Winamp v2.22 mp3 decoding quality test results

Winamp 2.22

Decoder Source:	Nullsoft (no longer available) http://www.winamp.com/ Now at www.winampheaven.com
Version:	2.22 May 26 1999 © 1997-1999 Nullsoft, Inc.
Price:	shareware (this version requested registration - no nags)
Settings:	none
Similar products:	Uses FhG decoding engine (decodes are identical to CEP FhG MP3 me plug in) Other Winamp versions have a very different decoder.
Verdict:	Excellent
VBR:	All
Full file:	Always
Major Flaws:	none
Minor Flaws:	It's not available anymore
Output level:	correct
1-bit relative accuracy:	Excellent
1-bit absolute accuracy:	Excellent

Winamp is the most popular software mp3 player. By going into the preferences menu, and selecting the Disk Writer output plug-in, it will save mp3 files to disk as wave files (to specify where to save the file, hit the configure button after selecting the plug-in). See Winamp 2.7 screenshots for further details. Use your browsers' back button to return here.

Only Winamp versions 2.20-2.22 and 2.666 onwards have a good mp3 decoder. Quotes from the Winamp Version history:

"Winamp 2.20: All new better sounding, industry standard Fraunhoffer MP3 decoder".
After that, they returned to their own decoder, Nitrane:
"Winamp 2.23: Nitrane 1.60 MPEG audio decoder with MMX and 3DNow! acceleration".
Until...
"Winamp 2.666: new mp3 input plug-in * fully ISO compliant decoding".

Whilst the old Nitrane decoder was poor (see Winamp 2.62), the decoder in 2.22 from FhG is faultless. It gives identical output to the ACM 1999 codec and is highly recommended. Though you can't get this version from winamp.com, it's still available on the net (see www.winampheaven.com, and the mp3 decoder from version 2.22 can be added to any version.

Since version 2.7 of Winamp has been shown to have a good decoder, there is no longer any reason to "downgrade" back to version 2.22. This review has been left here purely for completeness.

EXTRA NOTES:

This decoder does not handle MPEG-1 layers 1 and 2 (mp1 and mp2 files). Since it replaces the Nitrane decoder (which does handle these files), it effectively removes this capability from Winamp. An alternative is the mpg123 plug-in, which co-exists with Nitrane, and provides excellent layer 1, 2 and 3 decoding - layers 1 and 2 can then be handled by Nitrane or mpg123 (selectable).
The v2.62 Winamp EQ does not work properly with the v2.22 mp3 decoder: the 12k, 14k and 16k bands have no effect. 6k and below work well, without the bug apparent with Nitrane.

Screenshots

Winamp v2.22

about Winamp version 2.22

about mp3 decoder

about disk writer plug-in

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