Gents, I would love to learn more about foobar2000 here. Would you please move your ongoing discussions about other players to a new thread?
Much appreciated!
I have increased buffering to play from RAM, and I have added a Wasapi module. I am still getting somewhat harsh sound. The harshness is similar to playing gentooplayer or audiolinux from the usb stick before ramdisk. Fyi, I have windows 2016 server and foobar on an optane drive.
Any other ideas on how to improve sound with foobar2000?
The top link is what I used to get the best sound from Foobar, but my laptop is unfortunately still windows 7. The bottom link is for Win 10.
I also want to throw out what 2chan is saying, Fidelizer is awesome. Lots of different setting to “tailor” the sound for your system. The pro is only $70, so don’t waste time with the free version. You do NOT get all the settings with free.
I do not use AO as 2chan does, but I do use the driver section of JPLAYer. The classic gives you the player and the driver and you do not have to use the player. You do however want to use that driver section. It will allow you to kernal stream which is an advantage. Along with other settings you can play with. The two of them together are pretty great. I sometimes can’t believe the sound I am getting from an old Win 7 laptop. I do have it going through a Phoenix and a Matrix to ASE3 to DSD though!! 
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Hey speed-racer I do not mean to offend you. If you like HQPlayer that is great. No hard feelings.
We are discussing foobar.
I suggest you guys get the sacd plugin.
Use only the ASIO2 plugin selected as SACD
I agree, with the following caveat: I have foobar2000 set to on-the-fly 512DSD output and am using Audiophile Optimizer in Express Mode to complement it: best sound for paying CDs. However, for YouTube and other internet streams, I have JRiver set up using foo_asio and find that I prefer it to using foobar2000 for YouTube. More info at My Stereo System - Google Drive