Audio player software

[Milk]

Anyone want to recommend a new audio player/organiser? (Windoze) I thought it about time I dumped ITunes.

I've just tried SongBird, a rather unpleasant experience which finished in a big fat crash.

I never really got on with WinAmp, besides it's now under AOL which I don't like.

I like Amarok and Banshee but both are a little unstable on Windows.

My fave so far (by far) is Foobar2000

Any others stand out for you peeps?

[stlaural]

MediaMonkey

[Milk]

I see it comes in three flavours, I'll check out the free one, cheers.

[mendhak]

Still liking Winamp. It doesn't come with AOL software (if you find any, it's because you're not paying attention during installation). And there are global hotkeys so you don't actually have to have it open to use it. I don't "get" iTunes and a few other players which are large and take up a lot of space. When I'm listening to music, I'm doing other things, so I have no desire to stare at the actual player.

There's also Windows Media Player which can dock into the taskbar but I'm not sure if it does hotkeys.

[baja_yu]

Did you try http://www.aimp2.us/ ? I think the guy developing it used to work for Nullsoft.

I still use Winamp though.

[Milk]

I've not used Winamp in over a decade. I don't particularly like WMP either (I'm very picky, I don't like skinned windows) ITunes got installed simply because someone in my house had an IPod and I had the only computer... I just never got around to uninstalling it.

I'm going to stick with foobar for now, stupid name, but a nice simple interface which I can control from the keyboard.

[baja_yu]

I've not used Winamp in over a decade. I don't particularly like WMP either (I'm very picky, I don't like skinned windows) ITunes got installed simply because someone in my house had an IPod and I had the only computer... I just never got around to uninstalling it.

I'm going to stick with foobar for now, stupid name, but a nice simple interface which I can control from the keyboard.

Poobar is ok. Regarding iTunes, I dislike it so mouch that I celebrate the day when I discovered that there are replacements for managing music on an iPod like Floola and such. Personally, the shities thing about an iPod, in my opinion is iTunes (then the price). Otherwise it's very good

[abhijit]

There's VLC which is pretty good for a freeware media player, but for organizing your music, I'd stick with Windows or iTunes.

[Milk]

I'm using a mix of VLC and an old Gabest version of Media Player Classic for video media, I'm very happy with 'em both.

[kleinma]

I use Windows Media Player or Windows Media Center. One reason I like media player is because you can have it go and grab tags and art for your audio files if they are missing them. I know itunes does this too, but I hate iTunes.

[abhijit]

I use iTunes to download podcasts from the NPR website. I am not sure if the Media player can do that. I don't have Windows Media Center.

[DeanMc]

Do you know what is actually quite nice, Zune media player

[kleinma]

I have a zune as well, but since I already had everything setup with windows media player, i was actually sort of pissed that the zune device only works throught he zune software, and you can't do things like sync it with WMP. I mean you can sync a freakin ipod with WMP but not Microsoft's own device...

Between Zune player, Media Player, and Media Center, I feel like there are some greatly duplicated efforts.

[dilettante]

WMP 11 here, I run it in full mode most of the time and the skinning at that level is tolerable. I'm not saying it is without warts though, and the playlist editing can be clunky and non-intuitive at times

It can also be too aggressive about trying to sync with devices.

I haven't bothered with WinAmp in ages. It seems to get more clumsy with time rather than improving. I won't pay any Apple taxes and would love to see MOV format banned from the Internet, cameras, etc. so I can stop transcoding so many things.


I'd love to see a letter-writing campaign against U.S. public broadcasting in general for their slavish support of Apple Tech in general. I'm so darned tired of hearing public radio stations clamoring about their "iPhone app" when everything needed on my WinMobile phone is preinstalled. I'm sure that's just part of the Corporate Bribe system that funds 40% to 60% of "public" broadcasting since the Reagan Era though. <sarcasm>How nice they get a massive tax writeoff as well as free advertising and insidious promotion.</sarcasm>

How about:

"Because the iPhone as sold is a crippled piece of crap lacking basic services, we've had to expend resources to produce an iPhone app to allow you to stream public radio broadcasts just as others do out of the box. Go track it down and we hope it installs for you."

[DeanMc]

..... Try the samsung H1

[arunb]

KMPlayer is equally good