Introduction
This is a MAD input plug-in for
Winamp 2. It replaces the MPEG audio
decoder functionality that comes with Winamp to provide superior sound for MP3
and other MPEG audio files. It supports output resolutions from 8 to 32
bits.
Please note: There is not yet available a plug-in for
Winamp 3.
Hear the Difference
The following sound samples demonstrate the audible difference between MAD
and most other decoders. These samples were created at an 8-bit resolution so
that the difference is readily apparent; naturally the quality improves with
more resolution, but the difference remains.
You may want to turn up your volume to really hear the difference.
How it Works
High-quality output begins with a highly accurate decoder. MAD fully
satisfies the ISO/IEC 11172-4 computational accuracy requirements for
compliance. However, accuracy alone is not
enough.
Internally, MAD represents the decoded audio signal with high precision.
Combined with a form of dither, this allows output samples to be calculated
with less objectionable quantization noise and more audible dynamic range than
most decoders produce today. The result is unusually high-quality output that
is a more faithful reconstruction of the signal encoded in MPEG audio than you
may have realized possible.
Compatibility
You can use this plug-in with any sound card using either 16- or 8-bit
output resolutions. Output is dithered so that you will perceive an increased
dynamic range even at these low resolutions.
If your sound card supports higher resolution output, you can choose to
have MAD produce output directly in 24- or 32-bit formats.
High-resolution output also depends on support from your Winamp output
plug-in. At this time, 24-bit output is reported to work with Nullsoft's
waveOut plug-in if the "Max blocksize" and "Min blocksize" configuration
parameters are set to 16kB and 4kB respectively.
24-bit output is not reported to work with the DirectSound plug-in.
It is not yet known if any combination of output plug-ins and sound cards
will support 32-bit output. If you are able to try this, please report the
outcome. Note that the sound quality from 32-bit output is identical to that
of 24-bit output; the samples are simply padded to a 32-bit word length for
compatibility with hardware that requires this.
Status
A beta version of the plug-in is available for
download. Source for the plug-in is available in the
regular source code release of MAD.
Preliminary streaming support is implemented, but you may wish to leave the
default decoder installed for more complete handling of play from URLs until
full streaming support is available.
To receive announcements of new releases, you may subscribe to the
mad-announce
mailing list.
To discuss MAD in general with other users, you may subscribe to the
mad-user
mailing list. This list also receives announcements from
mad-announce so it is not necessary to subscribe to both.
Pre-release versions of the plug-in are sometimes made available to
subscribers of this list in order to get feedback on new or experimental
features before an official new release is made.
Both mailing lists are for MAD in general, not just this plug-in, so please
be sure to identify your use of the plug-in in your messages.
Copyright and Author
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free
Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option)
any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY
or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License
for more details.
Send inquiries, comments, bug reports, suggestions, patches, etc.
to the
author, or visit the
SourceForge project
to contribute to the public forums or submit bug reports or patches there.
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MAD plug-in 
