Topic: Is Winamp still the mp3 player of choice?

[ScaryTooth]

Just curious. Had to reinstall windows, and was wondering if there was anything better.

[Cobra951]

I still use Winamp 2.  It works and it's very lean.

[Quemaqua]

Yeah, I still use 2 as well.

[idolminds]

I use Foobar 2000 for my stuff.

[Ghandi]

I also use Winamp 2.

[nickclone]

I prefer WMP because it sounds better, but if I'm using a program and need a lesser resource hog, I go with winamp 2.80.

[ScaryTooth]

Sweet. Going to check out Foobar as well. thanks guys.

[scottws]

Wow, weird to see all the Winamp 2 users.  I use Winamp 5.5.  Supposedly, Winamp 5 behaves like Winamp 2 if you use a classic skin or Winamp 3 if you use a modern skin.  So yeah I just use 5.5.

I use foobar2000 for updating tags.  It's got an awesome tagger.

[Quemaqua]

I will also vouch for foobar.  That's definitely my other player.  I mostly just like the way Winamp generally functions as far as using it to play stuff in the background, but foobar is probably the best player out there just overall.  It also makes a really awesome tool for various different music-related functions.

[iPPi]

I use Winamp on my PC.... I don't remember which version though, but it behaves like the old school Winamp since I have a classic skin on it.

On my laptop I just use WMP, since I don't listen to music on my laptop too often.

[Xessive]

Winamp all the way.

Anybody rememeber back in the day when Sonique was all the craze?

[Ghandi]

Supposedly, Winamp 5 behaves like Winamp 2 if you use a classic skin or Winamp 3 if you use a modern skin. 

Yeah, I can confirm this. I'm actually using 5 with a Winamp 2 skin. I thought it was Winamp 2 until I looked .

[scottws]

Winamp all the way.

Anybody rememeber back in the day when Sonique was all the craze?

Yeah, I loved Sonique.  I was sad when Sonique 2's protracted development basically killed it.

[Pugnate]

I am a simple man. I use what Windows gives me.

[PyroMenace]

I still use winamp... I actually thought I was the only person left here that used it thinking that most people moved on to something else.

I use winamp 5.5 like scott does since you can use it like winamp 5 when using the old skins. Im thinking maybe I should use 2 since I get tired of the update notifications of the new one.

[Xessive]

Yeah, I loved Sonique.  I was sad when Sonique 2's protracted development basically killed it.

Yeah, that was sad. Sonique was sleek and had a lot of potential, then Winamp developed freeform skins and eventually most people fled back to Winamp.

I really liked Sonique's playlist visuals and format. Winamp is definitely the superior media management tool now though. And now that it supports album art, iTunes is pretty much redundant to me.

[gpw11]

I don't really listen to music on my PC (speakers in storage, I use headphones to game), but what's the name of that visualization everyone loves for  WinAmp now?  Milk drops or something?

[Xessive]

I don't really listen to music on my PC (speakers in storage, I use headphones to game), but what's the name of that visualization everyone loves for  WinAmp now?  Milk drops or something?

Yeah, Milkdrop is actually pretty old, but ever since Winamp 5 it's been bundled as one of the standard plugins. It's by Ryan Geiss, the dude who made the old Geiss visualization and a whole bunch of other funky plugins and sound responsive screensavers. They're pretty awesome ambience effects for when you're just chillin'.

[ScaryTooth]

I'm really digging Foobar. It's nice, simple, but there are some really nice features if I need them. Playback sounds good too.

[Xessive]

Foobar would probably be my goto player should anything happen to Winamp.

Does anybody actually use iTunes as their primary audio player?

I like its format and style but it feels so bloated and sluggish compared to any other player I've ever tried (including WMP).

[W7RE]

I'm almost ashamed to say this, but I use iTunes to play my music. I made the switch when I got my iPod for my birthday last year. I tried Winamp for managing my music and moving it to the iPod, but it just wasn't as simple as iTunes and I liked the interface of iTunes better. For a short while I actually used iTunes for moving stuff to my iPod and Winamp for listening, but that got to be too much of a chore. Now when I'm listening to something and want it on my iPod, I can just plug it in drag the song to it.

I do remember the very first time I tried out iTunes I played the same song in it, and then in Winamp, and it was noticeably cleaner sounding in Winamp. Not sure if that's still the case, or if I needed to mess with some iTunes settings or whatnot. I'm used to iTunes now though, and I'm not enough of an audiophile (or maybe I'm just too lazy) to tell unless I were to try another player again and compare.

EDIT: Yea, iTunes felt sluggiish and bloated to me before, but since getting my new PC it's not noticeable.

[scottws]

While I do use iTunes to manage my music (the checkboxes make it really easy), I do find it horrible and bloated and slow.  While I still hated it, I had a better experience with it on Windows XP; however, on Vista it sucks even worse.  Scrolling down in the main music folder is just an exercise in futility.  The scrollbar jumps down at like 0.25fps.

One thing I find massively lacking is that it doesn't really support music stored on a network drive.  Oh I have it stored on my file server anyway and it does sync fine from there, but iTunes doesn't seem to have the ability to adjust caching for worthwhile playback from a network drive.  Both foobar2000 and Winamp handle networked music beautifully and have plenty of adjustable caching options.

I've heard from people I know that have a Mac and the Windows OS that say that iTunes is much, much better on the Mac and they agree the PC got nothing but a crappy port.

[Xessive]

Yeah, I've tried iTunes on my brother's Mac and it is much smoother in every way. I'm not sure about netwrok options, other than the shared playlists but that's more like a repurposed broadcast option.