Be gentle with me . . .

[JohnMcC]

Getting to grips with digital music mainly because I need an easy way to access my music when I don't want to search through racks of vinyl or CD cases. This is the summary of my knowledge so far - correct me if I'm wrong:
1) mp3 no good for hi-fi - the difference between an mp3 and a CD or an LP is pretty obvious;
2) FLACs and other lossless formats good;
3) I think WAVs are OK, but how about WMAs?
4) I can play my FLACS (mostly classical) via an app called Rocket Player on my android phone, or from my Windows 8 laptop using the Media Player with a plug-in for FLACs. (I have a DAC to connect my laptop to my amp.)

Now the questions. Is there a better music player than WMP available as a free download? Winamp seems to be unavailable for now. All I want it to do is play the music - no library-making or downloading.

Which is the best interconnect from DAC to amp: USB, coax, or optical? And what are the problems connected with each?

At this point someone usually says "all this information is already available on here, if only you'd look". Well I have looked and have learned quite a lot. But I'd still like some simple answers if possible . . . if they exist! Thanks in advance to all kind souls who can help (grovel!):scratch:

[Stratmangler]

Foobar2000 as a media player.
Connection from DAC to amp needs to be an analogue stereo pair of interconnects. Do you mean PC to DAC?

[JohnMcC]

Ah yes. PC to DAC. I was wondering who would spot that first.:)

[Andrei]

Getting to grips with digital music mainly because I need an easy way to access my music when I don't want to search through racks of vinyl or CD cases. This is the summary of my knowledge so far - correct me if I'm wrong:
1) mp3 no good for hi-fi - the difference between an mp3 and a CD or an LP is pretty obvious;
2) FLACs and other lossless formats good;
3) I think WAVs are OK, but how about WMAs?
4) I can play my FLACS (mostly classical) via an app called Rocket Player on my android phone, or from my Windows 8 laptop using the Media Player with a plug-in for FLACs. (I have a DAC to connect my laptop to my amp.)

Now the questions. Is there a better music player than WMP available as a free download? Winamp seems to be unavailable for now. All I want it to do is play the music - no library-making or downloading.

Which is the best interconnect from DAC to amp: USB, coax, or optical? And what are the problems connected with each?

At this point someone usually says "all this information is already available on here, if only you'd look". Well I have looked and have learned quite a lot. But I'd still like some simple answers if possible . . . if they exist! Thanks in advance to all kind souls who can help (grovel!):scratch:

MP3 is not good format. Even at 320kbs it is still 'lossy'
Flac & APE, are both good.
WMA is confusing as it comes in two flavours, lossy and lossless - just stick to Flac.
WAV is same quality as Flac (some communists say it is better). Don't use it though because it takes over twice the amount of space.
On your laptop I second Foobar. It is free, has a small footprint, and it can be tweaked with heaps of downloadable plugins (eg memory play, and WASAPI that bypass the dreaded windows mixer).
USB is the connection of choice from PC to DAC. But it depends on the DAC. 'Asynchronous' the buzzword. If your DAC has an Asynchronous USB then that is the way to go. Not much difference between co-ax or optical, but co-ax for preference.

[JohnMcC]

Thanks so far - have downloaded foobar which works well but seems to give some of my flacs funny (or no) names. Don't understand this.

[Andrei]

Thanks so far - have downloaded foobar which works well but seems to give some of my flacs funny (or no) names. Don't understand this.
Ah. I think what is happening is that Foobar is reading the tags. Keep playing round with it and you will find a method of view called 'by folder structure'. That will list the files under their file names. Actually that is what I do, but from memory I think the default list is by 'Album' or 'Artist'. These things all make sense in the end but are different from the actual name of the file.

[struth]

Thanks so far - have downloaded foobar which works well but seems to give some of my flacs funny (or no) names. Don't understand this.

Probably been tagged by a program in a way that it does not recognise. I find EAC not to work on win 8 but Foobar does.It can be set up to rip easy enough. You will either have to add the tags separately or re rip them I think. When I moved from my old system I was in similar boat and chose to re do the lot with EAC on my Vista laptop.

[Andrei]

http://i1279.photobucket.com/albums/y530/Andrei_nz/Foobar_zps0baf11ef.jpg (http://s1279.photobucket.com/user/Andrei_nz/media/Foobar_zps0baf11ef.jpg.html)

You will need an initial set-up that includes 'Album List' as can be seen at the top left. Then at bottom left you have a choice of views.

[Stratmangler]

Thanks so far - have downloaded foobar which works well but seems to give some of my flacs funny (or no) names. Don't understand this.

Your tags are either wrong or absent, or more likely a combination of both.
Remember this, because it's a very important thing to remember - a filename is not a tag!

You can sort out your tags using Foobar.
You could also download another free program called Mp3tag, which enables you to tag more effectively and accurately.

Most every media player I've encountered lists track information according to tags, and if there are no tags then it defaults to filename, and filenames are about as much use as a chocolate teapot.

[JohnMcC]

Thanks again - a task for the morning I think. :-)