Author Topic: What's your music player of choice? (Read 112640 times)

allen · « **Reply #25 on:** August 06, 2007, 12:41 PM »

I like what I see with VUPlayer but have not tried it yet. It's default UI looks rather ugly, but if it will let me do the things I want to do, that's ok.
-moerl (August 06, 2007, 08:55 AM)

She's not particularly pretty. The black/purple in the display can be changed to taste, but otherwise it's just a standard windows interface--no skins. (and as you can tell from my screenshot, I don't use the xp themes). The way things used to be. I don't care for additional overhead to make something look less like software and more like plastic

Tekzel · « **Reply #26 on:** August 06, 2007, 03:03 PM »

I use Subsonic to manage my media with tried and true Winamp to play the stream. This way I can stream my MP3 collection to work. Great program, you can set it up to transcode in realtime down to a lower bitrate for playback if you keep your collection at a very high bitrate and your internet connection couldn't handle it. I keep my collection at 192 since I can't hear the difference between that and the higher ones. By the way, I LOVE Subsonic.

Laughing Man · « **Reply #27 on:** August 06, 2007, 03:55 PM »

Since this is Windows I use foobar as my main mp3 player. I have two versions of it (one is the default with no GUI changes). Which may look boring, but it's extremely easy to tag with it and create a playlist. Then I have a foobar with a iTunes like interface (well just the artist/album split).

Though I also use Songbird (though it's a pain to update the library) and it's still new. I also have subsonic running on my desktop (in both Linux and Windows) so if there's music that's not on my laptop I can stream it from there. Though I have to say my favorite has to be Exaile (Linux only). It's inspired by KDE's Amarok which has a Windows version coming with its 2.0 release.

Renegade · « **Reply #28 on:** August 06, 2007, 05:04 PM »

...

So: When are ALTools gonna launch a genuine media player (ALLPlay) ???
- I cannot be the only one longing for this version!?
-Curt (August 06, 2007, 09:59 AM)

Well, I can't say that there will be a single media player... A lot of people use ALShow for their music player because it plays most audio files as well (MP3, OGG, etc.), but it's not really geared towards pure music.

Both ALShow and ALSong are specifically purposed towards video and audio (respectively), and their feature sets, the way they work and their UI design are likewise specialized. e.g. Video playlists aren't generally as large as music playlists, and the ALSong playlist reflects that.

But who knows? They may be merged at some point, but I'm kind of doubting that.

Regarding Subsonic, at first glance I was thinking, "WTF? That's a programmer's tool... How'd that get into this thread?" Wrong Subsonic!

zridling · « **Reply #29 on:** August 06, 2007, 05:08 PM »

Amarok on the GNU/Linux side has been a lot of fun (and you can use WinAmp themes with it), and WinAmp on the Windows side for me. Yes WinAmp is bloated, but it's familiar, works, and I update it rarely.

Nxqd3051990 · « **Reply #30 on:** August 06, 2007, 10:19 PM »

Foobar

nXqd

muntealb · « **Reply #31 on:** August 07, 2007, 03:38 AM »

1by1 ( http://mpesch3.de1.cc/1by1.html ) is the best sounding audio player in my opinion. It doesn't have a pretty interface but a very simple one, however with regard to sound quality it is very good, being helped by an audio enhancer (Settings>Enhancer) that is also available as a Winamp 2 plugin. The software is free.

elpresi · « **Reply #32 on:** August 07, 2007, 06:00 PM »

Hi,
I discovered MusicIP and love using it to browse through my library.
I also recently discovered AIMP, a lite weight russian audioplayer that works great; they just released v2 beta today I think (I have been using v1.77.9)
I send my MusicIP playlists to it now :-)
Anyway since nobody has mentionned it, do check it out!
http://www.aimp.ru/
http://www.online-tr...62&psubmit2.y=11

muntealb · « **Reply #33 on:** August 08, 2007, 07:17 AM »

AIMP sounds nice. However the russian site has great problems with the database so those that want to download it can do it from the address below :

http://www.softpedia...-Download-70491.html

Daleus · « **Reply #34 on:** August 08, 2007, 01:47 PM »

XMPlayer of course. Works wonderfully with FoxyTunes!

ljbirns · « **Reply #35 on:** August 08, 2007, 02:21 PM »

My car radio. Particularly now that WCBS Oldies is back in NYC.

Lew

Darwin · « **Reply #36 on:** August 08, 2007, 03:10 PM »

I'm using XMPlay as my default player myself, along with MusicIP Mixer, though I also use GOMPlayer, WMP 11 and iTunes. I'm keen to see what MusicIP Mixer 1.8 looks like as changes are promised for the handling of playlists that if delivered upon will likely see me switching to it as my default player.

What I like about XMPlay is its small footprint and to my tin ear it sounds great!

armatostr · « **Reply #37 on:** August 08, 2007, 09:29 PM »

foobar2000 hands down, i just love that ugly thing.

Dr-Leech · « **Reply #38 on:** August 08, 2007, 11:21 PM »

Ya, foobar2000... I love to have full control on everything (from customization to sound). I love it!

I've customized my foobar almost 5 times in the past 12 months, not just because I get tired of current 'theme' but just I like the process of 'coding' plugins scripts, I enjoy that.

Darwin · « **Reply #39 on:** August 09, 2007, 12:04 AM »

I've tried foobar2000 but it's footprint, even in a pretty standard installation was obscene (can't remember specifics - RAM, CPU, or VM?).

CleverCat · « **Reply #40 on:** August 09, 2007, 08:16 AM »

Might sound strange but...the only programme that never 'closes due to error' or gives any problem as a player is...

Ashampoo Photo Commander!

Great for renaming tracks also - easy as pie...

Curt · « **Reply #41 on:** August 09, 2007, 09:26 AM »

Wow, CleverCat, my 5 dollar Ashampoo Photo Commander is a media player as well - and I didn't know! Nice to see it also play the divx files, but sad to see it won't handle FLV; have you found some kind of plugin to make it play flash videos?

OldElmerFudd · « **Reply #42 on:** August 09, 2007, 04:05 PM »

Hmmm

Nice to see a mention of Billy. Small footprint, but limited to mp3's afaict. Musikcube and Songbird are very interesting, but I think they still need refining. I use most of the others as the mood strikes, but tend to favor an older version of jetAudio (bloatware, but I like it, and v.7.x's crapware). I won't touch Real Player, took forever to root out all the debris from the registry. I won Zoom Player Pro in a monthly drawing, but seldom use it.

So much music, so little time...

just my 2 pennies
OEF

Mamoun · « **Reply #43 on:** August 09, 2007, 04:55 PM »

I'm really happy with Kmplayer, although sometimes it hangs or behaves in an odd way, it plays almost all the file types that I can think of and it has a small footprint, not to mention all the bells and whistles it has too.

wasker · « **Reply #44 on:** August 09, 2007, 06:32 PM »

Before going Vista I was using WinAmp. Now I am with Windows Media Player 11. Also use Walkman w810i as a portable player.

Will never use iTunes and iPod.

Darwin · « **Reply #45 on:** August 09, 2007, 06:44 PM »

Should mention that GOMPlayer makes an excellent audio player, in addition to playing video files. As noted above, though, I use XMPlay, primarily...

BRossMac · « **Reply #46 on:** August 09, 2007, 11:10 PM »

I've tried almost every single player out there. I still will install new players to test them out to see what they do. But I completely swear by JRiver Media Center. It is killer for organizing all kinds of media--especially large libraries (I have over 40,000 songs at this point). I use it for video somewhat, but it is all I use for audio. Unfortunately it's only available for Windows (it's what's keeping me from going 100% Linux).

If you look through the Wikipedia article (linked to earlier in this thread) comparing music players, take a look at the features for JRMC. It's one of the only ones that's completely green for features AND audio format support (and is mostly green for a bunch of others). LastFM support isn't built in, but there is a plug-in that works great.

I'm also very visual. I like to look through the album covers to find music, rather than just looking at text and tags. JRMC has robust cover art support for browsing.

The bad news is...it ain't cheap (about $40). But they're constantly updating it, adding features, etc.

I HIGHLY recommend it....

J-Mac · « **Reply #47 on:** August 10, 2007, 12:28 AM »

Lately I have been using WMP11 -- they finally have it almost right. However I was using MediaMonkey, the free version, which is about the best I've found for organization of music tracks. I still use MediaMonkey a lot for the MP3 tagging, plus it has a lot of user scripts available for things like scanning all tracks and moving the "The" to the end of groups' names, etc.

armatostr · « **Reply #48 on:** August 10, 2007, 01:44 AM »

True about WMP11, i installed it just to keep things up to date... now is my only video player, though i used it as my only media player during a period i got bored of foobar. Now i'm looking foward to WPM12.

CleverCat · « **Reply #49 on:** August 10, 2007, 01:52 AM »

Wow, CleverCat, my 5 dollar Ashampoo Photo Commander is a media player as well - and I didn't know! Nice to see it also play the divx files, but sad to see it won't handle FLV; have you found some kind of plugin to make it play flash videos?
-Curt (August 09, 2007, 09:26 AM)

Only these plugins for APC 5 - http://www2.ashampoo...cial_download_32.htm