Okay guys.... gals, another media player I'm currently trying is Audacious, a free/open source player with many options and plugins available.

Yup, I'm impressed!   Not only does it sound great, with graphic equaliser and other effects to adjust sounds to your liking, it is also skinnable with Winamp skins.  Another thing I like about it is its ability to handle large libraries.  I have over collected over 2TB of music over the years and it handles the lot with ease, unlike some other players I've tried.... ones that either maxed out and shat themselves before the entire library was accessed, or which were able to access the entire library but unable to play any requested files.

Another good thing about Audacious is that it doesn't need to be installed.  You simply extract it from the zip file to the newly created Audacious folder and place it in a location of your own choosing [I used Program Files x86] then create a desktop shortcut from the exe file located in the Bin folder inside.  It's that simple.

Yes, but for now Winamp isn't current/being updated, Audacious is.... and it is a quality player with great sound, options, etc.

If anyone wants to try foobar2000 but has been put off by the configuring it I have a potable version with a nice theme that I made that you can try. Because this is a portable version there is no need to install anything. You just click on the foobar icon in the folder to launch it. The only thing you will need to to is add your library which is easy and I will explain how to do it. This is what the theme looks like below. I kept it rather simple with no fancy visuals. It is also skins nicely with windowblinds. If you want to try it just let me know and I can give you the link to get it from my dropbox.

I used to be a big Winamp guy. When they went belly up I looked for alternatives, and found MusicBee.

http://getmusicbee.com/

It has all the features I need in one simple package. Replaygain, format conversion, yada yada.

I would really like to own a great pair of headphones, something like the Ultrasone Signature Pro but at that price point I will stick with my AKG K550's which are decent cans that don't break the bank account. I pair them with the HRT Micro Streamer for laptop listening which is day and night over the on-board sound card.

Quoting psychoak,

reply 35

Yes, Realtek is ebil.  Poor shielding, bad dacs, can't even do cheap headphones justice.

Sadly, that is what I have on my HP 2-in-1, and apart from external speakers and sound card from Creative I don't think there's a lot I can do about it.  However, I could not justify the cost when I have 3 high-end rigs with high-end Creative sound cards, one being connected to Creative Inspire 5600 5.1 digital speakers.  Okay, I may not have the best one could get, but I get better than 'just satisfactory' sound on my main rig and I have no need to go looking for anything better. 

Besides, if I want to listen to high quality sound, I simply go into my loungeroom and turn on my 5.1 Pioneer receiver, which is connected to a network enabled media centre and 4 way homemade speakers, a Yamaha sub-woofer. and truly is a pleasure to listen to.  From there I can access my entire media library and watch/listen to anything I wish.

I am not looking for the best, just an upgrade and psychoak is 100% correct about the $70k headphones being hilarious (I would use the word ridiculous) and that a good dac is one of the best investments you can make. I am more than happy with my microstreamer.

By the way $70k AUD is only 400 dollars less when converted to Canadian dollars. If I had an unlimited supply of cash I still would not buy a $70k pair of headphones.

The Asus was discontinued, very hard to get them now, even more overpriced than they were originally.

As long as you've got one of the good ones(some of the early PCI-e versions had massive noise problems because of poor shielding) you'll probably have to spend way too much money to have a noticeable difference over your Soundblaster.  I'll go ahead and plug this thing in when I get home and see if it's an improvement, but odds are I wont be able to tell any increased quality in representation and the only serious difference will be the added 6db on the signal to noise ratio of this thing.

The main advantage here is that you can plug your USB DAC into anything you've got, instead of having to suffer through Realtek's dogshit audio chipsets and unshielded outputs.  If you buy something like the FIIOS X5 then you're getting a top shelf portable music player that doubles as a DAC as a bonus, they're not really an economical replacement for just a desktop sound card.

The Headphoes are actually a part of a music system that includes a tube amp and they don't make them any longer.

Yes they do but that is the new version which is a lot more expensive and has only been out since November. Perhaps that is the version you were talking about but I thought you meant the ones made in the 90's. I still think you would be no further ahead with these than just buying a good Mcintosh amp and a set of $1500 headphones. 

No, I meant these ones specifically...hence the even higher price than the old ones' 30k.

You'll be a lot 'further ahead' provided you are sufficiently self-absorbed and preoccupied with audiophilia [new word]...

Oh Yuk!  There'd be no way I'd use the headphones after that...