As regular readers would be aware, I recently scrobbled 10,000 tracks on Last.fm and you can read up about it here and check out my Last.fm profile here. Of note, I have been scrobbling on Last.fm only for the last couple of years, but have been blasting music loud and clear right from my childhood. Over the years I have used many types of software to play music on my system discounting the audio tape and cassette players, the CD players and the mp3 players like iPod and such.
Some of the media players I have dabbled with off and on over the years have been Winamp, MediaMonkey, foobar2000, Windows Media Player and many others, but always there was the hunt for the best of them all and for one media player to rule them all. Many a time I felt I had reached the end of my search, but then again found better features in another media player and so the search for the best would begin all over again. Over the years some of the contenders for the best have been foobar2000, Winamp and MediaMonkey in that order, but all that changed when I found XMPlay which very quickly established itself as the media player of choice on my system. Some of the features of XMPlay and its description on its website are:
XMPlay is an audio player, supporting the OGG / MP3 / MP2 / MP1 / WMA / WAV / CDA / MO3 / IT / XM / S3M / MTM / MOD / UMX audio formats, and PLS / M3U / ASX / WAX playlists. A load more formats are also supported via plugins. When XMPlay was first released in 1998, only the XM format was supported, hence the name "XMPlay".
Linux, Mac OSX or PocketPC user? Want to enjoy the same quality MOD playback as XMPlay users? You can… BASSMOD
Main features – Balls-on accurate – Plays the way nature intended. 32/24-bit & multi-channel output – Take advantage of supporting hardware for ultimate quality. Gapless output – Gapless playback of all supported formats. Interpolation & volume/pan ramping – For output that’s smoother than a baby’s arse! DSP – Automatic gain control (and Replaygain), 9 band equalizer, reverb, plugin support Net streaming – All supported file types (including MODs and archives) can be streamed from FTP and HTTP servers (inc. Shoutcast/Icecast/Icecast2), optionally writing a copy to disk, FTP directories and HTML webpages can be scanned for playable files. Track information – Displays file/format information, messages/tags, and instrument/sample texts, open webpages from the texts. Title formatting – You decide how you want the track titles to look, title updating from ‘net streams and CUE sheets. Library – A database of your tracks, with directory monitoring, for quick and easy access to the tracks you want to play. Saved/preset settings – Save settings (DSP/etc) to be automatically used each time specific tracks or file types are played, save presets for quick application at any time Disk writing – Write 8/16/24/32-bit WAV files, use external encoders (MP3/OGG/etc), optional level normalization, dithering & noise shaping, individual MOD instrument writing. Keyboard shortcuts – Fully customizable shortcuts, including global hotkeys Integration – Open files/folders from Windows Explorer, drag’n'drop files/folders/shortcuts/URLs, monitor the clipboard for playable URLs, drag’n'drop tracks from XMPlay into other programs, icon customization Archive plugins – Archived/compressed files can be loaded just like normal files, including support for nested archives. Unicode file support – Support for Russian, Chinese, etc… Visualisation – Compatible with Sonique plugins, fullscreen display, includes a MOD pattern view. No installation – UnZIP where you want and go!
The last point is a winner in its own right. No installation. Just unzip XMPlay contents into a folder and click on XMPlay to start playing tracks. Another winning feature is XMPlay comes with a lot of plugins that enhance its functionality and one of them is the ability to play files from within .zip archives without the need to open and unzip the archive. This is the way how plugins and add-ons of XMPlay work. Just unzip them and place them in XMPlay folder and you are all set. XMPlay does offer a good deal of customization in terms of skins, add-ons and plugins. The best of the lot however are the plugins to customize the audio output since XMPlay offers customization to a degree that only foobar2000 would surpass in this most important of all areas.
The only con I can think of in XMPlay is how it looks and its default skin, but then again this is not an issue for me personally. I have always placed more emphasis on performance rather than looks so to me personally this is a non-issue, but then again looks do matter to many out there. In terms of audio output you will find it hard to find another media player that will surpass XMPlay.
Another area where XMPlay scores is in terms of consumption of resources. On my system it took 1/10th the RAM of Winamp and compared favorably against foobar2000. MediaMonkey proved to be a resource hog probably due to the huge library it was managing, but then again XMPlay handled the entire library without taking up as much resources. You will be pleasantly surprised if you chose to try out XMPlay for yourself. Learning curve is about 5 minutes to figure out the ins and outs of this little genius of a media player.
XMPlay Download – http://www.un4seen.com/
XMPlay Support – http://support.xmplay.com/
