You can’t ignore the fact that at some point of time, you’ll listen to music on your computer. Whether it’s a CD, mp3, or some internet radio, you have to admit that it’s a great way to keep yourself occupied.
Listening to music only needs a software program that does the needful. This brings me to my question for all the readers. What program do you use to listen to music on your PC? I know it sounds a little strange but I’m curious about preferences of the folks who visit Ghacks.
There are a lot of audio players out there. For most people, I guess it doesn’t make that big a difference as long as it plays the songs. But I know some people who are vary particular. How did you select your player? Did you like how it looked or how you could customize it? Were you looking for something that could play specific audio formats?
I’ll start the ball rolling. I listen to music on my computer everyday and my player of choice is Winamp 2.8. Yeah, I know it’s old but what can I say. I started using it 8 years ago and I guess it’s grown on me. I want to try the Linux player Amarok though. With all the rave reviews I keep hearing, I can’t wait for it to be developed for Windows.
Some of the other players I know about are Media Monkey, iTunes, Songbird, Foobar2000, etc. Drop me a line and tell me what your favorite player is and why.
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I use MediaMonkey almost 24/7.
It can handle my 100+ gigs of music without additional cpu/ram load.
With a couple plugins, it updates my Now Playing status on MSN, can change my display pic to album art, and also uploads the album art and a now playing page to one of my personal websites. Last.FM gets updated usually too.
Itunes just seems to slow and clunky to me, but I don’t have an ipod either. I do however have to load up the Zune software to update my zune every once in a while..
Other than that, Winamp is my 2nd choice on windows. Linux I use Amarok, xmms, or mpd.
VLC 0.86f is the best!!!
Foobar2000 because it’s nice to my computers ram and cpu
Foobar2000 when on the computer.
Floola to transfer music to my iPod.
Winamp 2.8 for music, VLC for video
Winamp 2.8 because of performance (listening while playing games) and the equalizer options.
VLC because I’ve never had any codec problems or other stuff with it, and when I have video files with out of sync audio it’s easy to fix the problem on the fly with VLC
I’ve tried everything around but always come back to foobar2000 because:
-it can play anything
-it’s lightweight
-it’s very customizable
-it’s very tweakable
-sounds the best to me
Me too winamp 2.9
rhythmbox/vlc/AMAROK
On Windows I’m using the AIMP2.
On Linux I tend to stick with Rythym box, and on windows I normally use either Foobar or VLC. Lately though, because of my Creative Sound-blaster card, I’ve been using the Creative MEdiasource software that came with it more and more. It’s fairly fast (although, it can be a bit laggy at times when watching movies, but I don’t do much clicking then anyways). It also sorts through my songs fairly quickly, and adding new folders for it to scan is a breeze. It’s not my preferred application,but it does work well enough for me.
J River Media Jukebox
It was shareware but is now freeware. Think MediaMonkey. But, I think it blows MediaMonkey out of the water. Mainly because it has
1) A nicer interface
2) It can burn cds at full speed (MM is crippled)
I mostly use Media Player Classic and once in a while WPM 11. Used to use Winamp, but it got too bloated. Have tried several others that were good, but I just don’t listen to enough music on my comp to care that much.
foobar . . . I’m not into the nice looks of other players. I just want my music listed easily so I can play it. I find it much easier to organize and make lists in foobar, although there are some simple features I don’t understand why they are not integrated. Whatever, nothing is perfect. I guess I’ll just stick with v0.9.4.5 since I use Windows 2000. The newer versions require XP.
was using winamp….it bloaateedd so much i changed to XMplay
foobar2000 all the way!
I started with WMP, but changed then to WinAMP.
2 Weeks ago, my system crashed and I started to use BSplayer (wich I found on filehippo.com) because WinAMP uses ~20 MB RAM, BSplayer tops at 6 MB. It doesn’t care about the Playlist size, how long your last restart was, is skinable and plays the most audio and video formats.
But for Videoplay (AVI, …) I use VLC, for DVD’s PowerDVD (and sometimes VLC)
Long story short: #1 Rule to choose Mediaplayer: Less RAM usage –> Better
Used Winamp for years since version 2.0. loved it.
Until they jumped to version 5.So never could have used a winamp 4skin…
Swapped it for the then pretty unknown VLC and enjoyed it very much, the easiness at which it didn’t complain and simply opened every file.
Until I upgraded and had Vista installed, since then I use and love Kmplayer. It does everything and does it good.
iTunes. Nothing beats it on a Mac. :)
I’m using iTunes mainly as I have an iPod. I am looking to get rid of iTunes as it is a POS and go with maybe Windows Media Player or something else.
I forgot to say that I’m using ZOOM for video. It’s easy and flawless. I’ve tried VLC but had many problems in my system. I was using GOM but it had some little problems lately with .wmv.
Media Monkey here :)
It’s a very likeable player with good functions for sorting the music.
Wow! I never thought I’d get these many comments! Maybe I should post stuff like this more often. Thanks a lot everyone.
I use the latest version of WinAmp (currently v5.531). Ever since I discovered it, I didn’t change my Audio Player, even though I kno there are better Audio Players. I’m just too lazy to get a new one.
I use cowon jetAudio.
plays video & audio – supports almost all types of formats – minimizes to system try – can configure hot keys for almost all functionalities – have very compact interface while playing video- arrow keys for ffwd/rewind/vol up/down etc…
(these features are very important for me ‘coz my laptop dont have multimedia keys.)
Winamp 5
Amarok pwns all :)
I use Winamp 2.95 with a very clean skin, after all its for listening to music, its always minimized in the system tray as a set of buttons to play and advance songs, so who wants a super duper coolgy bungy shinyskin?
Then i use media player classic with klite codec pack for video. I like VLC and bsplayer too but i find media player classic its better, more configurable, i love it cause it starts centered on the screen, what i dont like its the poor playlist it has
sorry im not an english native speaker!
Winamp 5 with classic skin. Pretty lightweight, fast, and media library that rocks all other media players.
Windows:
foobar2000 (for albums and like, playing from library) + xmplayer (for single files, through file association)
linux:
amaroK
After trying Winamp 2.8 through the current version, iTunes, Foobar2000, Media Monkey, Windows Media Player, VLC, and Media Player Classic, I have settled on XMPlay for my audio needs.