doesn't sound correctly. WMP Classic doesn't have such problems. Correct sound output available only with 0.00db.

To kjoki - you can control volume with +/- on the keyboard.

kkjoki reviewed v0.9 Beta 8 on Sep 3, 2005

I have to say foobar2000 is "the best music player there is"...
I want an application which can play all the music files and CDs I have. I want the player to look like the other applications. All this seems to be quite hard to find... Every MP3-software seems to be just another winamp with skins and/or other useless stuff (is it so hard to make an application which just plays music).
4 points for a great application. I would give one point more if a volume control would be included in the default UI. Yes, I know volume a volume control plugin can be downloaded from somewhere... I just ask why can't there be a "volume control toolbar" in the default installation?

yusufjee reviewed v0.9 Beta 8 on Sep 3, 2005

No doubt people's favorite now. I started using foobar couple of months ago. I liked the tab style so i can open all my artist at one time and play them by scrolling through tab. The problem however with foobar is that it has too many open options, giving too much control to the user considering that most of us dont even know all of them. And few things are annoying like no volume control and double clicking a file will open it in the METALLICA playlist for example if i closed it there last time. I liked the tree view plug ins and other few plugins. Now i am gone back to winamp cuz i found a tree view plugin which lets me view my file as they are in folders the way i like it. Foobar is excellent. Will give it a try when it has what i want.

bobad reviewed v0.9 Beta 8 on Sep 3, 2005

Nice program. Has good options. I believe the program is intended to be simple and compact, but it falls a little short in that regard. It seems to be copying from another fine MP3 player, "Billy", which I rate better.

tvadakia reviewed v0.9 Beta 8 on Sep 3, 2005

I highly recommend this player. It does have a learning curve, which tends to throw some people off. Maybe this is a detriment to its use? I don't know; that's more a philosophical discussion in human-interface design than anything. It's, perhaps, why those who love it love as much as they do.

I'm a musical connoisseur, and a decent musician/composer as well. I'd like to think of myself as an audiophile, though I don't have the time or money to ingest with the quantity and quality I'd like. foobar2000 pleases the audiophile in me, being simple and robust. The sound it produces with lossless music is quite extraordinairy despite it coming from an all digital system.

Though hard to rate, quality of sound CAN be compared between audio players. There are measurable ways to do so, though I'm no expert in such a science. I use my own ears, and discern what I can from experience. I've always enjoyed audio systems that produced no coloration of their own - creating no extra warmth or gratuities of equalization, tone, or interpretation. I understand foobar2000 uses the same audio engine as a couple other audio players. So quality of sound may be on par with these players, yet what I enjoy most is that out-of-the-box, foobar doesn't add anything else - the user would have to modify this through adding DSPs and adjusting the sound themselves.

The use of ReplayGain is interesting and I rather enjoy applying it to my collection. ReplayGain guarantees authentic reproduction of your sound while only applying alteration to a consistent decibel level only. This is a wonderful tool for those who host a wide variety of music.

The interface is uncluttered and straight forward, if a bit cryptic to a layman. Its use is efficient and effective, and its ability to juggle multiple, very large playlists is amazingly beyond any other audio player I've dinked with (sonique, quintessential, winamp, musikcube, jukebox, realplayer, wmp, and others).

There's more, but I've been too long-winded as it is. This player is immense in its own right. If you haven't figured it out, take the time to do so, you won't regret it. If you already have, then you're a pleased individual, I'm sure.

UPDATE:

This current beta release seems to crash on me at times. It may be because I upgraded over the top of the previous beta. The crashes seem random, and doesn't occur unless it is open at lengths of time.

pyridox reviewed v0.9 Beta 8 on Sep 3, 2005

Nice & "plain vanilla", the way I like it. Screw the skins; they don't ad to the perfomance, they only consume more resources. If you want "prettier", than go with "Quintessential Player", which is also free.

NyaR reviewed v0.9 Beta 8 on Sep 3, 2005

psuedo, so because you like winamp more then foobar you rate it a 1?

great player once you figure out how to use it

benZin reviewed v0.9 Beta 8 on Sep 3, 2005

EXCELLENT, always. But... I found problems with Mp3tag 2.31a, to edit the Tags of my mp3 collection. So foobar don t detect the tag made with the program Mp3tag 2.31a. I hope a update to finish the problem.

Floodland reviewed v0.9 Beta 8 on Sep 3, 2005

Yeah, almost perfect player. The same reasons pseudo noted as flaws I think makes a good player. You don't hear a difference with winamp? I do, and the way that you can use the DSPs are great.
You don't find useless skins, or bloated crap, just a simple, small player that support everything that matters: Any format, dsps, very light resource usage. Excelent.
Now if you want to see skins, color farts or (again) bloated interface with many colored buttons ok, this is not the player for you.
I want a clear, simple, small but powerfull player. And I found all of that in foobar2000.

WebWarp reviewed v0.9 Beta 8 on Sep 3, 2005

U can have it just like u want it, and if u are 2 lasy for that, u don't deserve having it !

pseudo reviewed v0.9 Beta 8 on Sep 3, 2005

FooBar is a completely moronic attempt to seem l33t by the hydrogenaudio folks who think that having difficult to find information is the way to seem supposedly superior.

There is NO audio control, they suggest using ReplayGain which is a completely stupid suggestion cause I do not play Rap at the same volume as Classical Music.

There is no easy skinning option or even a webpage! You have to browse on their forums to find a single skin which apparently needs you to tinker for hours to just work properly. And Oh! those skins are amatuerishly made and come with no installers or instructions to boost.

The sound is no better than WinAmp and no official claim to that effect is ever made.

The FAQ page has no mention of the word 'skin' or 'volume' !!! :-))

So, if you need a software you are going to tinker with for a month and click 5 times to change the volume, more l33t p0w3r to you !

theheff reviewed v0.9 Beta 8 on Sep 2, 2005

I've been using WMP and MPC for audio files for quite some time, and I have to say this is impressive software. Simple interface, quick, powerful, gets the job done. This is good stuff.

protowall reviewed v0.9 Beta 8 on Sep 2, 2005

awesome player, better than pretty much any other player out there.

Audionut, how do you get yours to look like that? some script or hidden setting? I'd like mine to look like yours.

improvelence reviewed v0.9 Beta 8 on Sep 2, 2005

Highly configureable. Its not winamp, but its good.

husky87 reviewed v0.9 Beta 7 on Aug 30, 2005

awsome player, however this release has a problem playing my .cue files (along with the mp3 of course) so ive gone back to beta 6 until this has been fixed , nether the less still i recommend foobar2000

benZin reviewed v0.9 Beta 7 on Aug 30, 2005

EXCELLENT! The best audio player i've ever seen.

Audionut reviewed v0.9 Beta 7 on Aug 30, 2005

Foobar is the best audio player.

And you can customize it's looks if needed.

http://img375.imageshack...php?image=newfoo7fs.png

ModderXManiac reviewed v0.9 Beta 7 on Aug 29, 2005

My favorite, and only, audio player.
Incredibly fast, small, no BS. Just a clean and simple audio player.

Winamp lite has nothing on this.

JeRrYFaR reviewed v0.9 Beta 7 on Aug 29, 2005

Great program.. only problem I have, is for whatever reason, it errors out when I try to play a cd.. other than that, no complaints..

LRN reviewed v0.9 Beta 7 on Aug 29, 2005

Good player. Still i can't use thease betas because there is no unicode tag support plugin for fresh 0.9x SDK.

Also, you can really change UI plugin from default to something better: many of them looks really nice.

forgie reviewed v0.9 Beta 7 on Aug 29, 2005

fantastic simple music player that doesnt waste time with any wasted time trying to provide useless eye candy. Quality is superb. I suggest the other guy check his drivers/sound card.

Stevier reviewed v0.9 Beta 7 on Aug 29, 2005

foobar is maybe not the best looking mp3 player but it has far the best audio engine.
so i dont understand why you just criticize this point.

Primis reviewed v0.9 Beta 7 on Aug 29, 2005

Inferior sound quality is a big problem here. I've never understood why Foobar sounds so poor, and why no effort has ever been made to improvement either. It's a good minimalist approach to players though, and has fairly good playlist options. If you're a stickler for sound and tone though, look elsewhere. If you just want something quick and dirty, Foobar's not a bad option compared to installing iTunes or some other monstrosity. I still think WinAmp or Quintessential Player are better overall options under Windows though.

uberfly reviewed v0.9 Beta 6 on Aug 1, 2005

It's good, but I still don't understand why I need to install a plug-in to have volume control on the interface.

SineWave reviewed v0.9 Beta 6 on Jul 24, 2005

It's got everything you need and then some. I could say it's a professional audio player and with it, you can do to your audio just about anything you want. When I started using it, I forgot about all other players instantly. You can play, tag, convert, record, write CD-s... in whatever format. It's the greatest audio player app on the planet! I must admit I sometimes use 1by1 too, but Foobar is the law for quality and features.

wingo reviewed v0.9 Beta 6 on Jul 19, 2005

well i want to add that it still has nice and easy button interface for forward/play/etc. i love it. i like to listen to music - not watch music so foobar is my favorite. ;-)

benZin reviewed v0.9 Beta 6 on Jul 19, 2005

EXCELLENT EXCELLENT! Foobar2000 is the best audio player i've seen! Very fast and very powerfull... the best of the best mouarf...

fazen reviewed v0.9 Beta 6 on Jul 19, 2005

When i met foobar2000, i threw away all the mess of mp3 related progs: tag editors, lyrics vis, music organizers.

It's a little geeky and difficult to use at the beginning, but after first attempts it becomes your best music friend.

ModderXManiac reviewed v0.9 Beta 6 on Jul 18, 2005

This is now my favorite audio player. Its flexible, low-resource, clean interface.

This is the best peforming 3rd party audio player I have ever used. I love the archive player(7-z, zpi, rar) lets me play all my compressed audio files, IE, in many games.

Worth it if you value performance and flexibility.
Its stupid to rate it bad just for the look of the interface.

Joco reviewed v0.9 Beta 6 on Jul 18, 2005

flashhh: may be you should wonder why so many people rated foobar2000 high. Many of them are advanced users. They can't be all wrong.

Zygi reviewed v0.9 Beta 6 on Jul 18, 2005

It was great plugin, changin foobar looks foo_tunes or something but it wasn't stable. Personally i prefer small memory usage and great sound, instead of eye candy look, because 99% of time my player is hided in tray, and i'm just listening to the music when i surf or play games, so i don't need to stare at it!!!

zridling reviewed v0.9 Beta 6 on Jul 18, 2005

So true. It's not about interface, it's about performance and functionality. I'll take the latter, and Mac users can have the former.

pyridox reviewed v0.9 Beta 6 on Jul 18, 2005

Well, if you want simplicity & stability, go with Foobar2000. If you want pretty graphics, go with Winamp or Musicmatch, etc. I personally like simplicity, and don't need all of the hypnotizing graphics. ;-)

--- Quoted By Flashh ---
Jul 14, 2005

>It's interface is SO stupid, and I don't understand why everyone likes it.

bishyb reviewed v0.9 Beta 6 on Jul 18, 2005

foobar2000 = teh win :D

flashhh, goto the official forums and check out the screenshots gallery, then you'll see :P

Canuckistani reviewed v0.9 Beta 6 on Jul 18, 2005

Well, flashhh, being pretty isn't everything. Foobar2000 and VLC (Video Lan Client) are butt ugly but, they are the very best at what they do.

benZin reviewed v0.9 Beta 5 on Jul 4, 2005

The Best audio player!

husky87 reviewed v0.9 Beta 5 on Jun 28, 2005

best player around.. this better starts up way faster read: instantly i like :P

ccombe reviewed v0.9 Beta 5 on Jun 28, 2005

best audio player second to none.

and best community i have yet to find :)

guti reviewed v0.9 Beta 5 on Jun 28, 2005

Excelent!

sQin reviewed v0.9 Beta 5 on Jun 27, 2005

foobar2000 has no alternatives.

benZin reviewed v0.9 Beta 3 on Jun 25, 2005

Excellent program! Powerful & easy to use, very good!

Canuckistani reviewed v0.9 Beta 4 on May 31, 2005

If something like what happened to cdominici2 or you run up against any other problems you can always visit the foobar2000 forum:
http://www.hydrogenaudio...?act=SF&s=&f=28

Excellent software and an on line community for support. Can't ask for more than that.

jegHegy reviewed v0.9 Beta 4 on May 30, 2005

great release.

PS: no virus detected with NOD32 either.

FXSoftware reviewed v0.9 Beta 4 on May 30, 2005

*Excellent* software. Fast, powerful et very low memory footprint.

cdominici2 - It's a false positive. Nothing detected with a² nor AntivirXP.

cdominici2 reviewed v0.9 Beta 3 on May 26, 2005

foobar's great but...

ClamWin reports a detected virus in C:\Program Files\foobar2000-0.9\components\foo_albumlist.dll

": Trojan.Clicker.Agent-33 FOUND"

I'm assuming this is a false positive but perhaps it should be corroborated by someone who knows better than I.

themadman reviewed v0.9 Beta 3 on May 24, 2005

i've been using foo for quite a long period. great program! thanks!
i wish the GDI for 0.9 was published asap.
cause i miss my audioscrobbler plugin support. so, switched back to the 0.8.3 till the final version is out! also, im happy that foo supports my iPOD, its much more convinient than iTunes! thanks so much!
keep going, guys!

hardgiant reviewed v0.9 Beta 3 on May 23, 2005

I like the improvements to the options, just need to get working components.

Mystenes reviewed v0.9 Beta 3 on May 23, 2005

Great program sleek and fast!

Zankur reviewed v0.9 Beta 3 on May 23, 2005

great.i was waiting for the new version for quite some time.vr8 improvement,plz go ahead and try!

droozel reviewed v0.9 Beta 3 on May 23, 2005

Best.

lac29 reviewed v0.9 Beta 3 on May 23, 2005

Best music player I've tried. IMO, it's better than winamp ... nice and small app. A bit complicated if you want to customize it though.

[deXter] reviewed v0.9 Beta 3 on May 23, 2005

beta 3 also features:

*Improved playlist management: all playlists are editable without being active, multiple playlists with the same name, Autoplaylists

*Field remappings in titleformat scripts

*Tag merging: combines information from multiple tag formats on the same file

*Cleaned-up preferences

*On-line help system for preferences pages (uses the HA wiki)

*Playback queue

and more...

tp reviewed v0.9 Beta 3 on May 22, 2005

glad to know things are on the move but I couldnt find much fun with this stripped down beta..

Canuckistani reviewed v0.9 Beta 3 on May 22, 2005

Yay! Can't wait for the final.

ArKay74 reviewed v0.9 Beta 3 on May 22, 2005

Good player. Don't uninstall 0.8 yet though if you want to use custom plugins since those aren't compatible and an SDK won't be released until this version goes final.

Tene reviewed v0.9 Beta 3 on May 22, 2005

OMFG new Foobar!! I ah ah ah aaaaaah ... had a joygasm.

In all seriousness though, only audio player for Windows that you should use. Superb.

Canar reviewed v0.9 Beta 3 on May 22, 2005

Here's the new-and-improved version of the only audio player that matters any more.

The preferences dialogue has been completely redesigned and now even features a help system to aid newbies in their quest for configuration. (Note: the help system is currently under conversion to support v0.9)

Every element that's found to be suboptimal since the release of v0.7 has been removed. Nearly every user-interface element has been rethought and rewrought.

It's a major new improval for the most powerful audio player in existence.

cdominici2: Verified as a false positive. The problem's now known and the error has been reported to ClamAV.

ch0jin reviewed v0.8.3 on May 9, 2005

Only for people with a lot of time to read all the leaking documentation on the communitys forum.
Realy not a program for simple install and use.
You need to spend some days to make it "look ok". I didn't found many help with the configuration and no full configuration scripts or information how to install *.fcs files. You have to collect plugins from diffrent external pages and got the risk that the plugin file could damage your system. The Plugin community don't seam to be well orgainzed since you have to search the forum for links to plugins. Beside while looking for example for the plugin to enable ID3v2 tags which are not supportet by default I could not find a page that offers this file for download. (all links broken)
All in all the projekt seems to me very unorganized. The software is without additional plugins, scripts etc. very basic and only gets a 2 from me.

tsehov reviewed v0.8.3 on Mar 29, 2005

Excellent piece of software. It has everything one can expect a good audio player to have and a bit more. Crystal clear sound, light memory and CPU time footprint, extremely customizable UI etc. etc.

I have tried and used plenty of audio players and I have to say this is superior to them all.

Nikkie reviewed v0.8.3 on Mar 11, 2005

wxmusik jukebox has a better layout .

aerthling reviewed v0.8.3 on Feb 23, 2005

I've just converted from Winamp :)

It's seems really good so far, the only griped I have are lack of drag&drop for directories, and I wish that clicking the system tray icon when the window is visible but under other windows would bring it to the fron, rather then minimising it to the tray.

pleionis reviewed v0.8.3 on Feb 22, 2005

THE BEST PLAYER EVER!!!!!

bolaris reviewed v0.8.3 on Jan 30, 2005

Those whom have bared witness to this player bow their heads and with quivering lips whisper the words, "Foobar is GOD...Foobar is GOD."

2xG reviewed v0.8.3 on Jan 7, 2005

the best!

Ganymed reviewed v0.8.3 on Sep 13, 2004

One of my favourite programs - love it!

admiraljustin reviewed v0.8.3 on Sep 11, 2004

Been using foobar for a long time now, and it just keeps getting better and better.

westonc reviewed v0.8.3 on Sep 3, 2004

Very reliable player. No fluff, only the essentials.

dhry reviewed v0.8.3 on Aug 22, 2004

Awesome player.
About time it moved out of beta, though.

LoofyGun reviewed v0.8.3 on Aug 16, 2004

Simply the best.

wagner reatto reviewed v0.8.3 on Aug 12, 2004

perfect sound and excellent decode

superdeformed7 reviewed v0.8.3 on Aug 2, 2004

I had been using RealPlayer 10 and was reluctant to start using another player. I dl'ed foobar into a special folder for programs which I am not sure I will keep. All it took was to hear the greatly superior sound quality of the first song I played and I immediately imported all of my playlists and promptly got rid of realplayer. Maybe not as visually entertaining but this is 100% better.

marcos_cu reviewed v0.8.3 on Jul 24, 2004

Gr8 progy.
I played music on winamp, and sound didt fell right, now its perfect of foobar2k.

Darken reviewed v0.8.3 on Jul 24, 2004

Great player! :)

jegHegy reviewed v0.8.3 on Jul 23, 2004

changelog available at http://www.hydrogenaudio...ndex.php?showtopic=5064

Ampa reviewed v0.8.3 on Jul 23, 2004

0.8.3:
- improved masstagger "rename files" feature, now includes option to copy files
- fixed standard inputs bug causing matroska/PCM not to function properly
- fixed core bug preventing custom DSP chain configs from being used
- fixed mpglib bug in MPEG-2 decoding, thanks to xquake for the source patch
- removed fast seeking hacks from MPC input after new problem reports
- fixed incorrect behaviors with clicking on empty area in albumlist
- slightly faster replaygain scanner
- other minor bugifxes I forgot about

Without a doubt the best audio player. Great modular design so can be configured to do as much or as little as required.

WebWarp reviewed v0.8.3 on Jul 23, 2004

Can't see any differents and no chance log.. But had a bug with double-click in 0.8.2 which is gone now :)

The best player avaible :)

Macross74 reviewed v0.8.3 on Jul 23, 2004

Great program, it has a great sound and not a cluttered interface.
I have showed a few people who only used winamp to try this and they have never gone back to it.

Simply brillant

lovemayo reviewed v0.8.2 on Jul 23, 2004

0.8.3 available at http://www.saunalahti.fi/cse/foobar2000.php . No changelog yet. Matroska problems in 0.8.2 was fixed with v. 0.6 of foo_matroska

jmhuttun reviewed v0.8.2 on Jul 15, 2004

Actually the best player which I have tested.

guitardave78 reviewed v0.8.2 on Jul 1, 2004

Havent used any other player for a year now, easy to use, finding songs takes no time, playlists are a synch and it sounds great!!!
So yeah people are still using it!!

kljs reviewed v0.8.2 on Jun 28, 2004

Foobar2000 actually sounds better. After using foobar all this while, I can say no other player comes close to it.

Carbonic reviewed v0.8.2 on Jun 25, 2004

best media player ever.

It's small.
It's fast.
It's light on resources.

Foobar is the best.

Ehrihk reviewed v0.8.2 on Jun 7, 2004

The most customizable player out there. The GUI is user-friendly yet flexible for power users. It plays just about every audio format you can think (except for MIDI files, you'll need a special plugin for that).

kevinz reviewed v0.8.2 on May 28, 2004

there are people still using this thing? lol

cricri_pingouin reviewed v0.8.2 on May 18, 2004

I apologie if I sound rude, but it seems lots of people rate this program badly and didn't even try it, or at least didn't try it properly. That would be almost ok if they were not flooding the board with a bunch of negative comments (even though I agree no laws prevent them from doing so, but that's hardly ethical if anyone cares). First off, foobar does have a lots of built in features, including plugins supports (such as DSP between others, albeit it doesn't support DFX but doesn't need it as mentionned later). In fact, I was pleasantly surprised that it supports both my ATi remote wonder and MS Wireless Desktop natively. As far as other options are concerned, there are numerous, I even remember reading some people complaining about it (proving that it's difficult to please everyone).
Secondly, I'm not sure why people are more concerned about the GUI look rather than it's efficiency. As far as I'm concerned, either I'm listening music while doing something else, and have foobar minimised, or I'm away from the computer, and have foobar minimised. Thus, unlike some people, I do not sit down and stare at the media player interface for hours. But then, maybe they have some naked chicks skins, in which case they might consider renting a porn movie instead.
Now, sound quality. I didn't expect much first time, but yes, the sound is very good IMHO. Actually, I was reticent to use foobar, afraid to lose DFX which I thought kicks ass, but in fact I found the raw output of foobar competing with WinAmp+DFX. That for cheaper (since DFX is shareware), and using far less resources (DFX regularly eats up to 20% of my CPU).
Also, people rightfully point out that the sound might not match your tastes. But then, whatever you come up with, it will match some people tastes (unless it's genuinely crap :D) and disappoint some others, and that's fair. Some mention they want music to sound as it's supposed to be. That's fair too, heck, if that's the way they like it (even though using that as an argument to prove one is a music expert to trust does not convince me). Myself, I want it to sound "the way I like", and foobar does a pretty good job at that (you might say I'm lucky to fit in that category). If you ask me how it sounds, I'll say "it sounds damn good IMHO", and that is without additional processing.
Since I mentionned I keep foobar minimised, it uses between 0-2% of my XP2800+, and 2.5MB RAM ish. Which means more resources for my main activities.

BNuser reviewed v0.8.2 on May 16, 2004

Does what is says. Mem and CPU are not as good as WinAmp5.02 (tested both in systraymode playing an .ape, WA=1.8MB/CPUload=0 rare peaks at 1, FB=3.2MB/CPUload=0 with constant peaks at 2, all on P4/2.8). Maybe a concern for slower Machines, but as I said Foobar does what it says and has nice stuff for testing and elite audio guys, so 5 stars anyway.

nemesis1 reviewed v0.8.2 on May 15, 2004

jpmccord: must be a problem on your system, has never happened to me. in fact it plays happily in the background while I'm playing cpu hungry games and it doesn't hiccup ever, nor does it affect other programs running.

jpmccord reviewed v0.8.2 on May 15, 2004

The best audio player I've ever used. Everything I want and very little of what I don't want combined with perfect playback! My only complaint is that once in a while, it nearly freezes my system (XP Pro, 2.4 GHz P4, 512 MB DDR) by clogging CPU usage when I pause the player in the middle of a track. This happen to anyone else?

kljs reviewed v0.8.1 on Apr 8, 2004

It is the only player that is suitable for my ears.
5 x infinity Stars.

Gaffa reviewed v0.8.1 on Apr 8, 2004

"Random bug fixes" - LOL! Still the best though.

Bluezion reviewed v0.8.1 on Apr 7, 2004

Foobar2000 keeps getting better and better with every new release, always focusing on sound quality and technical excellence. Kudos to the author for such fine job!

Bachalor reviewed v0.8.1 Beta 3 on Apr 1, 2004

I renew the same statement like FootBar2000 lite. If you not use graficel playthinks like WINAMP, use Footbar.

Bachalor reviewed v0.8.1 Beta 3 on Apr 1, 2004

I have an "old" used laptop. WINAMP starts 20 sec. bevor I can play a file. FOOTBAR lite is very fast. I like it now, it work stable and it can play MP2,MP3 files - enough for me.
Fine small tool.

lovemayo reviewed v0.8.1 Beta 3 on Mar 31, 2004

The light version isn't any more "heavy" than the special installer... it just comes with more stuff... all of which you can choose to install or not install during installation. So you can make excatly the same installation using the "lite" version as you can with the "special" version. Foobar2k is really great... been using it since v6.beta something, and it has never let me down... startup times are around 200ms, so its really lightweight too! 5 stars, easily

Dirk van Hoofen reviewed v0.8.1 Beta 2 on Mar 30, 2004

If you use the "lite" version from FOOBAR2000, it is a very fast Player, nice for the notebook from my girlfiend ;-))

alanity reviewed v0.8.1 Beta 2 on Mar 26, 2004

Arg. Please people stop with the "sound quality" arguments, I don't see how anyone can hear any difference between the two unless they're using the equaliser or some other dsp thingy, I like foobar because it's easy to manage my music the way I want to, I like winamp because it's pretty, has good enough video support to use instead of mpc most of the time, and still has a lot of functionality, sound quality/resource usage never even comes into consideration.

FXSoftware reviewed v0.8.1 Beta 2 on Mar 25, 2004

Nicholas > that's what i call a subjective opinion. Foobar has like winamp a LOT of DSP plugins. In fact it has plugins for absolutly everything even for skinning or for playing Milkdrop Winamp's plugin. Sound quality... No kiddin', It's more or less the same. Moreover Ogg files restitution is probably the best i've seen.

Nicholas440 reviewed v0.8.1 Beta 2 on Mar 25, 2004

I tried Foobar but I'm afraid it's a wimp. Does not deliver audio anywhere as good as Winamp. Get Winamp, it whips the Foobar's a** ! Winamp supports tons of DSP plugins as well. DFX for one, which will change the way you listen to your music. Rock on dude... ONE star..

mmebane reviewed v0.8.1 Beta 2 on Mar 24, 2004

I absolutely love this program... bye bye, Winamp! Foobar 2000 rocks, especially with the foo_tunes replacement GUI.

http://www.hydrogenaudio...0&&#entry150009

FXSoftware reviewed v0.8 on Feb 29, 2004

Still the best audio player. Please allow drag & drop to move tabs and it will be perfect.

ahjefri reviewed v0.8 on Feb 27, 2004

I was very impress by intro of tabs,, now that we can create new tab and drag in it our fav songs,,, this is what I was looking for. If this player can be compatible with winamp DSP like QCD ,, wow ,, I will never have to play my songs in any player what's so ever,,, Looking forward for that...

XF reviewed v0.8 on Feb 25, 2004

Not as nice as QCD but still Foobar has come to be my default player for many reasons. ReplayGain support, Better audio quality (integrated 24bit rendering and 4-channels split make the difference...), simple & clean interface (if you don't need muche more customization, otherwise it can be much more funny but needs some learning), great Shuffle plugin (needs to be downloaded separately or in the Special pack). Still QCD has a better handling of Network playlist (Offline pc's -> blocked files, while foobar tries to play every file without checking if it's available or not). BTW 5 stars just for taking the lead in my heart over QCD!

ShiNtoKu reviewed v0.8 Beta 10 on Feb 21, 2004

Fast & steady, great stuff this one!

Well there are still some bugs and not the best interface in some situations but that makes 6 - 1 = 5 stars ;>

skandal reviewed v0.8 Beta 10 on Feb 19, 2004

MilkDrop? Maybe ..... :)
http://www.hydrogenaudio...php?showtopic=18862&;

joske reviewed v0.8 Beta 10 on Feb 19, 2004

you can't just easy get away from winamp. true? well, with a help of this software i did it.

fuzzyb reviewed v0.8 Beta 8 on Feb 13, 2004

This is a really great music player. I'm a former Winamp devotee, but I think I've been convinced to switch. Foobar is a lot more customizable as far as software preferences go. The ability to customize keyboard shortcuts for literally every function the program has is a big plus for me. Pretty much the only thing I miss about Winamp is the MilkDrop visualization plug-in. It's easily the best visualization I've seen and I used it somewhat frequently. Oh well, can't have everything I guess.

jpmccord reviewed v0.8 Beta 8 on Feb 11, 2004

Great program. Definitely the best audio player I've ever downloaded. Audio playback is perfect, and the ID3 tagger is better (for my taste) than any other player's I've used. Also, the best thing about foobar is how it lets you customize its text outputs for the system tray tooltip, the taskbar, the playlist, and the titlebar. Very cool.

**But a special request:** Could someone please start listing the fixes and changes from one version to the next? I would like to know what changes so I know whether I need to adjust any changes I've made.

xippon reviewed v0.8 Beta 8 on Feb 10, 2004

very good player, doesn't take a lot of memory. I missing enhancer 017 plugin (dsp) from winamp. Is there any posibility to use winamp dsp plugins in fubar ?

skandal reviewed v0.8 Beta 8 on Feb 10, 2004

From foobar Foo_look 2.xx forum
http://www.hydrogenaudio...ic=17279&st=350&;

tk32 wrote:

...and the last piece of news for the day.
my next big skin project (after hand orb) will be a collaboration with artist Dan Mauch... called Graviton (see screenshot) http://www.ninjaskin.com/graphics/graviton.jpg

Osaire reviewed v0.8 Beta 8 on Feb 10, 2004

skandal:

That is not a foobar skin, that is an unfinished Winamp skin.

roj reviewed v0.8 Beta 8 on Feb 10, 2004

"When I get better hardware, Foobar2000 will still be the software player I use, though. " ...which is indeed your right. Who knows, with the new gear may come more, shall we say, "refined" preferences in players too :) when you can afford to contrast the two and make a more informed choice. At that level it will boil down to personal taste rather than making the best of a poor situation gear-wise.

ArKay74 reviewed v0.8 Beta 8 on Feb 10, 2004

Dear God, give us our daily foobar2k beta. And don't let us know what changed or why we are trying to keep up with every release that comes out... Amen.

Anyway, I really like this program even without knowing what was fixed or changed.

ArKay

skandal reviewed v0.8 Beta 7 on Feb 8, 2004

Here is screenshot amazing skin for foo_look 2.x
http://www.ninjaskin.com/graphics/graviton.jpg
but tabbed playlist rocks

sld reviewed v0.8 Beta 7 on Feb 7, 2004

Calm down, FailCRC. The inferiority of Creative's hardware and software has been proven by many besides Roj. When I get better hardware, Foobar2000 will still be the software player I use, though.

Jeffsoft reviewed v0.8 Beta 7 on Feb 7, 2004

winamp5.02 Lite is still lighter than this..

skandal reviewed v0.8 Beta 7 on Feb 6, 2004

Useful tabbed playlist rocks

finalcut reviewed v0.8 Beta 7 on Feb 6, 2004

the best!

kljs reviewed v0.8 Beta 7 on Feb 6, 2004

Fb2k......a new era.........a new player.......a new beginning. ..... ;0

joske reviewed v0.8 Beta 7 on Feb 6, 2004

love it! love the tabbed playlists. winamp is good, but this is so much better.

FailedCRC reviewed v0.8 Beta 7 on Feb 6, 2004

if you tagged your mp3's with id3v2 tags then you deserve what's coming to you. id3v2 has no proper standard and the tags are a pain to edit and remove.

nuhi reviewed v0.8 Beta 7 on Feb 6, 2004

Everyone is comparing Foo with Winamp then so will I.
In Winamp I allways tried to make playlist more visible, hiding main window, so one day there was Foo with all it's geeky options and "playlist look".

softssa reviewed v0.8 Beta 6 on Feb 5, 2004

This player is awesome small and extremly efficient. But the support for IDv2 is what bothers me the most, I've spent about 100 hours on making my mp3 collection complete, with all the information you may want in Idv2. I know that foobar supports idv2, but the configuration part of the process towards the kind of library I want is too complicated. Make the config. of idv2 easier. But perhaps I it's easy to configurate. Perhaps its just me. Foobar users please help me out. OR developers of foobar solve the problem and you'll be more popular.

SafirXP reviewed v0.8 Beta 6 on Feb 5, 2004

ok... doesnt matter who finds it difficult & fussy to use. as long as this players keeps updating, improving, adding new features i'm happy... dont care if its accepted world wide & something! hats off to peter & every person connected to its development!

betasun reviewed v0.8 Beta 6 on Feb 5, 2004

To what extent low memory footprint , cpu usage and simplicity is important which we should sacrifice or forget
all other things .usefulness is not a quality inherent in
a program ,its a feeling of the mind which brings happiness
not pain .

Darren Floyd reviewed v0.8 Beta 6 on Feb 4, 2004

FB2K..."It whips the Winamp's ass".

roj reviewed v0.8 Beta 6 on Feb 4, 2004

Ahhh - maturity from someone who uses the term "retard". Grow up, junior. (snicker)

FailedCRC reviewed v0.8 Beta 5 on Feb 3, 2004

There are people who want their audio to sound transparent, and there are people who want their audio to sound the way they like it, you have no right to judge either roj.
Additionally you'd do well not to type (snicker) it makes you look like a retard.

On a program related note however, the new icons are cool :)

TeleAjax reviewed v0.8 Beta 5 on Feb 3, 2004

Interesting...

FailedCRC reviewed v0.8 Beta 5 on Feb 2, 2004

The new icons are VERY nice, the old ones were just poor to be honest. On a side note, BornEvil would you please hurry up and finish puberty.

tim3 reviewed v0.8 Beta 5 on Feb 2, 2004

Small and simple, just what I need.

norky reviewed v0.8 Beta 5 on Feb 2, 2004

I was a big winamp fan untill I gave this a fair shot. I love the tabbed playlists!

Zulithe reviewed v0.8 Beta 5 on Feb 2, 2004

the beatles said it best: "it's betting better all the time" and it is! foobar2000 continues to improve. beta 5 introduces a new set of file/playlist icons in the theme of the new logo, the alien-esque cat. Personally I love it.

FXSoftware reviewed v0.8 Beta 4 on Feb 2, 2004

I'm usually a QCD user. But with the latest dev builds i switched to foobar. The Tabbeb playlist system is an *excellent* idea. Btw foobar is now faster et lighter than QCD. Two thumbs up !

joske reviewed v0.8 Beta 4 on Feb 2, 2004

came for my daily foobar.

sld reviewed v0.8 Beta 4 on Feb 1, 2004

What? It has not even reached version 1.0 and is only beginning to feature skins and UI improvements? For that I give -2 stars! However, it has been an excellent audio player ever since I started using it. For that I give 7 stars...

Bluezion reviewed v0.8 Beta 3 on Feb 1, 2004

Try this Shuffle plugin (http://www.cqasys.com/pr...de54/index.php)...it\'s the first one in the page. It does the job quite well. And about midi playback, it's possible but it requires some effort...look here (http://www.hydrogenaudio...topic=17628&hl=midi). I'm sure that sooner or later it will be featured as well, although it's not first priority.

SafirXP reviewed v0.8 Beta 3 on Jan 31, 2004

great program, yeah it doesnt have MIDI support.. but who plays MIDI files nowadays.. its got native lossless format support, supports all the formats i use - mp3, mp4, mpc, ogg & flac. the playlist management is better than any player thats out there & you can easily transcode from one format to another!

dj_jorjinho reviewed v0.8 Beta 3 on Jan 31, 2004

Great Software! It has all I need... not!
Somebody, please tell Peter Pawlowski that the song shuffling sucks! Even with the plug-in I downed from the forum doesn't help! I'm very sorry, but just for that I'm sticking to Winamp (or QCD). I can't have a player that plays the same song twice with the Shuffle on!

TeleAjax reviewed v0.8 Beta 3 on Jan 31, 2004

Good small player.

oachkatzl reviewed v0.8 Beta 2 on Jan 31, 2004

the best audio player ever - intelligent UI, no useless stuff, many functions and amazing sound quality.
winamp 5 go home and please some beginners!

mare reviewed v0.8 Beta 2 on Jan 31, 2004

The one and only! For skin lovers: music is for listening not viewing, I guess.

roj reviewed v0.8 Beta 2 on Jan 30, 2004

On Creative equipment I shouldn't wonder that the details are obscured - you have my profound and deepest sympathies.

ep0ch reviewed v0.8 Beta 2 on Jan 30, 2004

The best for audiophiles! not so good for skin wh***s...

joske reviewed v0.8 Beta 2 on Jan 30, 2004

foobar rocks.

jrepin reviewed v0.8 Beta 1 on Jan 30, 2004

This music player is the best right now. It is small and fast and it has a superb quality of decoding.

BoNeLeSS reviewed v0.8 Beta 1 on Jan 30, 2004

Maybe it's not the player for the ones that care about eye candy, but other than that this player simply rocks... small, versatile, fast, low resource usage and support out-of-the-box all formats needed for audio purists (OGG, MP4-AAC, Musepack, FLAC, etc...) and replaygain.

I like Winamp 5 too: Some skins are cool and stuff but are also a resource hog and u need to dig on the Internet in search of plugins for those audio formats...

Bluezion reviewed v0.8 Beta 1 on Jan 30, 2004

Astonishing qualitative player...small, efficient, practical anf full of excellent features both for advanced/demanding and casual listeners.

ohmymy reviewed v0.8 Beta 1 on Jan 30, 2004

well.. maybe it's doing what it supose to do, but the UI... simply suxx.

sld reviewed v0.8 Beta 1 on Jan 30, 2004

Wow, FB2K gets significantly better with each major release. This oft-underestimated multi-format player deserves my highest accolade.

kljs reviewed v0.8 Beta 1 on Jan 29, 2004

And foobar2000 just got better with 0.8 beta! Can't wait for it to hit v1.0. :)

(anticipate those doomsayers)......

sld reviewed v0.7.7b on Jan 15, 2004

Well, I personally do not like to modify my music much too. I just use Replaygain to make sure that any music I play are not damaging my already crappy Creative speakers. I also use noise-shaping dither for that extra bit-depth I can't hear.

FlauntMG reviewed v0.7.7b on Jan 13, 2004

The best thing about foobar is the small size download, but function wise, no need to argue more, winamp juz simply the 1. Altho foobar uses simple interface, something makes me wonder how come the memory usage is higher than winamp. Basically, foobar is juz ur alternative to winamp.

sld reviewed v0.7.7b on Jan 13, 2004

Winamp is far from bloated, so a comparison based on bloat is invalid. If Foobar2000 begins to lag during startup, chances are hard disk needs a defragment. I had a similar experience, until I did a defrag of my program files and now it's back to 300+ msec startups.

PetePat reviewed v0.7.7b on Jan 13, 2004

The BEST!

betablue reviewed v0.7.7b on Jan 12, 2004

The sound is pretty good. Each version does seem to take longer and longer to start the program.

lastactionhero reviewed v0.7.7b on Jan 12, 2004

Am I missing something here?! "Computer nerds and not music lovers"!!! Do you mean that a music lovers cares more for aesthetics and eye-candy stuff than the actual sound that a player produces? Wow! I'm glad that there aren't around that kind of "music lovers". Next time go get Mona Lisa to play your files...ahhahaha

zeeeg reviewed v0.7.7b on Jan 12, 2004

This software is obviously designed for computer nerds, not music lovers. Seems to be good if the only time you listen to music is in the background while you're doing other things on the computer. For any other use, it fails.

JEdwardP reviewed v0.7.7b on Jan 12, 2004

All I can add to my comments on the previous version is that I've switched to foobar as my default audio player after three years of QCD. Again folks, nothing in that denies the excellence of QCD, it simply acknowledges the excellence of foobar.

joske reviewed v0.7.7b on Jan 12, 2004

excellent player. replaced bloated winamp long time ago.

Bluezion reviewed v0.7.7a on Jan 6, 2004

???? ?? ???? JEdwardP. Maybe eventually people will realize that there's no point in bashing down continually a piece of software that you chose not to use, for a variety of reasons other than the fact that it might not be that good. I fully support your approach, and that's one of the reasons I also keep Winamp 5 (2.91 till a week ago) installed to my machine...I use any one of them according to the circumstances. I also agree that when it comes down to sound quality these players are very efficient and alike. I never understood all those who claimed that when they installed Foobar2000 the sound was instantly so much better (unless of course they used DSP) and the same thing applies to QCD or Winamp.

JEdwardP reviewed v0.7.7a on Jan 6, 2004

I feel compelled to say I can't understand any attempt to start a player war over foobar and QCD.

The fact is, they're BOTH very high-quality players. The differences between them are almost entirely ones of interface, and therefore some will find one to be more convenient or attractive than the other.

I see this as nothing to polarize us to such a degree as we seem to be.

I've used QCD for three years, and think it has the best balance of performance and appearance. If you want sound quality but still care significantly about the appearance of your player, you'll probably love QCD.

I began to use foobar a few weeks ago simply because I DON'T care about such things as skins, visualizations, or how "cool" a player looks, and knew that, by default, foobar has a very plain, simple look.

Upon installing, I noticed that with all desired plug-ins installed, it was about half the size of my QCD installation.

I consider both of these points to be in favor of foobar, yet neither diminish the overall quality of QCD. If I considered these points to be against foobar, neither would diminish its overall quality.

Upon listening, I found the sound quality of the two to be virtually if not absolutely indistinguishable, which means I should consider them equal in addressing my primary concern about any music player.

If I decide to switch to foobar full-time, it won't magically make QCD a bad player, nor will it mean I suddenly began to think of it as such.

The bottom line is, they're both really good, and we can each choose the one we think suits our habits better, without trying to claim the other is awful. We're lucky to have them both as CHOICES.

I, for one, am not afraid to admit that some of the software I don't prefer to use can STILL be quite good.

nemesis1 reviewed v0.7.7a on Jan 5, 2004

placebo: can't say much about foo_looks (I've never used it, I'm quite happy with the win standard looks for the playlist, and my normal fb use is to control it via global hotkeys hence it's always iconified out of sight), but the cpu usage might be related to playback>dsp manager settings. some of those do eat up cpu cycles, same with dithering (playback:output).
on my machine normal fb usage stays in 0% usage no matter what (I don't use the dithering).

PlaceboEffect reviewed v0.7.7a on Jan 5, 2004

Well I hope other releases are better.
There are several things I did not like.
Downloaded "foo looks" , in order to have a "look" you end-up with 2 windows, 2 apps, running just for foobar. This is nonsense, 2 windows for one program ?? Couldn't they make it like other program's skinning ability ??
Also, the "looks" generate errors often, click a button or another will generate "unable to load look" errors.
The CPU usage seem to be another problem. It remains at a minimum of 15% and jumping between 15% and 100% all the time. My default player, Creative Media Source Player, that came with my SB Augidy 2 Platinum has a CPU usage under 5% , this is critical in making my audio player program selection.
The sound, well I guess that this is a "personal" matter, again, my default player does sound better and seem to take better advantage of EAX.
For a program that claims to be "light" on ressources and system, 12Mb of RAM is nothing to brag about, though, it does use less 3Mb then my ususal player. It is not bad, but, considering the choices out there and having similar priorities of mine, foobar is not an evident choice, given, that if you look for options and more options, you will have a ball with this, though, many of them are of doubtful utility. oh well at least I tried it and will eagerly uninstal until the next release and hoping to find a more mature program.

lastactionhero reviewed v0.7.7a on Jan 5, 2004

No need to download anything else than the typical core program to make it sound as good as any other player (if not even better). Download, install, and double click on an audio file and bang!, excellent sound quality comes out from your speakers. You don't like the look of it? Just change it as you qould with any other player around (http://www.barciaonline....arlooks/foobarlooks.htm). Download a skin (I think you are gonna like the Winamp5 one) and presto you have a great player with amazing capabilities and features. Just spare more than 2 secs with it and you might realize it eventually.

TeleAjax reviewed v0.7.7a on Jan 5, 2004

Still improving. Be sure to activate the DSPs.

roj reviewed v0.7.7a on Jan 5, 2004

Dead wrong (as usual) sld. QCD has had it for ogg and flac since pretty much the get-go. As to that dubious function being for people "who know about their music", that's pretty funny - I'd personally rather my music *not be adjusted* on the fly and that I got back as much of *the original experience* that lossy compression has left to me. It's the same reason I leave the "loudness" button on amplifiers alone - but then again that feature most likely must be for folks "who know about their music" and want to "streamline their experience" too... (snicker) If you're going to justify a feature, try it without the all-knowing-but-know-nothing elitist garbage.

kljs reviewed v0.7.7a on Jan 4, 2004

5 stars and more.

Darken reviewed v0.7.7a on Jan 4, 2004

Great light soft for ripping :)

daalig reviewed v0.7.7a on Jan 4, 2004

Great!

finalcut reviewed v0.7.7a on Jan 4, 2004

the best!

nice new feature and bug fixed!

PS reviewed v0.7.7 on Jan 4, 2004

to kevinz, no wonder u cant hear the difference, from ur post, i know u have no clue whats good sound system, whats the brand and model of ur sound card and speaker?? nowdays soundcard r 5.1+, quality vary, and 5.1 speaker doesnt mean they sound better, i could get a yamada 5.1 or get a decent 2.1, those cheap speaker just dont make sounds, hehe they make noise, suggest u to get a better speaker, then u will hear the difference :)
probably to other kids who didnt know the importance of speaker, quit buying those pretty speakers, they dont make sounds...lol

lastactionhero reviewed v0.7.7 on Jan 3, 2004

And another thing. I'm thinking of droping over to QCD's comment section and act like an a** as you guys seem to do here. That would be fun for a change. In fact why don't we gather as many as possible and bash down the other players just for the heck of it. I would love to see lastsamurai's face when seeing his cute player go down closer to 1 :D

Bluezion reviewed v0.7.7 on Jan 3, 2004

Don't take me wrong there pal...I don't want to scare anyone off as long as it respects the purpose we are all here for. Do yourself some favor and stop trolling around here. You are not a troll but a zealot as well.

hedgehog reviewed v0.7.7 on Jan 3, 2004

QCD is way better than this.
There, I said it again. and for bluezion, stop being such an a** and using webmaster as a weapon to scare off people who dont like this programm and you. I dont give me damn getting banned, there are millions ways I could come back.

patman reviewed v0.7.7 on Jan 3, 2004

this is getting kind of childish. voice your opinion about the program and then shut up. there's no reason to repeatedly try to drag it down if you hate it, or try to inflate it's rating if you love it. and yes i know i'm being hypercritical by rating again, but too bad!

sld reviewed v0.7.7 on Jan 2, 2004

I have a 5 channel PCI soundcard (Audigy1) and a 5-speaker sound system (Inspire 5300) and I want to get rid of them both at the soonest possible opportunity to upgrade. No point comparing playback quality if your sound system is not up to par. Well kevinz, roj will have your head for daring to claim that Winamp sounds the best. LOL!

jrepin reviewed v0.7.7 on Jan 2, 2004

I tried it and it really sounds great. Also it is nice to see that they are focusing on sound quality and low resource usage. After all if I wan't to listen to music then I would like to get the sound quality and very fast operation. Keyboard shortcuts also come in very handy when you have it runing in tray. I guess this is now my favourite. Excellent work!

kevinz reviewed v0.7.7 on Jan 2, 2004

you foobar people keep talking and talking and talking about a better sound quality but I just dont see it. I have a 6 channel PCI sound card with 5.1 speakers system and I just dont get what you guys are talking about. Winamp's still my favorite.

KennyLee reviewed v0.7.7 on Jan 2, 2004

People(winamp/QCD) are just afraid Foobar2000 is going to outgunned their favourite Winamp/QCD respectively. So, they are trying to discredit Fb2k. So? My ears listen to music, not my eyes. And fb2k output sound better than Winamp(From my point of view). People just don't want to understand that. Like who cares if they know s*** about what is a good sound. I used to use winamp, but when I got fb2k, I was like "Wow". I didn't know what s*** is title formating, I didn't know what s*** is replaygain, and I didn't even know what s*** is Kernel streaming. So I just change from waveout to kernel streaming, and played an mp3. And that make me jumped from Winamp to fb2k. I couldn't care less about skins or DSP or whatever s*** people are arguing about. I just want to listen to music while typing my documents on Microsoft Words. And fb2k just does the job better than anyone else at the moment. Nuff said. Fb2k deserve a 5 star and that's that.

boboki reviewed v0.7.7 on Jan 2, 2004

I voted last beta a 5 star, and before that and before that...
Now I am again voting a 5 star not just becuase this program IS a 5 star, but becuase it DESERVES 5 stars. These kids that keep voting a 1 star, please let me know where you live so we can talk about this.
Great sound quality. GREAT sound quality. GREAT sound quality.
This program is NOT meant to have a pretty face. It was not built to be skinned to the moon and back, or to look cool. It was built to PLAY MUSIC. It has a LARGE screen with great playlist features. It has supperior file support, and playback quality.
If all you care about is pretty skins, and neat looking screensavers... why are you even listening to music?
5 star, and unless you decide to suddenly take out all its features and make it a winamp shell, I don't see it possible to be anything LESS than 5 stars.
Get it, use it, get some plugins to make it act like winamp if you just cannot change.... but if you like music, and you like music QUALITY (not quantity.. *cough* clear channel radio play*cough*) then fb is for you.

guti reviewed v0.7.7 on Jan 2, 2004

I switched from WinAmp to Foobar2000 0.586 because it was less resource hungry and included more features.
Now in 0.7.7, still with it using Case's optimized SSE plugins.

arman68 reviewed v0.7.7 on Jan 2, 2004

For foobar2000 to attract so much hatred it must be doing something well ;-) IMHO it is easily the best audio player available. Regarding sound quality I would say that Winamp is actually on par with foobar2000. If you want a nice skinnable GUI go for Winamp. What you will get with foobar2000 is out of the box support for many formats (including MPC and APE), good replaygain support (to make all your music sound at a similar loudness level), playlist oriented with a whole lot of useful no-nonsense functions (eg: encoding, mass tagger, freedb, etc ...). Get it. Try it. Keep it.

Tidus41 reviewed v0.7.7 on Jan 2, 2004

good, but not great. wouldnt want it to be my main player.. .the interface is way ugly. sound quality is great, but ill pass this time.

daalig reviewed v0.7.7 on Jan 2, 2004

How am I a troll Agon? I mod it up because I like the program, this is the 4th or 5th time modding it up since I switched from Winamp at the .66 release I think. You come here nearly ever Beta just to mod it down, are you actually dissapointed that Beta 24 to 25 didn't add all the features you wanted? You'll never be happy with foobar even if it had everything you liked, you're just a troll, and you'll always stay like that.

CyberInferno reviewed v0.7.7 on Jan 1, 2004

Well said, Bluezion. Agon, why do you even bother rating foobar2000 anymore? Everyone here understands that you don't like it. You've said your piece, now leave. While you may think you're justified since there are "+ troll[s]" around, a one star and five star rating average to a three star rating, which is clearly below the average fb2k rating. I assume that by "+ troll" you meant zealot or something like it, since a positive troll is an oxymoron. Not everyone rating this program is a zealot. I use Winamp5 regularly and iTunes rarely, but occasionally, and rate them both with four stars. It's actually possible to like a piece of software more than another without rating your choice as five stars and the other as one star. Please learn some etiquette.

nemesis1 reviewed v0.7.7 on Jan 1, 2004

why is it that the zealots of qcd (or other players) have this childish need to rain down on this player (which they don't like for some reason or other) and flamefest with * rating for absolutely no reason other than to try to hammer down the rating, while we (maturely) don't do the same to the other players?

Darken reviewed v0.7.7 on Jan 1, 2004

Great minimalist soft with audio quality + FREE Ripping stuffs. :) 4/5

Asmo reviewed v0.7.7 on Jan 1, 2004

Fooobar 2000 is a great audio player, I've tried them all out there to great degree, I used to be use winamp 2.xx and many plugins to achieve the sound quality I wanted, then QCD and foobar came out and both are great players also, but only Foobar had the features and quality i wanted all built in. I love the tabbed playlists, a unique feature over other players, and it comes with support for all the file types I use primarily (ape, flac, etc) and their decoder is top notch. Your preference may be another player, but no reason to give this excellent program a low rating, let people try it out and decide for themselves. 5 Stars for this great program, which only gets better with each release.

Agon reviewed v0.7.7 on Jan 1, 2004

comments like "winamp is better" are actually useful and serve the purpose of this site. New users will know what some people and see what alternatives they can check out.
As for FB2000 and the claim it is simple, lite and such ?? If you install no plugins, it is boring, not eficient, and doesn't sound all that good, if you get to instal the ton of ad-ons available, it get very complicated and frutrating, one can spend hours to set a skin or a plugin just right and that is the total opposite of the claim about this program. I rarely run, only when I need a quick browse to playlist and listen to samples of music for purposes of selection. My bad ratins is a combination of all factors, and the negative ones weight more then the positive ones for me.

TeleAjax reviewed v0.7.7 on Jan 1, 2004

One of the best minimalist programs with great audio quality. (Don't know about you, but people giving 1's, probably didn't even try it)

manatlan reviewed v0.7.7 on Jan 1, 2004

The best prog for playing music on a computer !
With all its wonderful plugins, you can do all what you want with it ! It's one of the only prog which miss me a lot when i'll switch to linux ...
For people who wants to give it a try ...
try its replaygain function, try its powerful database managment, try its powefull playlists, try its powerful tagging functions, try somme plugins like foo_osd, foo_tunes, foo_looks, foo_dbsearch, foo_quicktag, foo_diskwriter ...
keep it mind that, in foobar, everything is a plugin, everything can be changed/configured ... and you can suit your desire with it !
once it's configured, it's perfect ! the only trouble ; you must configure it, to suit your mind !

lastsamurai reviewed v0.7.7 on Jan 1, 2004

QCD all the way

Jeffsoft reviewed v0.7.7 on Jan 1, 2004

loh.. winamp5 Lite is a lot smaller than this

BNuser reviewed v0.7.7 on Jan 1, 2004

Foobar Taskbarminimised Apefileplay = 1,7MB, CPU = 7-8
Winamp dito with old Skin 1,4MB and CPU = 1-3...

While Foobar beeing buttugly Windows-Style. Ok, taste differs. But test resources and judge yourself. I have plenty of RAM to waste and dont care about 10 or 20MB. But CPU-time is precious and not to waste.

xingyutan reviewed v0.7.7 on Jan 1, 2004

Tried it once, still like winamp better.

VikingStorm reviewed v0.7.7 on Dec 31, 2003

Still developing, that's always good.

mmebane reviewed v0.7.7 on Dec 31, 2003

Foobar2000 is, frankly, awesome. I'm not fond of the default GUI, but the foo_tunes GUI is nice.

glassdesigns reviewed v0.7.7 on Dec 31, 2003

Sound quality is terrible.

Chastity reviewed v0.7.6 on Dec 31, 2003

v0.7.7 is available

http://foobar2000.blogsite.org (An official mirror)

0.7.7:
- improved display of keybard shortcut list
- font selection for title formatting editor
- last directory for loading/saving playlists remembered separately
- "screen reader compatibility mode" in default UI
- fixed rare random lockup when changing tracks
- fixed problem with waveOut / seeking
- fixed some issues in MP4 parser
- added FLAC and Vorbis decoders for new Matroska parser component
- improvements in MP4 utilities component (output directory selection etc)
- fixed bugs in floatingpoint WAV input again

dejavu reviewed v0.7.6 on Dec 17, 2003

Good software! Good options!

rotjong reviewed v0.7.6 Beta 2 on Dec 17, 2003

"so whats new? 1 line of code changed and we get bombed with yet another beta ??"
When a program doesn't get released quickly enough with updates and fixes users bi*ch. When a program has a lot of updates and releases users bi*ch. You can't win, can you? The fact of the matter is these betas are not available from the official website. Complain to BetaNews and get them to stop posting the beta build updates, Agon.
As always, I still pick this over any other player. WinAmp5 is doing anything to lure me back to WinAmp.

Darren Floyd reviewed v0.7.6 Beta 2 on Dec 17, 2003

The best audio player there is...period. The customization options are awesome. Not for the computer illiterate (unless you just want a basic player with a playlist). If you know what you are doing, you can make FB2K do anything you want. Let's see how many folks fall into the "computer illiterate" catagory and give it 1 star.

zik reviewed v0.7.6 Beta 2 on Dec 16, 2003

it's beta software, made for testers to find bugs, it's up to you to download or not, it isn't an obligation

alanity reviewed v0.7.6 Beta 1 on Dec 15, 2003

I don't really get the people going on about quality or resource usage, winamp 5's pretty much the same. I'm giving it 5 stars for format strings, masstagger and all the other cool features. Winamp has some catching up to do functionality wise.

mazy reviewed v0.7.6 Beta 1 on Dec 15, 2003

amazing player ... but not for everyone. if you care about what you are using, if you want player focused on usability, quality, educated user base, interesting plugins etc., foobar2k is the way to go.

my current screenshot, using my custom formatting string:
http://mazy.johanka.cz/m...bar/mazy-foobar-006.png

yokozuna reviewed v0.7.6 Beta 1 on Dec 15, 2003

QCD=Quinessential CD Player

But I think that Foobar is the best. It really rocks, and sounds much better than the rest.

Andreasvb reviewed v0.7.6 Beta 1 on Dec 15, 2003

My player of choice ^_^ Gets better everytime. Thanks for a wonderful program, I use it everyday :D

guti reviewed v0.7.6 Beta 1 on Dec 15, 2003

What QCD means?

kix_vn reviewed v0.7.6 Beta 1 on Dec 15, 2003

it's good even when it was 0.3 0.4,
and now, second to none in my opinion

Slimak reviewed v0.7.6 Beta 1 on Dec 15, 2003

Apollos YOU ARE A MORON because Peter is one of the coders for Winamp5. This guy is probably smarter than you will ever dream of being. So don't hate.

"Version Reviewed: 0.7.6 Beta 1
Reviewed by: Apollos
Date: December 14th, 2003 5:03 PM

Peter Pawlowski, don't give up the daytime job dude... or is this maybe your daytime job? ¬_¬ Winamp 5 makes this not worth considering, the harsh truth of it all. Also I think this whole "I don't like bloaty skins" stuff is just crap hiding a crap player.

Rating: * "

kljs reviewed v0.7.6 Beta 1 on Dec 14, 2003

Gets better and better as the "betas" came out from foobar2000 homepage.

5 star is too little for fb2k. I give it an extra 5 stars.

10 stars.

VikingStorm reviewed v0.7.6 Beta 1 on Dec 14, 2003

Has nice sound.

CyberInferno reviewed v0.7.6 Beta 1 on Dec 14, 2003

@lastsamurai: You "lost the one last tiny bit interest in this software" because it has an option to change the look of the player? That's possibly the dumbest thing I've ever read on this site. You aren't worthy of trying this software. You probably downloaded it, spent five minutes playing with it, and gave up trying to figure it out. Thank you for not trying this software anymore, now please stop flaming it like a moron. Although I expect you to come back with some idiotic response, it would be great if you would prove me wrong. @Apollos and @lastsamurai: Winamp 5 is a piece of s*** compared to foobar2000. Let's see...it can't play half the formats that foobar2000 can, it can't encode aac/mp4, it can't play iTunes encoded aac/mp4's (at least "out of the box"). It can't play Flac files. And as far as iTunes goes, it has three features worth downloading it for: Sharing music across LAN, iTunes music store (innovative but overpriced for buying compressed audio), and it's the only convenient AAC/MP4 ripper. Other than that, it plays a whopping four filetypes: WAV, AIFF, AAC/MP4, and MP3. Oh, and to Apollo specifically, please buy a Mac. If the look of a player is more important than the quality, you've got Mac written all over you. And I'm sure Peter's day job is developing software that he gives out for free. That pays the bills. Quick thinking on your part. @Agon: Why should you bash an author for working hard and putting out updates frequently. God forbid someone take pride in their work and try to make it the best it can be.

Sharp reviewed v0.7.6 Beta 1 on Dec 14, 2003

@Agon: oh non.. its bearshare (bearcrap 4.3.0) who win the betaversion flood with more than 100betas

I dont really like the UI of foobar (i know its customizable), but the sound quality is very good, many many option..

Maybe i'll switch my WA to Foobar one day