Why is foobar better than winamp?

[NinjaGnome]

I know its cause of some kernal streaming feature but im not noticing any difference. Do i need to do something to get kernal streaming working?

 

[GhettoFob]

what is kernel streaming?

 

[00Jones]

Originally posted by: GhettoFob
what is kernel streaming?

 

[NinjaGnome]

I have no clue but I hear it ranted about all the time on these forums.

 

[raptor13]

Kernal streaming is something like your digital audio stream gets sent straight to your sound card's DAC completely bypassing Windows' built in WAV processing algorithm. Not surprisingly, when the audio stream takes a trip through Windows, it degrades in quality. I think that's the general idea, anyway.

Winamp also supports kernal streaming. I think it's enabled if you choose DirectSound output instead of WAVout, which is the default. Hopefully someone with more than a vague idea of what's happening will come along soon.

 

[LS20]

because it has an antidiluvian interface and better sound quality when hooked up to 200$ soundcards and 400$ headphones and makes the the user feel all that much better about themselves. just stick with winamp

 

[tweakmm]

Kernel Streaming allows the audio signal to bypass kMixer,which among other things dithers the audio signal making it sound worse. I'm 99% sure that Directoutput is still run through the Kmixer, so that means that foobar is the only program that I know of that supports KS.

 

[NinjaGnome]

Lol right now im using 20 dollar headphones. My monsoon MM-2000's controller mudule broke and its stuck on mute so until I can get it replaced then I wouldnt be able to give the programs a good comparison.

 

[tweakmm]

Originally posted by: LS20
because it has an antidiluvian interface and better sound quality when hooked up to 200$ soundcards and 400$ headphones and makes the the user feel all that much better about themselves. just stick with winamp

Someone is bitter about having an AC97 onboard soundcard.

 

[GhettoFob]

Originally posted by: tweakmm

Originally posted by: LS20
because it has an antidiluvian interface and better sound quality when hooked up to 200$ soundcards and 400$ headphones and makes the the user feel all that much better about themselves. just stick with winamp

Someone is bitter about having an AC97 onboard soundcard.

there's nothing wrong with ac97 onboard sound