Best Music Player, as in iTunes, Winamp, etc.

Hikaru7

I currently use iTunes, but I've read that its not good. I don't have an ipod or anything, so what's a better music/media player that's still very simple and easy to use? I used to use Winamp but it was about on par with iTunes.

seanooi

i use creative's Media Srouce player and it's the best i've used so far. Laughing

bananaphone

Winamp is terrible - clunky, slow, hard to read text, you can't even rip a CD unless you buy the full version.

As you don't have an iPod (get one, they're great!), you don't have to use iTunes but I reccomend it as its the best player/ripper/organiser around!

ruff_ryder

WinAmp doesn't have to be cludgy, I tend to use a 2.x version and it runs great. All in all, it depends on what hardware you are running it on. There are alternatives to it, of course...I myself haven't tried iTunes yet...in fact, I didn't even know it can be used without an iPod Shocked

cheeta

for audio perpous... i use nero media player... Very Happy

i am happy with it... though earyer i used to have winamp....

Freezon

I personally use Winamp 5.x and on my computer it runs great. Saying winamp is slow and clunky isn't a true statement. On your system it may be, but Winamp combined with a decent PC is a great player, in my opinion of course. Not to mention, I also use the MMD3 winamp skin, which features many color themes and a nice interface. Get it all at the official winamp site. As far as not being able to rip CDs without the full version, that is true. However, I have the full version and the ripping speed is HORRIBLE regardless. So using winamp just for the ripping is a waste. Use Nero indstead (which does cost money) but in my opinion, Nero Ultra Edition is the best all around solution to ripping, encoding, burning, making DVDs, making CDs, and all other kinds of multimedia wants and needs.

SunburnedCactus

Indeed. Winamp + Nero is a truly great combination.

mOrpheuS

Jack_Hammer

gonzo

iTunes, just like AOL or myspace, is for horrifically ignorant twits. You'd be better off keeping that tidbit to yourself, unless you like the stigma of being defective. Razz

I use foobar

lockwolf

I use Winamp because I have had so many problems with other media players such as WMP and Real player and dont have plans to support apple. Plus I like Winamps look and feel and its playlist making easyness.

snowboardalliance

I'm used to Winamp and it runs fine for me. I would never use WMP, or iTunes.

Arnie

Windows Media Player 6.4, also known as mplayer2.
http://ict.aps.nl/zenw/hulp/audio.3.jpg

BCobos

I use iTunes the most. It's great!

WMP 2nd - it's it's pretty good.

misterdimiz

I use Winamp.

Also VideoLan VLC Media Player is good

Kd527

I love iTunes and QuickTime. That's what I use. They're great.

koolbluez

Winamp rocks... in performance it's the ols one... in looks the new one...
U can always use plugins to enhance the experience.. lots of them around
Win Media Player is next in line... great sound...

moncader

hehehe, here's a different one, amaroK. KDE's media player, is hands down, the best, its for linux. For Windows I use iTunes, but amaroK does EVERYTHING. It is wonderful. Get Linux.

www.opensuse.org
and use KDE.
There you go, enjoy.

wildfrick

although winamp is now a little bit heavy, it's still the best player there is, very easy to use, comfortable, and got every thing a player needs...

deviant

I use Winamp mostly. I have iTunes because I need it for my iPod...iTunes is a POS. It tries to disable other music programs, such as Musicmatch from connecting to your iPod. Also, if you open up your task manager, you'll see that its still open in your processes even when you exit it.

LKF

Now, I know that there are other players out there I've yet to try, but, compared to Windows Media Player, RealPlayer, WinAmp, and iTunes: NeroMediaPlayer - I know, fairly obscure - has great playback. It has its issues with handling playlists that aren't already m3u's, but, still. It sounds the best to me, and its graphic equalizer works the way I feel one should in a player.

yjwong

But, when you removed your media (eg. removable drives), iTunes will say that the file is missing...

Anyway, Windows Media Player and Winamp is good to me.

Hikaru7

while the fact taht iTunes has its defficiencies, I like it cause it has a very simple layout. I like the simplicity. What is foobar?

technology.sponge

i'd say itunes is the best - its simple yet powerful, easy to navigate, is free, HAS THE ABILITY TO RIP unlike othe rplayers which limit the bitrate or the ripping speed

winamp - slow to load, the seperate consoles is extremely annoying, limits ripping to 1x speed, library organization sucks and its 1001 features slow it down like a tyre clamp

mediasource - neva tried it b4 but mite b considered if u want to change from itunes

windows mp - the worst piece of software ever created, clumped, faeture lacking, ripping is f***d (no mp3), it is impossible to fina anything in your library, cd burning engine has problems with some pcs and the media guide HORRIBLY lags ur pc wen it loads even on T1 internet-thepage rendering takes forever

If you after something customisable, has USEFUL features and runs smoothyl even on pc's with low specs, get Media Monkey

it has:
full ripping capabilities - ogg, mp3, wav, wma, aiff etc. up to 320kbp (1411 for wav and aiff), no speed limitng,
format converter - mp3 to wav, mkp3 to ogg, ogg to wab, ogg to mp3 and so on
library that works
ok visulasations
and esily custoimisable with 100s of skins available
Plugins and codecs are abundant, MM runs with a mdofied winamp engine so all winamp plugins and addosn will work

Wotac

I don't know what player is the best player, but I personally like Realplayer. It looks simple and at the same time not too simple. It's also one of my players that can play any music or video file without throwing some stupid errors on my screen. VLC is also good, it looks a little too simple but it never requires any codecs to work. Winamp and WMP has got many skins that you can download, but Nero Media Player has quite cool skin on it's own.

All the players I have right now on my PC:

-Realplayer
-Winamp
-Windows Media Player
-VLC Media Player
-Quicktime Player
-Nero Media Player

So as you can see, I do know what I'm talking about. I've also noticed that with a slow PC, you cannot watch videos with Winamp. It's like watching a slideshow. Then, with that same PC, if you use Realplayer for example, the video file you tried to watch will open just fine.

izcool

I tend to use them all for various different reasons. I use Windows Media Player 10 for my daily music, I use Winamp to listen to some songs that Windows Media Player cannot play (along with listening to some online radio stations I like), iTunes to download music into my iPod, RealOne for some files on the Internet that I run to, and so on.

- Mike.

shishir_bit

i have lots of players , such as winamp, window media player,dvd player,win dvd, realone, and lots more i find the iTune the best playes i have its qulity sound the best thing i ever had, whats else the thing matter is the sound quality, which it gives.....
so the best player is itune

Aki

I use winamp and it runs fairly quick on my slow PC. I heard Itunes has really good playback quality. I use to use realplayer but its really slow and not that great and I tried windows media player but I just didn't like it.

KHO

l've tried plenty of other players, and as far as l've found, even without an iPod, iTunes is the best. l love the organization, and the format that they rip my cd's (saves me soooo much hard drive space)

Hikaru7

well, mainly because of the organization of iTunes, i use it more. I've tried Quintess_____ player before, and it used little to no CPU usage, but organization was crap. I didnt like foobars organization either. Winamp is ok, but it is a bit slow and not the most eye-friendly.

Yacoob

Winamp because Winamp is a skinnable, multi-format, freeware audio player made by Nullsoft, part of Time Warner.

Yacoob

gyaneshwar

There is also one more program

Quintessential, fully free for burning mp3 and ogg and with grace db connection. It is quite similar to Winamp with easy burning options.

tuncadogus

I use Winamp 5,11 Lite edition.