Jukeboxes/media players

Cafe Society
1

I am currently evaluating several different jukeboxes on my computer to find out which one I like the best. They all have free versions, but I’m willing to pay for an upgraded version of the one I like the best. I am curious what you guys and gals use to listen to music on your computers.

So far, MusicMatch Jukebox seems to be the best and Microsoft Media Player the worst. I’m still evaluating Media Monkey, Rhapsody, and most recently RealPlayer. I don’t have an iPod, so I haven’t played around with iTunes.

MusicMatch - The only thing I don’t like is that it isn’t compatible with my mp3 player. I love the fact that the current track name is displayed on the taskbar.

Microsoft Media Player - The only thing I do like is that it is compatible with my mp3 player.

Media Monkey - I don’t find it very user friendly, but so far it’s the best for tagging my files.

Rhapsody - I don’t like the look and feel of the music library listing, but love the radio aspect.

RealPlayer - Just started playing with it today. I don’t like that I can’t double click a track and it becomes the next to play, all the others have this feature. Instead the track begins to play immediately, interrupting the currently playing track (you have to right click and choose “Add to Now Playing”). Like MusicMatch, it displays the current track name on the task bar.

2

I use WinAMP. Their player has many features, and supports a bunch of plugins. Also supports mobile device sync (apple, playsforsure, and creative devices).

Fairly happy with it (not to mention the free version fits all of my needs). I use it for playlists and listening to shoutcast radio. What kind of functions are you looking for?

For ripping CD’s I use EAC, see here or here for a good guide on how to use it.

By the way, for internet radio I recommend Last.fm or pandora.com.

3

I don’t like RealPlayer at all. Last I checked it’s become even more of an advertising tool than it was when I used it regularly. It just happens to play media files as well (and I’ve had issues with it misjuding the end of a file somewhat, so that videos always lost the last few seconds when played. This was a few years ago though).

I personally use Windows Media Player, but given that my usual music habits involve selecting my entire music folder and setting the player to random, and I don’t have an mp3 player either, so I don’t care much what features a player has as long as it works.