June 25, 2006

How To Make Winamp Sound Better

These tips will make your Winamp play music louder and with higher fidelity without buying a new sound card, like Creative SoundBlaster.

Install MAD MP3 decoder. MAD represents the decoded audio signal with high precision. It supports MPEG-1 and the MPEG-2 extension to lower sampling frequencies.

Enhancer 017 is the best DSP plug-in for Winamp and it's free. Try "General improvements" preset. Other great presets: "Treble boost", "Party with ambience", "Inside the music".

Although it's outdated, some hardware work better with waveOut output. Go to Options / Preferences / Plug-ins / Output and select waveOut. You can read more about DirectSound vs waveOut.

Related:
Listen to Pandora in Winamp
If Google made a media player

28 comments:

  1. Thanks for this. The Enhancer is amazing, never knew it would make such a big difference. :)

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  2. If you listen to streaming mp3, forget MAD.

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  3. A couple of things.

    The default Winamp plugin is as good as (or better than) MAD since Winamp 2.7 onwards. David Robinson's decoder test results prove it.

    Also the Winamp plugin plays AAC and HE-AAC v1 & v2. This let's you listen to excellent quality streaming radio from sites like Tuner2 with less bandwidth usage.

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  4. I can't take Enhancer, it makes the volume go up and down all the time. It realy creaps my out.

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  5. another great (completely free) tool for mp3 playback is mp3gain. if you've got files downloaded from all over the place a lot of them will play at different maximum volumes. annoying if you want a mixed playlist or to burn a mixed cd etc. A lot of programs try to fix this but the best one is mp3gain, it is undo-able and doesn't affect the sound quality like most fixes out there. mp3gain.sourceforge.net

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  6. you want fidelity clear good sound.
    Use foobar2k
    - kernal streaming

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  7. I use Winamp with the CRUDless output plugin and Izotope Ozone for free. ITs awesome

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  8. Volume Logic is the best for on the fly volume leveling. You can't tell the volume is going up and down at all. I use the Rock preset in VL and the Rock equalizer preset (with a little extra treble) in my Creative sound setting.
    Enhancer hasn't been updated in years and has a lot of bugs, but it is one of the best free DSP plugins available for Winamp.

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  9. Stereo Tool also does a very good volume levelling job - it's also free.

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  10. If you are really serious about the way your music sounds, remaster all your low bit music, or better yet, replace them with high bit. Don't get any music lower than 320kbs and listen to it with the best quality speakers and subwoofer you can afford. Any use of volume levelers or enhancers you're just short changing yourself. Just use an equalizer to set your levers to the way you like the sound and that's it.

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  11. It seems to me that enhancer 017 is dialing out... if you use the free comodo personal firewall it looks like the dsp_enh.dll enhancer library is trying to communicate with the internet. why would enhancer need to contact the internet? and i'm not referring to the "home page link" that comes up, this is just when you're playing a song and not even messing with enhancer (but its installed)

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  12. Nah... that one's sucks... please use Jammix Enhacer the best sound enhancer with bass expantion try it!

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  13. it's dam silly not workung well....

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  14. well its wotking for flac but mp3... i mean the enhancer... it's kinda cool with those flac's i wantit on my mp3's, how?

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  15. Most sound "enhancers" are placebos. They don't "enhance" the sound, they just change it. Since you want the sound to be better, you imagine that it is, when in fact it's not better quality it's just different.

    The MAD decoder does have one advantage over other Winamp 2.x decoders: it offers native 24 and 32 bit resolutions.

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  16. MAD MP3 decoder & Enhancer 017: together, they make a perfect sound.

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  17. its amazing.... its working. i feel good sound output.... thanks ....

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  18. I don't think they are just placebos
    Enhancer works just fine, I get a much louder and clearer sound when using it.

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  19. Wow, I just noticed I also get a louder sound when i turn this one big know on my stereo!

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  20. may i use plugin izotope for winamp
    thats its better for me.
    you can download for free at
    http://free4donlot.blogspot.com/

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  21. GRACIAS ! MEJORA MUCHO EL SONIDO DE LOS MP3 DE BAJA CALIDAD.

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  22. MAD works fine. Less Distortion and really clear sound.

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  23. DFX Audio Enchancer is best!!!

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  24. dfx audio enhancer is crap, crashes winamp regularly, even when using latest versions of both programs. DO NOT INSTALL

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  25. I like Mad OK?
    DFX Audio Enhancer just weird-ed me out?

    Winamp Pro, Enhancer 017 with Studio Sound FX Very easy on the settings is the Bomb! My Daddy said they will NEVER! reproduce the subtleties of music with a Digital source! He was like a Knight challenged to a duel to the Death! My laptop with a Logitec Z2300 Replaced satellites with Optimus 40-4Q5 They reproduced sound and subtle nuances so well Daddy listened to them once they blew him away so he will not EVER come near them because compared to his $21,000 Klispchorns with a $3,000 Crown Amp it is Impossible for them to do what they do!

    LOL Billie

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  26. Enhancer 017 Skins

    http://www.4shared.com/file/QX-3ob0m/enhancer_017_skins.html

    Enjoy!

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  27. All of you should know the best of winamp Audio plug in is OzoneMP you can find product info here:
    http://www.izotope.com/products/audio/media/ozone.html

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