# Winamp is returning, beta testing now.



## DeathtoGnomes (Nov 25, 2021)

Set the tone! - Winamp
					

A universal platform connecting listeners with their favorite artists, podcasts and radio stations. Stay tuned, much more to come!




					www.winamp.com
				





I used to love winamp, there were so much you could do with it, moreso than other 3rd party players, with that came just as many bugs.


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## isvelte (Nov 25, 2021)

Foobar2000 was leagues better replacement to winamp.


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## DrCR (Nov 25, 2021)

We’ll see what ‘totally remastered’ means and how attractive it may or may not be.

I’m honestly surprised it’s worth the investment by whoever is behind this.


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## Chomiq (Nov 25, 2021)

isvelte said:


> Foobar2000 was leagues better replacement to winamp.


And still is.


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## mx62 (Nov 25, 2021)

yeah foobar its great 
and with great plugins


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## DeathtoGnomes (Nov 25, 2021)

isvelte said:


> Foobar2000 was leagues better replacement to winamp.


I prefer Musicbee now.


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## natr0n (Nov 25, 2021)

I still use it for streaming radio and mp3 and foobar sometimes


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## Deleted member 24505 (Nov 25, 2021)

Foobar2000 is even on the windows store


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## chinobis (Nov 25, 2021)

Foobar with the milkdrop v2 plugin is awesome. I can't see what winamp can come up with to top this. A social/discovery feature maybe?


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## mx62 (Nov 25, 2021)

for me anything that result in a pure audio its a "must"


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## Dristun (Nov 25, 2021)

The only interesting reinvention for winamp I can think of would be a product that fetches libraries from all the different places you have music on (say, different streaming platforms) and recombines them into a big one that's usable straight from the app. Otherwise - yeah, good memories, but manually managing and transfering music between devices is a slog I'm never going back to, streaming is more convenient.


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## Tomgang (Nov 25, 2021)

As a current Winamp user. It's very welcome with new implementations. Just as long they don't screw it up.


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## oobymach (Nov 25, 2021)

What's this returning business? I still have and use winamp, long live the milkdrop visualiser!

I use it because it's tiny and uses zero resources because it was made to run on a pentium 33mhz chip so you can add your own music to any game without any lag.


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## The King (Nov 25, 2021)

Tomgang said:


> As a current Winamp user. It's very welcome with new implementations. Just as long they don't screw it up.


I have always used Winamp to play mp3s. Its lightweight and still has the best graphic equalizer and preamp control.

Other music players were stuff with bloatware and other useless crap.


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## lexluthermiester (Nov 25, 2021)

DeathtoGnomes said:


> Set the tone! - Winamp
> 
> 
> A universal platform connecting listeners with their favorite artists, podcasts and radio stations. Stay tuned, much more to come!
> ...


I still run it. 2.92 for music and 5.63 for video.



isvelte said:


> Foobar2000 was leagues better replacement to winamp.





Chomiq said:


> And still is.





mx62 said:


> yeah foobar its great
> and with great plugins


Folks this thread is about WinAmp not foobar.


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## Tomgang (Nov 25, 2021)

The King said:


> I have always used Winamp to play mp3s. Its lightweight and still has the best graphic equalizer and preamp control.
> 
> Other music players were stuff with bloatware and other useless crap.


Agreed. Winamp was and is the best player. Hence why I still use it.


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## ExcuseMeWtf (Nov 25, 2021)

> Folks this thread is about WinAmp not foobar.


Repeated mentions of competing player(s) are indirectly about WinAmp as well, since they show what is the standard it should live up to.

As for WinAmp itself, used it in 2.x days, when it was actually lightweight (even with skins and visualizer on), ever since 3.0 it became too bloated for me.


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## The red spirit (Nov 25, 2021)

But it's 2021, what is the point of another music player? I agree that Foobar2000 is kinda cool, but even it is niche use software at best. In terms of anything else, there's no good reason to use anything other than whatever comes with windows or just VLC. It's not like sound quality is any different between them.


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## micropage7 (Nov 25, 2021)

now i use between Aimp, Foobar, and old Winamp
it's kinda good but if they wanna go with the app, make it low resources, small installer


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## Chomiq (Nov 25, 2021)

The red spirit said:


> But it's 2021, what is the point of another music player? I agree that Foobar2000 is kinda cool, but even it is niche use software at best. In terms of anything else, there's no good reason to use anything other than whatever comes with windows or just VLC. It's not like sound quality is any different between them.


And then there's the whole bunch of users that use Itunes, Spotify, Google Music or whatever.


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## The red spirit (Nov 25, 2021)

Chomiq said:


> And then there's the whole bunch of users that use Itunes, Spotify, Google Music or whatever.


And?


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## Chomiq (Nov 25, 2021)

The red spirit said:


> And?


Digital music stored locally is a dying breed and Winamp needs to reinvent the wheel to become successful.


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## Grom0X (Nov 25, 2021)

I really like Winamp, thanks for post this.
Old school!


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## The red spirit (Nov 25, 2021)

Chomiq said:


> Digital music stored locally is a dying breed and Winamp needs to reinvent the wheel to become successful.


That's obvious. They have no real strategy, so why the hype? All their website says is that they are looking for ideas and that they will hire people. They have no idea what they will do and their only asset is Winamp name which some nerds still remember and general public doesn't. Looks like their are either running out of cash and this is the last hoorah before they will go bust or they are doing okay, but want to put Winamp back on the maps, but have no strategy. Either way I don't expect anything good out of this and I don't understand why Winamp even became somewhat popular at their peak. It looks like one of the hundred music players that did exactly the same thing.


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## bug (Nov 25, 2021)

DeathtoGnomes said:


> Set the tone! - Winamp
> 
> 
> A universal platform connecting listeners with their favorite artists, podcasts and radio stations. Stay tuned, much more to come!
> ...


It was my go to player because _it didn't_ do many things. Not without plugins.
These days, I'm mostly on Spotify. And since I dwell on Linux, I had a good run with Amarok and lately Elisa.


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## looniam (Nov 25, 2021)

Chomiq said:


> Digital music stored locally is a dying breed  . . .


stop. you're making me feel old(er). got stuff i *have to have*. (merzbow!)

all i care about are visualizations on my 4K TV that i haven't seen in the last 15 years.


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## Deleted member 202104 (Nov 25, 2021)

Cool to hear it's coming back.  For the longest time I've used Audacious on both Linux and Windows.  Even uses Winamp skins:


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## Ferather (Nov 25, 2021)

I am using a different media player, but it does accept Winamp DSP's, interesting.


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## outpt (Nov 25, 2021)

Haven’t used Winamp or foobar2000 in ages. I would like to see what will become of this.


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## lexluthermiester (Nov 25, 2021)

Chomiq said:


> Digital music stored locally is a dying breed


No it isn't. Some people do not stream. Simple reason, we don't want to listen to ads. I happily buy my music and store it locally.


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## Sithaer (Nov 25, 2021)

Huh I'm also not sure whats this return, I always used winamp as my mp3 music player on my PC and still do.
Its like in my basic reinstall package after I do a clean Windows reinstall, never really used any other player for music.


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## lexluthermiester (Nov 25, 2021)

Is it just me, or is there no download like?


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## AusWolf (Nov 25, 2021)

Sithaer said:


> Huh I'm also not sure whats this return, I always used winamp as my mp3 music player on my PC and still do.
> Its like in my basic reinstall package after I do a clean Windows reinstall, never really used any other player for music.


Same here. It's not _the best_ music player. It's THE music player for me.


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## OneMoar (Nov 25, 2021)

Late to the party AIMP is what i have used for years
my needs for a stand alone media player have waned in recent years


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## lexluthermiester (Nov 25, 2021)

AusWolf said:


> Same here. It's not _the best_ music player. It's THE music player for me.


What I'm hoping for is refinements to the plugin interface, improved options for the UI, improved media support(both audio and video) and all while keeping the classic options intact.


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## bug (Nov 25, 2021)

lexluthermiester said:


> No it is isn't. Some people do not stream. Simple reason, we don't want to listen to ads. I happily buy my music and store it locally.


For $5/mo, you don't have to listen to ads. But there are gems that you can't find on any streaming platform, so I'm not giving up my collection.
Streaming also gives me much of the music I collected over the years, but at better quality, so there's that.


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## AusWolf (Nov 25, 2021)

bug said:


> For $5/mo, you don't have to listen to ads. But there are gems that you can't find on any streaming platform, so I'm not giving up my collection.
> Streaming also gives me much of the music I collected over the years, but at better quality, so there's that.


Why should I pay $5 a month for something I can have for free as something stored on my PC or with a one-off payment at a music store? Especially since I already pay for my Internet connection.


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## bug (Nov 25, 2021)

AusWolf said:


> Why should I pay $5 a month for something I can have for free?


Ah, an entitled one. My apologies, sir.


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## AusWolf (Nov 25, 2021)

bug said:


> Ah, an entitled one. My apologies, sir.


$5 for youtube premium, $5 for amazon prime, $5 for Netflix, 5$ for ad-free radio... am I made of money or what?  No thanks.

All of this (well, the equivalents) was included in a simple TV subscription in the '90s, so again: no thanks.


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## lexluthermiester (Nov 25, 2021)

bug said:


> For $5/mo, you don't have to listen to ads. But there are gems that you can't find on any streaming platform, so I'm not giving up my collection.
> Streaming also gives me much of the music I collected over the years


To be fair, it's been a while since I've looked at music streaming. But also to be fair, even if there have been massive improvements, one simple fact still remains; You don't own your music. With CD's and digital purchases, you own that copy of that music and you can never be denied access to it. With streaming, you own nothing and can be denied access at the whim of some nitwit in a high priced suit. No effing thank you.


bug said:


> but at better quality


This I doubt.


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## bug (Nov 25, 2021)

AusWolf said:


> $5 for youtube premium, $5 for amazon prime, $5 for Netflix, 5$ for ad-free radio... am I made of money or what?  No thanks.
> 
> All of this (well, the equivalents) was included in a simple TV subscription in the '90s, so again: no thanks.


You don't have to subscribe to everything, but, even if you hate RIAA and MPAA, you have to realize servers don't run themselves.


lexluthermiester said:


> To be fair, it's been a while since I've looked at music streaming. But to be fair, even if there have been massive improvements, one simple fact still remains; You don't own your music. With CD's and digital purchases, you own that copy of that music and you can never be denied access to it. With streaming, you own nothing and can be denied access at the whim of some nitwit in a high priced suit. No effing thank you.


A fair point, but Spotify can play your local files. More importantly, it lets you upload your local collection: https://www.businessinsider.com/spotify-how-to-upload-music-and-save-offline-2018-8


lexluthermiester said:


> This I doubt.


There are some tunes I only got in MP3 128kbps form... Some even lower than that.


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## AusWolf (Nov 25, 2021)

lexluthermiester said:


> To be fair, it's been a while since I've looked at music streaming. But also to be fair, even if there have been massive improvements, one simple fact still remains; You don't own your music. With CD's and digital purchases, you own that copy of that music and you can never be denied access to it. With streaming, you own nothing and can be denied access at the whim of some nitwit in a high priced suit. No effing thank you.


Exactly that!



lexluthermiester said:


> This I doubt.


Nothing sounds better than a well-maintained vinyl record, or one ripped as lossless audio. 



bug said:


> You don't have to subscribe to everything, but, even if you hate RIAA and MPAA, you have to realize servers don't run themselves.


I watch lots of cooking and science shows on YouTube and put up with the ads. I think it's a brilliant service for that purpose. It's also great for learning about new music. It's just shite for prolonged listening. Nothing can replace your own music collection.



bug said:


> A fair point, but Spotify can play your local files. More importantly, it lets you upload your local collection: https://www.businessinsider.com/spotify-how-to-upload-music-and-save-offline-2018-8


Imo, the need for Spotify is an artificially created one, just like the "need for" big-screened smartphones. No one has ever asked for it, yet it dominates the world for some reason. I still see no reason why I should upload my collection anywhere.



bug said:


> There are some tunes I only got in MP3 128kbps form... Some even lower than that.


Get better copies. You could buy them on CD for example.  Ebay and Amazon are great sources.


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## lexluthermiester (Nov 26, 2021)

bug said:


> There are some tunes I only got in MP3 128kbps form... Some even lower than that.


Most of my music in 256kbps or 320kbps. I have some that are 192kbps and 128kbps but not much.


bug said:


> A fair point, but Spotify can play your local files. More importantly, it lets you upload your local collection: https://www.businessinsider.com/spotify-how-to-upload-music-and-save-offline-2018-8


That's a cop-out at best. You still don't own your copy and they can deny you access on a whim. That's just unacceptable to a lot of people.


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## DeathtoGnomes (Nov 26, 2021)

Chomiq said:


> Digital music stored locally is a dying breed and Winamp needs to reinvent the wheel to become successful.


that depends where you get your digital collection.


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## bug (Nov 26, 2021)

lexluthermiester said:


> Most of my music in 256kbps or 320kbps. I have some that are 192kbps and 128kbps but not much.


You must have had better sources than I did. I even have stuff in AAC 256kbps+ (but tbh, at that bitrate I can't tell them apart from MP3), but some things I just couldn't get at good quality


lexluthermiester said:


> That's a cop-out at best. You still don't own your copy and they can deny you access on a whim. That's just unacceptable to a lot of people.


How is it a cop-out? You still own whatever you owned before (it's not like you delete your local connection once you upload it), you make them worry about bitflips and whatnot, you get access to your collection from wherever you can get an internet connection and you get access to an extended library for as long as you're willing to subscribe.


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## Chrispy_ (Nov 26, 2021)

I have a 20GB MP3 collection that is completely obsolete, like the MP3 players I used to need to play them.


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## lexluthermiester (Nov 26, 2021)

bug said:


> You must have had better sources than I did.


CD's or digital stores that sold high bitrate. Google Music(RIP) was excellent for this. I have half my digital library from Google Music. 100% DRM free MP3's. Loved it!


bug said:


> How is it a cop-out? You still own whatever you owned before (it's not like you delete your local connection once you upload it), you make them worry about bitflips and whatnot, you get access to your collection from wherever you can get an internet connection and you get access to an extended library for as long as you're willing to subscribe.


I might be missing some context. Still, don't care. I always have access to my library because I can take my collection with me regardless of an internet connection and I don't have to pay a monthly fee to have access to it. 64GB & 128GB MicroSD cards are useful indeed. And they're inexpensive.


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## Frick (Nov 26, 2021)

lexluthermiester said:


> I still run it. 2.92 for music and 5.63 for video.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Any thread about Winamp will also be a thread about Foobar. It has been the rule since the death of Julius Ceasar.


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## lexluthermiester (Nov 26, 2021)

Frick said:


> Any thread about Winamp will also be a thread about Foobar. It has been the rule since the death of Julius Ceasar.


Rubbish. Pull the other one..


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## AusWolf (Nov 26, 2021)

Chrispy_ said:


> I have a 20GB MP3 collection that is completely obsolete, like the MP3 players I used to need to play them.


I still use one of these, and I love it.  Fun fact that I've lost it during my travels about 3 times, but I just keep buying it again.


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## bug (Nov 26, 2021)

lexluthermiester said:


> CD's or digital stores that sold high bitrate. Google Music(RIP) was excellent for this. I have half my digital library from Google Music. 100% DRM free MP3's. Loved it!


Google Music was great indeed (Google lost me when they turned on YouTube Music). But it wasn't an option when I started my collection, back in the '90s.


lexluthermiester said:


> I might be missing some context. Still, don't care. I always have access to my library because I can take my collection with me regardless of an internet connection and I don't have to pay a monthly fee to have access to it. 64GB & 128GB MicroSD cards are useful indeed. And they're inexpensive.


And that's what I expect many people will do. I was just saying, there's convenience in streaming service and I think it's worth the small fee. I'm not saying everybody must subscribe, I was just explaining how Spotify is worth the cost _for me_.


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## lexluthermiester (Nov 26, 2021)

bug said:


> But it wasn't an option when I started my collection, back in the '90s.


That's fair. Back then, I was ripping all my CD's for playing on.... wait for it.... yup, WinAmp. I was still doing 192kbps & 256kbps back then. HDD were pricey so I was making MP3 CD's.


bug said:


> And that's what I expect many people will do. I was just saying, there's convenience in streaming service and I think it's worth the small fee. I'm not saying everybody must subscribe, I was just explaining how Spotify is worth the cost _for me_.


Fair enough.


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## AusWolf (Nov 26, 2021)

bug said:


> Google Music was great indeed (Google lost me when they turned on YouTube Music). But it wasn't an option when I started my collection, back in the '90s.





lexluthermiester said:


> That's fair. Back then, I was ripping all my CD's for playing on.... wait for it.... yup, WinAmp. I was still doing 192kbps & 256kbps back then. HDD were pricey so I was making MP3 CD's.


Those were the days!  Without the internet, exchanging MP3 CDs with my friends was my only source of music. Crappy 96-128 mbps, mostly.  But nowadays, everything can be obtained in good quality, especially in car boot sales (=flea market) and second-hand music stores. Vinyl records and cassettes are still in production as well as audio CDs. A low quality, outdated music collection is not a reason to not listen to music offline anymore - it's a reason to try to get stuff in better quality (in my opinion).


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## bug (Nov 26, 2021)

AusWolf said:


> Those were the days!  Without the internet, exchanging MP3 CDs with my friends was my only source of music. Crappy 96-128 mbps, mostly.  But nowadays, everything can be obtained in good quality, especially in car boot sales (=flea market) and second-hand music stores. Vinyl records and cassettes are still in production as well as audio CDs.


What about recording straight from radio? And swearing when the DJ started to talk before the song was over.


AusWolf said:


> A low quality, outdated music collection is not a reason to not listen to music offline anymore - it's a reason to try to get stuff in better quality (in my opinion).


Tbh, those tunes aren't even about quality anymore. They're about memories at this point.


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## AusWolf (Nov 26, 2021)

bug said:


> What about recording straight from radio? And swearing when the DJ started to talk before the song was over.


Oh yes, done that too! 



bug said:


> Tbh, those tunes aren't even about quality anymore. They're about memories at this point.


To me, that's just one more reason to get those tunes in high quality offline.  There was something magical about that time. Maybe the feeling of finally getting my hands on a PC game or music that I'd been hunting for months or years. Today, everything's just a click away, which is good, but also sad in a way. Sometimes it's the anticipation that gives stuff its value, which is something we don't feel anymore.


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## The red spirit (Nov 26, 2021)

AusWolf said:


> Nothing sounds better than a well-maintained vinyl record, or one ripped as lossless audio.


That's objectively not true. Lossless digital files will always be better than vinyl, unless you specifically enjoy analog format flaws.


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## bug (Nov 26, 2021)

The red spirit said:


> That's objectively not true. Lossless digital files will always be better than vinyl, unless you specifically enjoy analog format flaws.


Very few things wrt audio are objective


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## Ferather (Nov 26, 2021)

I don't know any lossless analogue direct that doesn't lose audio in the process, If it switch to analogue direct I get an instant -4db and signal degradation.
Its enough degradation (and THD) to make all lossless audio, lossy, in fact DTS Surround (transcoding PCM) is less lossy than analogue.


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## The red spirit (Nov 26, 2021)

bug said:


> Very few things wrt audio are objective


Not at all, audio quality is very objective measure. If it's accurate to the sources, then it's good audio and if it's not, then it's poor audio. It's very measurable. It's just that people often don't care.


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## londiste (Nov 26, 2021)

The red spirit said:


> That's obvious. They have no real strategy, so why the hype? All their website says is that they are looking for ideas and that they will hire people. They have no idea what they will do and their only asset is Winamp name which some nerds still remember and general public doesn't.


They have strategy. AudioValley seems to be the one behind it this time around: https://www.audiovalley.com/
I bet this becomes the deal of whole platform, store, streaming and anything else you could throw at it.

We can only hope this revival will bring along a decent enough player of Winamp fame - plugins, configurable (minimal!) installation, light on resources etc. Not counting on this part though.



The red spirit said:


> Either way I don't expect anything good out of this and I don't understand why Winamp even became somewhat popular at their peak. It looks like one of the hundred music players that did exactly the same thing.


You are too young or had no interest in digital audio until much later.
Winamp was THE music player back then for playing MP3. There were no hundred players. You could count the competition on one hand for quite a while. This was the days of early Pentiums and playing MP3 was not exactly an easy task to do, even less so in the background. Winamp added a good (and pretty enough at the time) UI to it, with support for skins and plugins. If you want to gauge the impact of Winamp consider the fact that a lot of players support Winamp plugins to this day.

Edit:
Also, nullsoft created Shoutcast and added it to Winamp which also had a significant role in making it the de facto standard player.


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## bug (Nov 26, 2021)

The red spirit said:


> Not at all, audio quality is very objective measure. If it's accurate to the sources, then it's good audio and if it's not, then it's poor audio. It's very measurable. It's just that people often don't care.


Except that the source is the artist's voice/instrument and you can't directly measure that. Even if you could, it would be an analogue measurement (errors and whatnot). For all practical intents, the source is not available in the audio world.
And then, regardless of how good your material is, you still listen to it over an analogue speaker or headphone that imprints its own signature to the output signal.

For video, it's easy, you pull up a CIE diagram and compare to that. But there's no CIE diagram equivalent for sound. It's all relative.


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## Ferather (Nov 26, 2021)

I would worry about the input quality more, once you have the hardware that is. FLAC is more todays standard than MP3.
You could have the latest and best equipment, but bad audio input = bad audio output.

Restoration enhancers can only do so much.

----

Edit: DTS, Dolby and FLAC can be directly streamed to the audio device, or decoded like MP3 to PCM.


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## Jose Jeswin (Nov 26, 2021)

Eagerly waiting for winamp...winamp was my go to audio player....jetaudio was for video playback....from 2002 to 2008....Then switched to AIMP for audio and MPC-Black Edition with madvr for video...I
wonder if new winamp will support ASIO and WasAPI?...


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## The red spirit (Nov 26, 2021)

londiste said:


> They have strategy. AudioValley seems to be the one behind it this time around: https://www.audiovalley.com/
> I bet this becomes the deal of whole platform, store, streaming and anything else you could throw at it.
> 
> We can only hope this revival will bring along a decent enough player of Winamp fame - plugins, configurable (minimal!) installation, light on resources etc. Not counting on this part though.


And I don't. They have no real strategy, other than claiming it will be all in one player for everything. I don't think that they can pull that off. Even big players like Apple, Spotify and etc. can't, why would some company from 20 years ago would actually pull that off?




londiste said:


> You are too young or had no interest in digital audio until much later.
> Winamp was THE music player back then for playing MP3. There were no hundred players. You could count the competition on one hand for quite a while. This was the days of early Pentiums and playing MP3 was not exactly an easy task to do, even less so in the background. Winamp added a good (and pretty enough at the time) UI to it, with support for skins and plugins. If you want to gauge the impact of Winamp consider the fact that a lot of players support Winamp plugins to this day.


But that's just skins. As for technical achievement that sounds pretty good, but also remember that back then people also played tracker music too and that it took few years for computer power to literally double or triple, so Winamp quickly lost unique selling point. It may have been lighter, but if all computers 2-3 years later can do that task without problems, then that lightness argument just lost a ton of value. That was back then, this argument today along with customization argument mean nothing, when basically all competition is now light and customizable. And you are are right, I'm more of WMP 7 person. 



londiste said:


> Edit:
> Also, nullsoft created Shoutcast and added it to Winamp which also had a significant role in making it the de facto standard player.


What is shoutcast?



bug said:


> Except that the source is the artist's voice/instrument and you can't directly measure that. Even if you could, it would be an analogue measurement (errors and whatnot). For all practical intents, the source is not available in the audio world.


That's why you use professional measuring equipment for objective measures with small margin of error. You are making it sound as if it is not possible to get really close to perfect measurement. Meanwhile in reality it's probably more accurate than uncompressed WAV file.




bug said:


> And then, regardless of how good your material is, you still listen to it over an analogue speaker or headphone that imprints its own signature to the output signal.


That has nothing to do with source.



bug said:


> For video, it's easy, you pull up a CIE diagram and compare to that. But there's no CIE diagram equivalent for sound. It's all relative.


There is, loudness of each frequency.


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## DeathtoGnomes (Nov 26, 2021)

londiste said:


> Winamp added a good (and pretty enough at the time) UI to it, with support for skins and plugins.


A lot of times plugins didnt play nice with others, even skins didnt like some plugins. I scoured the skins/plugins for hours trying to find something that worked with this or that, installing and reinstalling. Not like there much else to do back then. Download porn or watch paint dry, if you werent gaming. I seem to recall m$ doing the mad dash to support other formats and players, ahead of Apple, which is why you dont hear much of Quicktime anymore, I'm sure some form of it is floating around, but the codec didnt play nice at all.


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## DailymotionGamer (Nov 27, 2021)

Who really stopped using winamp? I haven't. After winamp kinda shut down or whatever, i stayed using version 5.0 from old version .com Nice to see it coming back. But i chuckle at the part about "remastered" everyone is remastering things now haha.


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## bug (Nov 27, 2021)

The red spirit said:


> That's why you use professional measuring equipment for objective measures with small margin of error. You are making it sound as if it is not possible to get really close to perfect measurement. Meanwhile in reality it's probably more accurate than uncompressed WAV file.
> 
> That has nothing to do with source.


The most accurate measurement in the world is meaningless in the absence of a reference


The red spirit said:


> There is, loudness of each frequency.


Would you mind linking this reference for audio?


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## The red spirit (Nov 27, 2021)

bug said:


> Would you mind linking this reference for audio?


There's nothing to link. I just think that it's a decent reference.


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## Chrispy_ (Nov 27, 2021)

AusWolf said:


> I still use one of these, and I love it.  Fun fact that I've lost it during my travels about 3 times, but I just keep buying it again.


Oh I didn't mean hardware players, I meant software players like Winamp. My phone has always been a plenty capable enough MP3 player that I never felt the need to carry around an additional piece of hardware, though I have to admit I was tempted to buy one before Android phones became a thing as the Nokias had limited playlist management abilities.


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## Ferather (Nov 27, 2021)

@bug, @The red spirit, I believe you want to look into audio THD (ignore the power formulas, focus on Sine tests) and SPL (sound pressure level). Total harmonic distortion - Wikipedia

Edit: Prepare to get confused as you read more and more into THD, you want data that includes Sine, SPL and ideally dB measurements.
As far as I understand, there is a amount of amplification that can be done before THD is audible, is different per device.

----

I will use my Z906 as an example here, because they give the info in the manual.

Subwoofer: 165 watts RMS (6 ohms, at 52 Hz, at 10% THD)
Satellites: 335 watts RMS (4 ohms at 3.85kHz, at 10% THD)
SPL: > 110 dBC

This should be 99.x audio, 11 THD. However at 100 dBC or lower they may be no audible THD (lower than human audible range, >0 dB).
Also note, audible THD (1 dB or more) can be masked if the pure audio is a higher level, example 99 dB.


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## bug (Nov 27, 2021)

Ferather said:


> @bug, @The red spirit, I believe you want to look into audio THD (ignore the power formulas, focus on Sine tests) and SPL (sound pressure level). Total harmonic distortion - Wikipedia
> 
> Edit: Prepare to get confused as you read more and more into THD, you want data that includes Sine, SPL and ideally dB measurements.
> As far as I understand, there is a amount of amplification that can be done before THD is audible, is different per device.
> ...


That's besides the point.

The point is, when it comes to video, content will target a predefined, standard, color space and you can always calibrate your display to see exactly what the video maker wants you to see.
When it comes to audio, you can measure sound all day, you still have no idea whether you're close to what the creator intended.


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## Ferather (Nov 28, 2021)

I was talking audio, but the question was asked, how would you measure, well that's in general how you do it. A sine test compares the input to output.
If your input is 100% accurate, with sounds (piano, guitar, so on), then it will be an accurate test when testing the output measurement.

If you had 100% accurate output, then its 100% of the input, which is as the creator made it (even with THD, other in it).
Lets say my recording equipment is not 100% accurate and only 90%, then you get 10% inaccuracy with input.

Edit: I forgot synthesised sound, which technically has no IRL reference.

Edit 2: If I recorded some music, with 100% accuracy, and then added +2 dB of bass to the whole track, are the instruments now accurate?


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## AusWolf (Nov 28, 2021)

Chrispy_ said:


> Oh I didn't mean hardware players, I meant software players like Winamp. My phone has always been a plenty capable enough MP3 player that I never felt the need to carry around an additional piece of hardware, though I have to admit I was tempted to buy one before Android phones became a thing as the Nokias had limited playlist management abilities.


Oh I see. I still use Winamp up to this day, although VLC has been a friend of mine too.

As for phones, I find them cumbersome in terms of handling playlists, and controlling music player software in the background. Not to mention the lack of an equalizer in most.
A purpose-built MP3 player is much easier to use.


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## lexluthermiester (Nov 29, 2021)

AusWolf said:


> As for phones, I find them cumbersome in terms of handling playlists


That depends greatly on the music app you use. I love Android as a base for a music player because of the versatility.


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## bug (Nov 29, 2021)

Ferather said:


> I was talking audio, but the question was asked, how would you measure, well that's in general how you do it. A sine test compares the input to output.
> If your input is 100% accurate, with sounds (piano, guitar, so on), then it will be an accurate test when testing the output measurement.
> 
> If you had 100% accurate output, then its 100% of the input, which is as the creator made it (even with THD, other in it).
> ...


I didn't dispute any of that. I was just saying, video has a way of telling whether or not you're seeing what the creator wanted you to see, audio doesn't. That what makes almost everything about audio subjective. (And I haven't even touched on people's ears or age.)


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## puma99dk| (Nov 29, 2021)

Winamp is still my default music player even on my Windows 11 and I am not gonna change that really.


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## Mussels (Nov 29, 2021)

Now with ads, spotify, youtube music, amazon music etc alllllll built in....


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## silentbogo (Nov 29, 2021)

Just looked at screenshots and it looks like just like the old winamp from my childhood. Not sure what they meant by "building Winamp for the next generation", but it does not look promising.
I migrated to Foobar2000 back in high school, when Winamp was still at its prime, and there were many reasons for me to do so.
Another lively alternative is AIMP. I'm using the android version, but on PC it was a de-facto replacement for Winamp when it completely stagnated.
And judging by their "hiring" section it's clear what kind of future awaits winamp: ads, paid music streaming subscriptions, various monetization ventures etc. Pretty sure these new brand owners will simply cash-out on familiar name, and go under as soon as nostalgia runs out.
They can't even hire a decent web-designer. Their page managed to completely stagger my 3800X for some time, and even on reloads after media caching the page still struggles to load under 2s... 

P.S. Totally forgot to check who the actual owner is... And here is an excerpt from Audiovalley's website:


> The Group is home to brands that offer high-quality products and services, such as: monetization of digital audio content with Targetspot, music rights management with Jamendo, streaming technologies and podcast management with Shoutcast, and the iconic Winamp audio player.


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## Mussels (Nov 29, 2021)

Back on dial up, winamp was all i had, and i coulnt afford drugs so milkdrop was an addiction

The thought of going to the effort of finding, buying, storing, etc all the music again just... so much effort?

spotify has made me lazy


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## bug (Nov 29, 2021)

silentbogo said:


> Just looked at screenshots and it looks like just like the old winamp from my childhood. Not sure what they meant by "building Winamp for the next generation", but it does not look promising.
> I migrated to Foobar2000 back in high school, when Winamp was still at its prime, and there were many reasons for me to do so.
> Another lively alternative is AIMP. I'm using the android version, but on PC it was a de-facto replacement for Winamp when it completely stagnated.
> And judging by their "hiring" section it's clear what kind of future awaits winamp: ads, paid music streaming subscriptions, various monetization ventures etc. Pretty sure these new brand owners will simply cash-out on familiar name, and go under as soon as nostalgia runs out.
> ...


I don't mind monetization, as long as I can get the basic functionality for free. Spotify&friends do not have publicly accessible APIs, you have to pay for access, so they can't give this away for free. Not to mention they need to pay their programmers.
But ads in Winamp will kill it on the spot.


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## silentbogo (Nov 29, 2021)

bug said:


> But ads in Winamp will kill it on the spot.


Ads are the least of my worries. They are on a suicide mission that killed many media players and streaming apps back in a day... in the nutshell: they want to copy iTunes.


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## lexluthermiester (Nov 29, 2021)

Is there an actual link for the beta yet? I'm not seeing it.


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## Mussels (Nov 29, 2021)

lexluthermiester said:


> Is there an actual link for the beta yet? I'm not seeing it.


No but they're hiring and want investors... they may not have anything but the website yet


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## AusWolf (Nov 29, 2021)

silentbogo said:


> Just looked at screenshots and it looks like just like the old winamp from my childhood. Not sure what they meant by "building Winamp for the next generation", but it does not look promising.
> I migrated to Foobar2000 back in high school, when Winamp was still at its prime, and there were many reasons for me to do so.
> Another lively alternative is AIMP. I'm using the android version, but on PC it was a de-facto replacement for Winamp when it completely stagnated.


What do you mean by stagnation? Winamp is/was a music player with skins. Nothing more, nothing less. What else do you want it to be?

I, for one, hate it when a new version of the software that I use comes out for no reason (security patches and bug fixes not included), with new UI and everything, and I have to re-learn to use it from ground zero. Facebook/Messenger is a notorious offender, and so is Microsoft with Windows 10.2 or whatever they call it.

This is one more reason why I prefer my physical MP3 player - it doesn't get unnecessary (or any) updates.


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## bug (Nov 29, 2021)

AusWolf said:


> What do you mean by stagnation? Winamp is/was a music player with skins. Nothing more, nothing less. What else do you want it to be?
> 
> I, for one, hate it when a new version of the software that I use comes out for no reason (security patches and bug fixes not included), with new UI and everything, and I have to re-learn to use it from ground zero. Facebook/Messenger is a notorious offender, and so is Microsoft with Windows 10.2 or whatever they call it.
> 
> This is one more reason why I prefer my physical MP3 player - it doesn't get unnecessary (or any) updates.


One can always work on OS integration. Newer notifications, integration with indexing services... There's always something to do, even if you keep the UI unchanged.


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## AusWolf (Nov 29, 2021)

bug said:


> One can always work on OS integration. Newer notifications, integration with indexing services... There's always something to do, even if you keep the UI unchanged.


That is fine.  I just wish they could leave UI that people know and love alone.


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## bug (Nov 29, 2021)

AusWolf said:


> That is fine.  I just wish they could leave UI that people know and love alone.


As much as I dislike Apple, I have always appreciated their ability to change underlying APIs and even programming languages while leaving the UI alone (apps, OS or both). UI should never change just because. This a rule I wish everybody would follow.


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## AusWolf (Nov 29, 2021)

bug said:


> As much as I dislike Apple, I have always appreciated their ability to change underlying APIs and even programming languages while leaving the UI alone (apps, OS or both). UI should never change just because. This a rule I wish everybody would follow.


Agreed. All the way from disliking Apple to wishing devs could leave UI alone unless absolutely necessary.


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## bug (Nov 29, 2021)

AusWolf said:


> Agreed. All the way from disliking Apple to wishing devs could leave UI alone unless absolutely necessary.


I have a feeling this has to do with "full stack developers". People thinking if you can make an efficient DB query and put together a coherent set of services, surely you can design a user interface. But I digress.


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## AusWolf (Nov 29, 2021)

bug said:


> I have a feeling this has to do with "full stack developers". People thinking if you can make an efficient DB query and put together a coherent set of services, surely you can design a user interface. But I digress.


Either that, or it's about making sure UI developers can keep their jobs even after launch date.

Man, I'd love to have a Windows 98 theme with sounds and everything on my system! It would match the Winamp Classic skin so nicely!  But I digress too.


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## silentbogo (Nov 29, 2021)

AusWolf said:


> What do you mean by stagnation? Winamp is/was a music player with skins. Nothing more, nothing less.


Winamp at its core was a modular music player with plugins. The "skins and visualizations" part burned out relatively fast, just like Stardock Windowblinds and other pre-Vista prettifying trinkets, or fad for fancy 3D screensavers.
The plugins part is what stagnated. There were few big things that started coming up and gain traction in early 2000s, like lossless audio, alternative codecs, better audio processing engines, more robust EQ/effects libraries, constant modernization etc. Competition was on top of it, while winamp stayed the same throughout early 00s. 
I remember going to college, and one of my friends was a DJ at a local club, along with running student events at the university. He got me hooked to foobar2000, cause at that time there was nothing else that can reliably play FLAC and OggVorbis. Later AIMP hit the web as a spiritual successor and immediately became popular(at least in CIS and EU), since Winamp became abandonware at that point. Past that - nobody cared and moved on to better things. And in the age of streaming people don't even need media players. Heck, even I'm catching myself on a habit of playing random crap off Youtube rather than listening to my collection of FLACs and MP3s. I think the only exception is when I'm offline in the middle of nowhere or on the road, and all I have is my phone.

There were attempts at revitalizing the "legend", but official releases were garbage(and even later in life still had shitty FLAC support), while community-driven projects like WACUP came out so much later that very few people caught on to it or even knew about its existence.


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## Ferather (Nov 29, 2021)

bug said:


> I didn't dispute any of that. I was just saying, video has a way of telling whether or not you're seeing what the creator wanted you to see, audio doesn't. That what makes almost everything about audio subjective. (And I haven't even touched on people's ears or age.)


Fair enough, I cant say I have really looked into video much recently, but I will say screen size to resolution and DPI do make a difference.
1080p on a 80 inch screen will be nice big squares, whereas 1080p on a 24 inch screen will look as it should in HD.

In many ways 4k and 8k on a small screen like a phone, is more wasted and probably less noticeable.
In terms of video, high frame rate at high resolution are becoming standard quickly.

I used to sell TV's about 16-17 years ago, when LCD was new, and plasma existed with 120hz refresh. 120hz is still fairly new.


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## neatfeatguy (Nov 29, 2021)

Years ago I used to have a 60GB (or maybe 80GB, I don't remembe exactly) drive that held all my .mp3 files....was probably around 2002 when I last used it. I used winamp all the time to play my music. Thousands of songs...and the plugins for it were fun to watch as you just chilled. 

If I still had a bunch of music I'd be tempted to use winamp again. I always did enjoy it. Simple, easy to use and worked for what I needed.



Spoiler



I had a lot of CDs stolen around the same time I copied all my music to that drive HDD and never really bothered to make new CDs. I ended up moving, then getting a new computer and didn't reconnect the HDD with music. I just tucked her away in a safe spot and kind of forgot about it over the years.

That music filled HDD moved multiple times with me and about 10 years later (around 2012/2013) when I came across it I thought - well, damn, I got lots of music on here. Let's get it connected!

I had to dig out the IDE cable and connect it to the MB (she still had an IDE port on her). Looking at the drive the jumper was set to slave. I connected it, but I couldn't get the system to recognize it.  Moved the jumper to master and tried multiple times reconnecting cables and moving the jumper, but she wouldn't be recognized on my system. I went as far as to take it to my work and connect it to a computer there that was still using older IDE drives, but it wouldn't be recognized. So I ended up just pitching it.

I have very little music I own or even just owning CDs, I've got maybe 3 dozen CDs and I'm too lazy to copy over and convert to .mp3 to play on winamp. I just listen to the radio. I don't like Spotify - I won't pay for it and the ads on it are just shit awful. I just listen to the radio and change stations if a commercial comes on and if I can't find something or any song I want to listen to, I just turn the radio off and sit in silence.

There are two things that bring me joy from the silence.
1) There is too much noise in the world and sometimes, silence is golden
2) My kids freak the fuck out when there isn't constant noise and they start to panic if they can hear their own thoughts while riding in the car. "Dad! What's wrong with the radio?" "Dad! Why is the music turned off?" "Dad! Turn the music on.....I don't want to sit in silence, this is stupid!"


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## The red spirit (Nov 29, 2021)

AusWolf said:


> Oh I see. I still use Winamp up to this day, although VLC has been a friend of mine too.


What's your take on foobar2000?


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## Susquehannock (Nov 29, 2021)

Have a 220gb music collection. Still use Winamp 2.91. Does what needs to be done. See no need for a new player.


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## freeagent (Nov 29, 2021)

Winamp is still around? Wow I haven’t used it since the early 2000s. Crazy.


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## Ferather (Nov 29, 2021)

I started with MPC-HC, now I use Potplayer.


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## silentbogo (Nov 29, 2021)

bug said:


> One can always work on OS integration. Newer notifications, integration with indexing services... There's always something to do, even if you keep the UI unchanged.


+
Also, it's important to keep up with hardware and modern tech. Mainstream has moved onto streaming anyways, so the majority of <<vocal>> users are at least enthusiasts and self-proclaimed audiophiles.
So, besides the obvious UX/UI people always complain about support for their favorite new DAC, or about spatial audio(which is the new popular thing, like FLAC was many years ago). I do not belong to either category and all I need is a decent playlist/library manager for my death metal collection, but some of these features are good nicehaves (something you won't necessarily use daily, but can brag about). And I'm not talking video, I'm talking all of the music stuff that's been recently re-released in dolby atmos, or all the weird folk/ambient music that sounds even weirder and cooler with modern implementations of virtual surround.



AusWolf said:


> This is one more reason why I prefer my physical MP3 player - it doesn't get unnecessary (or any) updates.


My last one was iPod touch, which I received as a present 2 days after buying a 3GS.... While they do have their pros, cons outweigh it by a large margin. I don't think I used it more than a dozen times throughout its lifetime.
Modern phones can do all of that if not more. Some even have pretty good DACs and headphone preamps. Not sure what made your experience on Android unbearable, but I love VLC and AIMP on my phone.
All the important controls are present, including EQ, decent set of presets and effects, audio track offsets in video, decent playlist management, good integration web services(not ads or telemetry) etc. Virtual surround is beyond amazing on my phone. I thought windows sonic was mind blowing when it came out, but on my new Poco F3, and even on my old Nokia 8 it was wa-a-ay better and more realistic. Binaural recordings are beyond amazing, movies with surround sound feel as good if not better than an actual surround system (even on my ghetto-modded cheap-o Sennheiser 465). Another big deal for me is having several options for playback/volume control. I can even pair it with some random MiTV remote which someone left at my workshop and use that if my phone is docked near speakers, or use controls on a headset, or repurpose phone's buttons to do things that I want(or more than one thing).



The red spirit said:


> What's your take on foobar2000?


Been using it for over 17 years now. Green font + black background + monotype font, and your friends think that you are about to hack pentagon. Most of my college buddies ran Norton Commander-inspired theme     
Functionally it's still the best, but minimalism takes awhile to get used to. Not everyone's cup of tea.
AIMP is probably more mainstream, or if you like VLC - just use that for audio. Gets the job done and works just as well.


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## AusWolf (Nov 30, 2021)

silentbogo said:


> Winamp at its core was a modular music player with plugins. The "skins and visualizations" part burned out relatively fast, just like Stardock Windowblinds and other pre-Vista prettifying trinkets, or fad for fancy 3D screensavers.
> The plugins part is what stagnated. There were few big things that started coming up and gain traction in early 2000s, like lossless audio, alternative codecs, better audio processing engines, more robust EQ/effects libraries, constant modernization etc. Competition was on top of it, while winamp stayed the same throughout early 00s.


Interesting. I've got into the flac mania relatively late, so I've had no problems with later winamp versions. Same with the equaliser: it gets the job done. I don't need any special effects, I prefer pure music as the author intended. The only other thing I need is playlist management, with which winamp is flawless. I don't know what else the competition offered, but it sure didn't tempt me to look elsewhere.  



The red spirit said:


> What's your take on foobar2000?


Never tried it, to be honest.



silentbogo said:


> My last one was iPod touch, which I received as a present 2 days after buying a 3GS.... While they do have their pros, cons outweigh it by a large margin. I don't think I used it more than a dozen times throughout its lifetime.
> Modern phones can do all of that if not more. Some even have pretty good DACs and headphone preamps. Not sure what made your experience on Android unbearable, but I love VLC and AIMP on my phone.


It's not unbearable, but while everything I want to do with an mp3 player takes only a press of a button (without even looking), you need to take your phone out of your pocket, look at the screen and touch at the right spot, even if your player app supports controls while locked. Nothing beats simplicity.  I also find playlist management simpler on my physical player.


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## The red spirit (Nov 30, 2021)

AusWolf said:


> It's not unbearable, but while everything I want to do with an mp3 player takes only a press of a button (without even looking), you need to take your phone out of your pocket, look at the screen and touch at the right spot, even if your player app supports controls while locked. Nothing beats simplicity.  I also find playlist management simpler on my physical player.


Not to mention that dedicated mp3 players have nearly month long battery life.


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## AusWolf (Nov 30, 2021)

The red spirit said:


> Not to mention that dedicated mp3 players have nearly month long battery life.


Well, mine doesn't, but some bigger ones might.


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## The red spirit (Nov 30, 2021)

AusWolf said:


> Well, mine doesn't, but some bigger ones might.


I remember listening to my Sony NWZ-E443 for a about a week, putting into drawer for years and and it still worked for weeks. It's not really big, but bigger than those clip on players like iPod Shuffle. It's similar size to early iPod Nano.


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