I was looking very hard to find a replacement for my favorite audio player Winamp and found a ultra-lightweight alternative with an exceptional functionality called XMPlay. This audio player which has a size of only 300 Kilobytes does not have to be installed and can be run from any location.
It supports all major audio formats such as mp3 and ogg format, plays internet radio streams, supports playlists, compressed files, library functions, skins, plugins and a lot more. Did I mention that it is possible to save mp3 streams that are automatically named to your hard drive ?
The XMPlay support site lists 70 skins and more than 200 plugins that can be installed to enhance the music player even further. You do need to create the directories for skins and plugins though. They are subdirectories of the root directory named Skins and Plugins.
Just copy the files into those directories and restart XMPlay to enable them. Several plugins exist for playing audio formats that are not that common. You can enable flac, mp4 or aac support for instance using plugins.
Oh, I forgot to mention that it uses only 6 Megabytes of Ram when playing an Internet radio stream while Winamp uses more than 20 Megabytes (the smallest Winamp version that is).
XMPlay is by far the best mp3 player that I have been using. Goodbye Winamp..
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15 Responses to “XMPlay a lightweight audio player”
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XMPlay a lightweight audio player
I was looking very hard to find a replacement for my favorite audio player Winamp and found a ultra-lightweight alternative with an exceptional functionality called XMPlay. This audio player which has a size of only 300 Kilobytes does not have to be in…
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[...] be a nice way to educate the masses about my favourite audio player XMPlay. I already mentioned XMPlay a few times at my own blog Ghacks but never really got into writing about the plugins that are [...]
I used this very long ago to play those XM and MOD music files… haven’t really used it for MP3, I much prefer VLC Media Player as a one-stop solution to audio and video files though.
Been using this before MediaMonkey, nice lightweight player, I guess it can be used on USB flashdisc.
I’ve been using XMPlay for the last few years now, ever since I got tired of waiting for the new Winamp3 to load all its plugins. WA5 was far and away better, but I still stuck with XMPlay for its out-of-the-box usability including keyboard shortcuts and support for Visual Plugin displays when the occasion called for it.
Using it in mini mode and docked at the top of my screen instantly lets me control the player without its taking up screen real estate.
I especially like the ability of the player to use most Winamp plugins.
I’ve got several audio players installed on my pc. The main ones I use these days are depending on my mood (in no particular order):
iTunes
Quintessential Player
Noteworthy Player
BS Player
Teen Spirit Conium
I’ve never been a big fan of Winamp, even if it does “whip the llamas ass”. I’ll give this one a try and see how it stacks up. Thanks for the link.
I prefer foobar200 myself cause it “just works”. XMplay sounds nice but I think everything works in foobar out of the box.
XMPlay does Winamp themes too, I believe?
give Foobar2000 a try if u havent…
it might seem too simple at first. But you can do things with it(thru plugins) that you can’t with other players. It’s definitely for the geeks :-D
Best decoder. Better then foobar and winamp and many others. If you are smart – you will make from XMPlay more then you can imagine.
XMPlay has a really great decoder and it sounds FAR better than foobar2000 and Winamp. It has true gapless playback and uses the BASS API. Nowadays I use XMPlay to listen to audio files (any of them) and Quintessential Player to listen to CDs. Two great audio players, IMHO.
And, sorry, but since when an audio player being “definitely for the geeks” is a good thing? Foobar is a good idea, but badly translated to reality. Horrible interface and really too much work to bother. XMPlay is lighter, smaller, prettier, faster and sounds much, much better.
thnx SO much for intoducing me to this – i’ve struggled for SO long to achieve a reliable recording from a certain radio station and AT LAST have found an app that handles it, I am SO pleased!
I came, I saw, I conquered. Well, I tried XMplayer.
Sorry but it bites for me: My 5 speakers don’t work by default (and the output/device options are restrictive, unlike winamps)
AND when radio feeds timeout (or whatever) XMPlayer simply stops playing them. Shame, really. It looked good!
Foobar2000 is the next stop for me…
xmplay
I have used players since 1999 and have never found a simple player that works as well as or looks as great as this one. If you do not try it and all the unusual skins that come with it then you are missing one of the rare wonders of great programming in action. If you have little memory and do not play video often than this is for you!
Test the underground radio and old radio skins. Very nice, strange!
I also run the other BlOaTeD players and use them for memory intensive tasks. This is light as a feather and has not yet crashed on me yet. Updates… I don’t need no stinkin updates! This thing is great!
Thanks for telling me about MPlay. I’ve just booted up a brand new work computer and couldnt stand the thought of wasting time setting up Media Player only for it to be rubbish.
I love XMPlay, it’s awesome and so easy. I have also written a post about it.