music player that doesn't f**k UP.... music....!

[tasty tatsyn]

do you spend countless hours tweaking your music in your DAW and then listen to it on windows media player, VLC or whatever music player and it SUCKS...

shortly after you take mental notes of what needs to be tweaked on the track but all those assessments are based on a false premisse?
...you go in again.... leave your daw and new version sounds even worse then previous!!!!!!!!!!!!

is that little distortion you liked in DAW in now unbearable!??

is the deepness, punch and definition gone?

here's the solution....

bringing the closest to your DAW sound to windows!

CALL TV SHOP 0800 216 472 364 782 634 78 NOW !!!!!!!!!

just kidding but love the sound on this thing!

here's the link:
http://www.digimezzo.com/software/dopamine/



possible side effects:
- increase your dopamine levels when listening to music
- more accuratly detect and correct mixing/mastering errors and consciously compare diferent version of the track

[chk071]

You are aware that all music players sound the same though, right? It's just like with DAW's.

[tasty tatsyn]

I am aware that we can have very distinct opinions on something and despite that, still be fine with it.

[mcbpete]

Have you got some mad EQ curve or post-processing on your other media players ?

[tasty tatsyn]

no i haven't and have turned off ALL post processing on Audio in windows just to make sure

if you're on PC just listen to a track on windows media player and then groove music
there's an obvious diference..

then again might be just on my system, anyhow Dopamine bypassed all that if that was the case

[mcbpete]

Isn't Groove Music a (now-defunct) streaming service rather than a media player ?

[tasty tatsyn]

i don't know what kind of hybrid it is... spotify also has a player/streamer and iTunes and so on....

what i can tell you is that they all sound different to my ears, WMP from Groove, VLC, MusicBee.... and the one that (to me) has the best and most reliable sound quality is Dopamine

[exytage]

I still use foobar2000. Plays back everything accurately with no problems. I doubt any of the popular players ruin the sound in any way unless you have some processing settings turned on.

[lfm]

Yes, foobar2000 also has ASIO drivers, same as daw usually run.

There are various options in music players, to even out dynamics so they sound about equally loud etc. so as said look for settings like that. Even output effect limitations on hardware players like phones etc.

But another line of enquiry could be that if it sounds worse than daw - that rendering in daw is not rendering everything through stereo out - so obviously anything else playing back will sound different. I've done things in daw thinking I do one thing on a couple of tracks, like routing to a bus - but forget how I select and some hidden tracks in between are also selected but not visible in mixer in daw. Things like that.

And soundcard external mixer, like RME Totalmix, also has so settings how extra outputs are routed to each other. So a reality check on soundcards possible mixer. I had distortion due to that phones output I used was also routed to speaker output for monitor, having that summed up to speaker output. Actually all extra outs were routed like this by default - all went to analog 1+2.

And biggest source to sounding different - volume. How our ears are having different frequency response at different sound pressure levels.

Listening to speakers - even a couple of degrees temperature in room - like later in the day compared to morning - makes noticeable different in attentuation of highs.

A bunch of ideas...

[tasty tatsyn]

Yes, foobar2000 also has ASIO drivers, same as daw usually run.

There are various options in music players, to even out dynamics so they sound about equally loud etc. so as said look for settings like that. Even output effect limitations on hardware players like phones etc.

But another line of enquiry could be that if it sounds worse than daw - that rendering in daw is not rendering everything through stereo out - so obviously anything else playing back will sound different. I've done things in daw thinking I do one thing on a couple of tracks, like routing to a bus - but forget how I select and some hidden tracks in between are also selected but not visible in mixer in daw. Things like that.

And soundcard external mixer, like RME Totalmix, also has so settings how extra outputs are routed to each other. So a reality check on soundcards possible mixer. I had distortion due to that phones output I used was also routed to speaker output for monitor, having that summed up to speaker output. Actually all extra outs were routed like this by default - all went to analog 1+2.

And biggest source to sounding different - volume. How our ears are having different frequency response at different sound pressure levels.

Listening to speakers - even a couple of degrees temperature in room - like later in the day compared to morning - makes noticeable different in attentuation of highs.

A bunch of ideas...

i like your bunch of ideas

i just downloaded foobar too, checked if there was no EQ... checked*
it had an option to apply gain and limit peaks set on by default... unchecked...

about asio: "Please note that this component is meant for systems where ASIO is the only available output method. It is highly recommended to use the default output modes instead of ASIO. Contrary to popular "audiophile" claims, there are NO benefits from using ASIO as far as music playback quality is concerned, while bugs in ASIO drivers may severely degrade the performance."

******also i assume i can't do anything in windows environment while playing music ****** the same way i lose windows sound while in cubase

in the end after checks and unchecks opened the same track in foobar, dopamine, it sounded diferent; as it sounded every so slightly diferent in all other players (my prefered sound quality is still from Dopamine)

and this is an important thing too here... when i tried the same process on my 2nd (more flat sounding) pair of headphones it's a lot harder to notice the diferences

[Burillo]

I am aware that we can have very distinct opinions on something and despite that, still be fine with it.

yes, but all opinions are not created equal. it is quite possible for some of the opinions to just be wrong (as in, factually incorrect). yours is of those wrong kind.

there's nothing wrong with having wrong opinion, just like there's nothing wrong with fighting windmills. however, you should know that music players do not "play" music on their own - they're not directly decoding formats, nor do they directly interface with the sound hardware - they rely on third-party libraries to do the decoding, and they rely on the system to actually output audio. they may do some DSP, but that can be easily switched off in the settings. other than that, they sound exactly the same, because they use exactly the same mechanisms to produce sound.

[tasty tatsyn]

so i assume you factually and correctly truelly undeniably sure thing tested Dopamine and are trully factually correct it sounds the same as others...

that's awesome too

you listen in whatever player you want, i'll keep listening on Dopamine

[fmr]

do you spend countless hours tweaking your music in your DAW and then listen to it on windows media player, VLC or whatever music player and it SUCKS...

shortly after you take mental notes of what needs to be tweaked on the track but all those assessments are based on a false premisse?
...you go in again.... leave your daw and new version sounds even worse then previous!!!!!!!!!!!!

is that little distortion you liked in DAW in now unbearable!??

is the deepness, punch and definition gone?

here's the solution....

bringing the closest to your DAW sound to windows!

Let's admit, for a second, that everything you wrote above is right, and that Dopamine would be the solution for all those problems. Yoi are forgetting something very important thing, IMO:

1. People want their music to be listened, and to be listened in the best possible conditions.
2. Since the vast majority of people will not be using Dopamine, porobably (before your post I didn't even knew about it), they will use one of the players that supposedly "f*ck up the music.
3. Therefire, if you replace the player you use, you are just running away fo the problems, not solve them. Everyone else not using YOUR plsayer will still experience the problems, becose YOU chose to run away from them, instead of solving them
4. In that situation, your music may sound good to you, but will still sound like crap to everyone else that is using the so called "crappy players".

Now, tell me again how will this solve the problems you were describing above. Will you force everyone to use JUST one player, in order for everyone to sound equal?

[Burillo]

so i assume you factually and correctly truelly undeniably sure thing tested Dopamine and are trully factually correct it sounds the same as others...

went right over your head. i'll attempt at explaining once again.

different applications do not use different methods of playback - they do it through the same system calls, whether it's Dopamine, foobar2000 or something i wrote five minutes ago. in other words, there is no place where the difference could possibly be introduced for playback to sound differently between different music players, other than built-in DSP and perhaps decoding (which i assume isn't an issue because you're listening to lossless formats, right? right?).

that is, it doesn't matter if i listened to how Dopamine sounds or not - the fact that it uses the same OS facilities to output sounds is enough to conclude that it doesn't sound differently from others. that's like saying water coming from the same source tastes differently because it is in (otherwise identical) bottles with different labels on them.

[No_Use]

about asio: "Please note that this component is meant for systems where ASIO is the only available output method. It is highly recommended to use the default output modes instead of ASIO. Contrary to popular "audiophile" claims, there are NO benefits from using ASIO as far as music playback quality is concerned, while bugs in ASIO drivers may severely degrade the performance."

I'll add the sorce link:
http://www.foobar2000.org/components/view/foo_out_asio

As much as I dig foobar I consider above statement pure nonsense because then we shouldn't use DAWs with ASIO drivers (an "industry standard") either, no ?

edit:
Ok, agreed on the "NO benefits" soundwise part.