I have been thinking of possible going to another player other than Windows Media Player. I don't play any videos, just music.

Any suggestions on a good free player that will play MP3 format so all my songs from WMP will play?

Thanks guys & gals for your time.

Foobar2000 which is what I've used for years. If Foobar2000 didn't exist I'd use Winamp.

fubar

Thank you for the advice, I will try it for sure. I am currently trying Real Player. Just discovered that Real Player also plays my songs from iTunes so I've imported all my songs into My Real Player Music Library. Part of my goal has been achieved - to have all songs in one player. I have decided to uninstall Windows Media Player and iTunes/QuickTime. Yay, get rid of all that bloating!

I think Winamp is the best, but another very good (but not very well-known) media player is Quintessential Player.

Using Spider Player here.

May be worth a look?

Foobar2000. Small footprint. Plays gapless tracks seamlessly.

Just after posting my original post on this subject I downloaded Real Player 11. Seems really good, only uses about 10,000K memory. Anyone have any cons regarding Real Player? I'm looking at all players recommended.

When done checking several recommendations, I'll post which player, in my opinion, is the best.

Just take notes from here Razz if you want to uninstall it.

http://blog.stopbadware.org/2008/01/31/realplayer-is-badware

Thank you for telling me about this. I will uninstall Rhapsody because I don't want it.

I don't let anything from RealMedia on my systems so I use Real Alternative:
http://www.free-codecs.com/download/real_Alternative.htm

I wasn't sure whether it was possible to remove Windows Media Player 11. I assumed the result of trying, would be to just roll back to WMP10, but apparently not.

However, it isn't a straightforward operation razz, so have a read up on it first.

This page, is from this list of googled items.

Yup! It's like a "swiss army knife" as far as music players go since it can do a whole lot such as rip audio CDs directly to your choice of the built-in formats given that you download the encoders, convert from a ton of formats, etc.

For anyone using Foobar2000 just remember when making your system backups to also backup the Foobar2000 configuration file:
C:\Program Files\Foobar2000\foobar2000.cfg

I use KMPlayer for everything - music and video.

I use iTunes only because I have an iPod (not that I'd EVER buy one, it was a gift from an aunt.)

but VLC Media Player works for most audio formats, and most video (excluding Real, which It plays Real Audio, but not video)

I use VLC for videos :›

OMG I almost freaked when Razz posted he downloaded RealPlayer 11. Glad you decided otherwise. You've gotta be really hurting if you absolutely have to download that POS......or checking out porn. For the love of God people, give up porn. Life will be simpler.

I use VLC for videos and some music, and GOM Player for everything else. If one doesn't work on one, the other usually fixes that problem.

i use MediaMonkey. used it since 2005

I use Winamp (5.51) with Otachan's in_!mpg123 playback plugin. Don't really know is there any real need for that plugin now a days though. I don't use Winamp that much.

After checking many, many, music players, the results are in. My personal favorite and the gold star goes to Spider ( http://spider-player.com/ ).

Brief info copied from the Spider webpage:
Amazing sound quality
Internal 32-bit sound processing adds extra clarity and fidelity to playback, even if your sound card is not capable of output in such resolution.
Crossfading
Crossfading effects result in a smooth subtle transition between tracks.
Surround Sound
Supports 5.1/7.1 Surround as well as classic stereo/mono audio files.

I agree with the sound quality...excellent! I also like the look and the small modules PLUS one big thing I really like...it uses very little memory compared to others. Spider blasting away uses less than 6,000K. Foobar 2000, a really good player, uses about 26,000K.

Check it out if you are looking for a great little music player.

AOL Radio Powered by CBS Radio puts you in control and gives you instant access to one of the largest digital music libraries in the world.

If you connect to the player page with no query string,
http://player.play.it/player/player.html
you will get a "Station offline" error, but you can browse the
available stations with the "Stations" button on the bottom menu bar
and select one.

Anyway, I like it because it doesn't require a bunch of bloatware

Kenny you may like Screamer Radio

http://majorgeeks.com/Screamer_Radio_d6057.html

Steven Burn of hpHosts fame tuned me into it back in August:
http://forum.hosts-file.net/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=680

I dunno what you did with Foobar razz, but it has the smallest footprint of all of them.

With it's very simple interface open, it hits about 11-12mb on my pc, but when mimimised to the system tray, as mine is now, it usually hovers around 2-3mb, consistently.



You'll probably gather I'm a Foobar diehard, and there's nothing at all wrong with your choice of player, but if you're looking for a small footprint, as far as I'm aware, nothing beats Foobar. And it's simple interface hides an absolute wealth of sophisticated features.

Just thought I'd mention that.

My Winamp memory usage depends a lot.

When i launch it with a playlist open, it will take about 16Mb. But when i "refresh" it (minimize and back) it will take about 1,5Mb. And when i start listening music after that, constant usage will be about 5Mb. When minimized and listening music, constant usage will be about 3,5Mb. But when "refreshing" (Open and back to minimize) during a song, it will take only about 1,8Mb. It will change back to that about 3,5Mb, when a track changes.

Edit: I use classic skin, not modern.

You are correct Dennis! Foobar does have a small footprint. Just checked again with Foobar minimized and it does hover around 3mb. Notice that I had not uninstalled Foobar I liked it so I kept it along with Spider.

Happy Listening