April 21, 2008
Posted by Webmaster
MP3 Players
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Winamp is the venerable
player, still used by many, but it is suffering from bloat.
It has many convenient features, it is reliable, it converts
MP3 to .wav, etc., but it has also added useless features
and uses more CPU horsepower than some other players.
One very cool addition that folks are
raving about is MAD (MPEG Audio Decoder). It is a free
Winamp plug-in located at
http://www.mars.org/home/rob/proj/mpeg/mad-plugin/.
Many folks are very impressed with its sound quality.
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| CoolPlayer |
CoolPlayer
is freeware. It is cool. It is not as CPU-intensive as
Winamp. It can also convert MP3s to .wav. It is becoming
popular for very good reason.
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| MusicMatch Jukebox
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Not held in very high esteem by
regulars for a long time,
MusicMatch has
upgraded its encoder from Xing to a Fraunhofer CODEC
lately. YMMV (Your Mileage May Vary). It is difficult for
a single program to do everything well (play MP3s, CDs,
encode, make playlists, etc.) MMJB has lots of features,
has good marketing and gets good reviews from MP3.com and
mainstream publications.
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| Windows Media Player
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Media Player plays lots of stuff and does OK. Watch
out. It is very intrusive and will take over your entire
machine and want to play every media file type. |