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There are countless audio players available for free all over the Internet, if you have not figured this out yet then you must be new (which is ok too). If you would like to find some of these freebies, you can type "Free mp3 player" into google, or go to
www.snapfiles.com or any of the other countless software download web sites and do a search there.
I have personally tried hundreds of audio players and even written one
HERE, some play just mp3 format, some play everything from CDs, mp3, ogg and even ape format.
What to look for in an audio player; Free, no ads, GOOD equalizer, multiple format support, plugin support, ease of use, skinnable, and my personal obsession, nothing running in the system tray when you are not using it. (Taking up cpu and ram that could be doing something else)
Our choices:
RaidenTunes - If you are looking for a browser based jukebox type player, and you have a machine which can act as a streaming server, then this is for you. You can create accounts and allow people to log in and listen to your music collection from any internet connected computer in the world. It easily handles large collections (at the time of this writing I have over 13,000 songs in it's database. Check it out.
SubSonic - Basically the same thing as the above mentioned RaidenTunes but not as flashy or pretty. This one is open source.
Media Monkey - I tried this one out a year or two ago and didn't like it at all, but it seems they have made some major improvements on it since then. I downloaded it the other day and WOW, what a difference! This is an all in one tool that can manage 50,000 or more files, edit and lookup tags, rip, burn cd's, convert, create playlists, export playlists, sync with handhelp players, supports freedb lookups to fix tags on files that are missing information, It's also a great jukebox app that plays songs via it's own player, you choose from genre, artist, year, album and more! It comes with a GOOD equalizer (very important to me), excellent visualizations, auto DJ function which plays random songs from your entire library. There is more, but I think you get the idea, it is now a great application and everyone who loves digital music should check it out!
J.River Media Jukebox - Absolutely amazing freebie. Tagging, ripping, integrated burner, podcasts, great equalizer, support for DSP plugins, album cover view with automatic cover art download, automatic sync to mp3 players, ipods and phones. etc etc etc etc. This one should not be free....but it is :-)
TPlayer - This a great app that displays two decks and boasts many features such as auto dj, fade between songs, a very fast hard drive search for songs and everything is tunable. We use this one to auto dj between our band sets at clubs.
Jet Audio - This application does everything from play audio to broadcasting your own radio station. It also burns, rips, converts, tags, catlogs and much more. if you own a "Cowon" PMP then chances are you already have Jet Audio, it is your main interface to the PMP and will convert video, etc to match the PMP file types. As far as audio playback is concerned, it has supassed winamp miles ago, even in the EQ department which I put so much emphasis on. Jet Audio also offers a lyrics window that pops up every time it recognises a song that is playing. But if your ID tags are off then so are the lyrics. This application has multiple modes, like the toolbar mode, which the entire thing is about 30 pixels high (or wide depending on your placement), Media library mode which looks like iTunes on steroids, and plain old player mode which I use most often.
Winamp - Winamp is the most widely used audio player in the world. Although getting quite bloated, It has a great equalizer that ranges from 60Hz to 16K, which is typical of a home or car stereo, this feature alone makes it worlds above others that have crap EQs. Winamp is not great for video although it does support most popular video types. When installing, I usually disable video support on it altogether. Particularly with .wmv format, winamps video tends to skip.
The PC Jukebox - This is more than just a player, and we do not recommend it for testing your creations fresh out of your studio application. BUT....if you have a boat load of mp3's with CORRECT TAGS, then you will most likely love this software. Nothing cooler at a party than showing off your PC that looks like a jukebox, complete with album covers, ratings, que, now playing, touch screen enabled and a bunch of other cool tricks. Cons about it are: It uses a S#!$ load of cpu and ram when it runs, it hates REO Speedwagon (I can't get REO to show up in this software to save my life), it's not free and it misreads some tags. But the pro's easily outweigh the cons.
Some of you may be asking "Where is Windows Media Player"? Answer: Not here, I only use it to play wmv video. Don't like the EQ, don't like the heavyness of it, don't like it flipping all over web pages of it's choice, and many other cons.
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