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Foobar or JRiver

Foobar VS JRiver

  • Foobar

    Votes: 105 53.6%
  • JRiver

    Votes: 54 27.6%
  • Other (Mention below)

    Votes: 37 18.9%

  • Total voters
    196

Sal1950

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Only youngsters count their libraries in "songs".
Mature members count in "albums" :)
 

DDF

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EqualizerAPO works with Foobar only if you choose "DS" output, not WASAPI nor ASIO, which arguably give better sound quality.

Moreover, with APO too you can only use a single bitrate for a convolving impulse, so you would rely on Windows resampler, which is probably worse than SoX in Foobar.
(See Archimago's study on Windows resampler: http://archimago.blogspot.com/2015/11/measurements-windows-10-audio-stack.html)

Avoid windows resampler at all costs. Otherwise DS is fine. Equalizer APOs filter set is so generous that it handles room eq without needing a seperate room convolver feature, though the process is more manual. So using foobar and eapo I get free sample rate auto switching, no resampling, simple file based structure and as much eq as I would ever need
 

Old Listener

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I've used JRiver for more than 13 years. My music collection is mostly classical music, Broadway musicals, movie musicals and great American songbook albums for which composer is just as important as performers. JRiver has the best facilities for tagging music files just the way I want them and the best facilities for browsing and searching based on whatever tags I wanted to use.

My needs have changed a number of times over the 13+ years I've used JRiver. Its wealth of features lets me adapt to whatever new configuration I decide to use.

Several times over the years I've compared memory and CPU use between JRiver and Foobar and found little difference. Simple minded comparisons of file sizes may show a difference but that has little to do with actual performance.

Amir's comment about the splash screen illustrates a point about JRiver. With a few seconds work, I set an option to start in the last visited view and I haven't seen the splash screen for more that a second or two since. JRiver has tools tools for getting your experience in browsing, selecting and playing music to work just the way you want it. Of course, you have to spend the time to think out how you want things to work and then look for the relevant tools in JRiver.
 

Ron Party

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CPH (Chief Prog Head)
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^ I love it. People have libraries >500K tracks. Suddenly I feel mine is relatively small !!!
 

Sal1950

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^ I love it. People have libraries >500K tracks. Suddenly I feel mine is relatively small !!!
I would guess most of those collections were put together in pre-streaming days. ;)
 

pierre

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I use Roon and mpd. Roon because it is easy to use and all the family members use it in parallel.
Mpd + client because I am mostly linux based, some macs but no windows around.

As noted by others Roon search is not its best feature. Jriver is another nice option: excellent DSP, very customizable, look could be better. I have only 20k songs and Roon has 0 issue with an old but still powerful linux server.
 

Sal1950

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^ I love it. People have libraries >500K tracks. Suddenly I feel mine is relatively small !!!
So if you have 500K tracks and listen 24/7, you could get thru the library in approx 3 years. :D
 

Soniclife

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So if you have 500K tracks and listen 24/7, you could get thru the library in approx 3 years. :D
Anyone with a large library have a metric for how many unique tracks they listen to in a year? Some software might track it.
 

Ron Party

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So if you have 500K tracks and listen 24/7, you could get thru the library in approx 3 years. :D

May be a bit on the low side. jriver tells me I have 2.29 years. Is there a virtual equivalent of dust? I know for sure there's lots of music in my collection that I will never listen to again, to state nothing of the albums in my list to which I have yet to give a listen.
 

anmpr1

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Anyone with a large library have a metric for how many unique tracks they listen to in a year? Some software might track it.
You know you have too many records (cd's or files) when you are slumming through the list and say, "Man... I didn't know I even had that. Maybe I should give it a spin." And then put something else on.
 

Sal1950

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May be a bit on the low side. jriver tells me I have 2.29 years. Is there a virtual equivalent of dust? I know for sure there's lots of music in my collection that I will never listen to again, to state nothing of the albums in my list to which I have yet to give a listen.
The growth of my library has pretty much stalled out. With the world as my oyster since my involvement in streaming, (Spotify currrently claims about 30 million tracks! ) about the only thing I'm purchasing any more are multich discs and the extremely occasional HD remaster of a classic rocker that I just can't live without.
 

daftcombo

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I've been listening to JRiver and Foobar all the evening.
They sound the same.
I've been listening to youtube videos in Firefox also. Same sound.
I would advise to spend more time searching for good music than hope for hifi to save the day.
 
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anmpr1

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The growth of my library has pretty much stalled out. With the world as my oyster since my involvement in streaming, (Spotify currrently claims about 30 million tracks! ) about the only thing I'm purchasing any more are multich discs and the extremely occasional HD remaster of a classic rocker that I just can't live without.
I have nothing against streaming, and I suppose it is how things will go in the future. But for those who already have a sizable library, is it worth it? Is there added value for someone like that? Not being a crank. Just confronting the question, seriously. Trying to understand the angle.

For instance, I think I am certain that there are no interesting 'classical' compositions being written anymore. At least interesting to me. And after one has four or five versions of what one mostly listen to, what's the need for more? Really, there is nothing less interesting to me than another version of a Beethoven, or even a Sibelius, symphony.

I suppose that for popular tunes, things being done by newer generations, streaming unheard performances has an intrinsic value. Ten dollars a month for an entire catalog is a lot cheaper than buying at a store, or downloading piecemeal. So I can see that. If I was younger and didn't already have a library, I'd probably go that way.

As far as the old rocker classics? How many remasters of Pet Sounds do we need? Every year or two it's like the record companies drag out a 'classic' for 'remastering'. And outtakes. Gotta add some outtakes. It's gotten laughable. As I've said, does anyone think Hank Williams' Hey Good Lookin' is going to sound better remastered in HD? That's just marketing.
 

Shadrach

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Foobar 2000 on a windows OS with ASIO4all on laptop.
Deadbeef on Puppy Linux Xenial on music server.
Puppy Linux and MPD on music server and main computer.
MusicBee on windows OS on laptop.

I can't stand Roon; fiddle kids bloatware.
Why pay for JRiver when Foobar does the job for free.
 

captain paranoia

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Feb 9, 2018
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PC: MediaMonkey, and more recently, MusicBee. I'm not fussed about playback plugins (although MB supports them). I use MM & MB more for library management, and AutoDJ playback, as I'm indecisive, and can't be bothered with playlists. MB is much quicker to load a large library, and has a smaller footprint than MM; I originally tried it (successfully) after I found MM struggled with my 70k track library on a 1GB RAM Atom/Win8.1 tablet I bought secondhand to use as a handy front end for my music library at home.

Android: BubbleUPnP. Doesn't have autoDJ, so I don't use it a lot, but do use it as a DLNA endpoint.

RPi: Volumio as an endpoint; I don't use its media browser.
 
Last edited:

BillG

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I guess my library just can't keep up, even though I've been downloading an album a day, or more, recently... :p

My MusicBee library statistics:

IMG_20190814_113130.png
 
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