xmms-mad, how do I turn it on?

[Redwolf]

I downloaded and installed libmad, mad (the madplayer), and the xmms-mad plugin. They installed fine.

Now how do I turn on the plugin in xmms? In winamp, the mad plugin had to be turned on by turning off the regular mp3 plugin.

I enable and disable the plugin in xmms and hear no difference. In Winamp, there was a world of difference, especially in the bass department. I'm using the arts output plugin, if that makes a difference.

Using madplay, I can tell a slight difference, but for some reason, the quality isn't nearly as good as it was in Winamp. Am I missing something?

[[Neo770]]

Whats MAD? is it like another one of those sound enhancer plugins?

[discreet]

Neo - http://discreet.dyndns.org/audio/24bit.html. A little readme I made, go to the thread thats linked, some more info that should answer your questions. Sorry cant help Redwolf, cant even remember that last time I logged into my redhat partition!

[Redwolf]

Sorry discreet, but your link doesn't work (at least not right now, server may be down).

Neo, MAD is an mp3 decoder released under the GPL. In the case of Winamp, it replaces the Nullsoft MPEG-audio decoder.

[discreet]

Yeah, it is up but Ive noticed it takes awhile to load - about 10 seconds or so. Maybe because I have a linked rar file also (for the mad and directsound plugin). Anyways heres the link to the thread:

http://www.3dss-forums.com/cgi-bin/w...=5&o=14&fpart=

[[Neo770]]

ahh I see, so really I need some sort of 24bit sound card to take the most advantage of it, or at least something better then my Live.

A better card can help,but the real difference in the actual decoding process. The Nullsoft engine opts for 16-bit decoding, while MAD can process at the 32-bit level.

It is better to process at 32-bit throughout the decode stage, then have the sound interface truncate or dither to 16-bit, than using 16-bit throughout the entire process.

I can notice a significant difference in sound quality with MAD, even with the cheapest of host powered AC97 sound cards.

[[Neo770]]

Oh ok cool ill gave it ago then, I dont suppose it works with ogg though? As i encoded my cd colection to ogg.