what music player do you use?

garbanzo · 30 Jan 2009

i'm on a seemingly endless search for the 'perfect' music player, but i have yet to find it. i find fatal flaws with every app i use, and it's incredibly frustrating :)

i want a player with album art support (folder.jpg), a native interface (no skins), and a great library organizer, preferably with a navigation tree for sorting. is that too much to ask?

so far, my faves are MediaMonkey and Songbird. if only i could combine the two!

i've also tried:

WMP: good integration, but very very slow, lacking in features
iTunes: beautiful, great features, but only works with embedded album art
WinAmp: lots of features, but absolutely terrible library
foobar2000: infinitely customizable, but its playlist-centric ways irk me
MusikCube: fast and minimal, native interface, but no album art support
AIMP2: better than winamp, but still, terrible library support
AlbumPlayer: looks good, but expensive, and not too good at organizing
MediaMonkey: GREAT library support, but very slow startup, and very ugly
Songbird: very good overall, but doesn't work with CD Art Display, which is my favourite freeware app.

i won't list the innumerable music players that lack library support like 1by1, Billy, and more. also media players like MPC and VLC. they're just no good for huge music libraries.

so what have i missed? i know the perfect player is out there. what do you use?

Barman58 · 30 Jan 2009

Hi garbanzo,

I actually tend to use VLC to play everything but use Mediamonkey to catalogue and organise my content and create playlists. It also syncs to my phone without issue so it wins there too. and the skins on version 3 make it , a little, less ugly

garbanzo · 30 Jan 2009

thanks for the input Barman. i do like MediaMonkey for organizing, but i have never gotten in the habit of making playlists. maybe that's something i should consider, then i can just use MPC or Billy to play them.

i do really like album art though :P

as for MediaMonkey skins, i find them to be very ugly. i run the unskinned mode when i use it, it blends in much better with windows. i never like using apps that use their own window frames and buttons and everything...

Barman58 · 30 Jan 2009

Hi,

what I like with the gold version of MM is the automated playlist generation where you can add things such as not heard for a certain time to all the rest of the parameters - then download to phone and hear stuff I'd forgotten I had

.

and yes the album art features are great.

BTW I run in non skinned mode most of the time too

smarteyeball · 30 Jan 2009

I've settled on Foobar myself. I don't listen to 85% of the stuff I have anyway, so a library isn't really all that important to me. I just create a playlist for the stuff I listen to regularly and add other stuff as needed.

I would like better visualization options though...

Mark · 30 Jan 2009

JetAudio (COWON Media Center) is a great free program with the option to pay for a pro version although the free one is great, it has a supper fast media search and can also play video and edit tags and album art.

96accord · 30 Jan 2009

Windows Media Player. Works fine for me.

skunksmash · 30 Jan 2009

WMP or MPC usually...... i've only got my rig setup for ''stereo'' & they handle that perfectly...

:)SK

swarfega · 31 Jan 2009

Mainly using WMP atm. I want to get the full MS experience while Win7 is in beta to make sure everything works ok.

XxKOLOHExX · 31 Jan 2009

iTunes love it so much that i got an ipod cause of it :P
Go figure