What Ever Happened to Winamp?

[king cleanass]

I used QMMP when I built my new PC and my old winamp had issues running. It's almost exactly the same as winamp, and I think still being actively refined.

 

[newstark2042]

I use winamp 5.5 for audio and potplayer for video,HATE VLC

 

[Reehahs]

Why fix it if it is not broken?

If I could, I would use Winamp on my phone too.

 

[Shirley Dulcey]

VLC is great for playing video content, and for files in weird formats that nothing else will play. But it's not a great music player; it lacks the playlist features for that.

I like Foobar2000. It has most of the good things that Winamp has. It's customizable with a wide range of plugins, including ones for formats that Winamp won't play. It handles high resolution audio, something that Winamp doesn't do. With the addition of the Altacast plugin it can be used to stream to a Shoutcast or Icecast server -- just like Winamp with its Shoutcast DSP plugin except it's more stable. What it lacks is visually appealing skins; there are plugins that change the UI but they mostly focus on additional functionality rather than bling.

 

[ZanardiZZ]

I like Foobar2000.

Foobar2000 with plugins was what throw me away from Winamp.

 

[wiyosaya]

With VLC, YouTube, Netflix, Disney+, Prime etc... for video content and Spotify and Soundcloud for audio, I see no need for personal libraries anymore (unless you rip media and need the $$$). Now if you care about the best of the best audio fidelity, I suppose why not but I just don't have time to keep the libraries up when Spotify, Soundcloud and YouTube gives me all the content quickly.

My personal preference is to borrow disks from my local public library. Its far cheaper than subscribing to several video streaming services, and the video and audio quality is far better. Also, I do not have to maintain my own personal library, either.

Yup, still using it. Quick, fast, runs on anything, has what you need, not what you don't need. See also: Lviewpro, Musicmatch, Winzip...

Lviewpro! Now there is a name I have not heard in ages. That was a fantastic image editor when it first came out - I even exchanged a few e-mails with Leonardo.

I gave up on winzip for Filzip which is freeware.

As for Winamp. I was using that for quite some time. It used to be possible to go to certain sites and click a link to stream audio. The ability to do that started to disappear and that, more or less, ended my use of it.

The big thing that I don't like about some streaming services is that it is difficult for me to find music I constantly like to play. I like variety and much of the music I like is obscure, but for me, anyway, there is so much crap out there that I can hear anywhere. Music streaming services these days remind me too much of that old commercial radio station scene where music came from a playlist because it is what the recording companies wanted pushed. Now, though, the algorithms that are used seem to push what is popular and most of it is not to my liking.

Lastly, Amazon gave me a free trial to their music streaming service. The audio quality was total crap so I gave up on it after listening to only a few pieces that should, IMO, have been high quality.

 

[Lionvibez]

While VLC did replace winamp for alot of people.

I still find winamp's layout is better when you have a playlist with a large volume of music.

VLC is better suited for its primary purpose.

 

[Soaptrail]

Media Monkey for the win. It can scan thousands of songs in record time.

 

[nismo91]

Foobar2000 ftw. the DSP is what made me stick to f2k in the first place.

Professional grade EQ? check.
Custom upmix stereo to 5.1? check.
VST sound plugin? check.

now you can use EqualizerAPO to change your sound settings windows-wide. but the f2k still has the edge for upmixing and VST support.

 

[CybaGirl]

Still using WinAmp to this day with the MMD3 skin and the "Yar-matey! Playlist Copier" which allows you to copy your playlists and their files to other media such as a USB flash drive.

 

[money]

Sure I still use it, I even still scrobble to Last.fm.

 

[arrowflash]

I'm still using Winamp 2.91. Despite this version being 17 years old, it's still working perfectly in Windows 10 1909. If I ever need to use something more up-to-date there's Audacious, which is even compatible with Winamp skins (however they must be uncompressed instead of .zip or .wsz).

 

[willemlr64]

I still love WInamp and use it regularly. I've got v5.666 installed on PC and laptop. The equalizer made the sound quality really good. When you can't be online it nice to listen to my archive of music, especially in the garden.

 

[GusCampos]

I usse winamp daily. The only issue I have with it is the DPI scalling. some stuff are simply too small on high res, even if you use the double size function.

 

[Raytrace3D]

I still use WinAmp every single day. It does what it does well.

 

[felipetga]

Using it since 1997, never looked back. Simply put, using it daily for the past 25 years... still the best music player around. If Windows 10 2004 breaks it or something like that I might not update my OS just to keep it running...

 

[Brach Speicher]

So I traded Winamp out for XMplay a while back as I needed fewer plugins to play more of the file types I wanted. But for things it couldn't do, Winamp plugins still worked for XMPlay. Once I made a custom skin for it, I was sold forever.

 

[CannaChris]

Ah Winamp, I did love you and the GeForce and WhiteCaps visualizations. As much as I liked Winamp, Sonique was my favorite: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonique_(media_player

 

[Experimentongod]

I still use Winamp DAILY.

And I still have some mp3's I downloaded dating back to the year 2000.
Things that are not available ANYWHERE today.

Nothing beats having a flac//320kbps mp3 collection ready to go on your local hard drive.

 

[3ogdy]

I started with a piece of software that was available on 98, then switched to WMP on XP, especially because it worked with the multimedia keys on my Cordless Desktop Navigator.

I had WinAMP, but I preferred Musicmatch 9 by far. It was amazing. Far better interface, it could take a compact bar-like form just like WinAMP can do nowadays and worked with my keyboard. Kept using that one until I could no longer use it. Then I switched to WMP and then back to WinAMP. I've been using WinAMP for a long time now. Big Bento all the way.

I couldn't believe it how long it took to synchronize my music library to an iPod and the fact that I was forced to install iTunes to do it. HOURS. CrApple loved to sync genius data, while I could've simply copied and pasted the files on my MP4 player directly in Windows in a matter of minutes.

 

[lazer]

" ...got my first computer just before the turn of the century." ye gads, you make us sound like relics from the past century.

But yes, I also loved Winamp. one of the best. didn't know it was still useable.....

 

[lazer]

I started with a piece of software that was available on 98, then switched to WMP on XP, especially because it worked with the multimedia keys on my Cordless Desktop Navigator.

I had WinAMP, but I preferred Musicmatch 9 by far. It was amazing. Far better interface, it could take a compact bar-like form just like WinAMP can do nowadays and worked with my keyboard. Kept using that one until I could no longer use it. Then I switched to WMP and then back to WinAMP. I've been using WinAMP for a long time now. Big Bento all the way.

I couldn't believe it how long it took to synchronize my music library to an iPod and the fact that I was forced to install iTunes to do it. HOURS. CrApple loved to sync genius data, while I could've simply copied and pasted the files on my MP4 player directly in Windows in a matter of minutes.

Yes, I quite agree. Iphone is crap to upload mp3's. Android is much much easier and better....

 

[Yppah]

Since you can play any video or audio file with VLC, installing something extra is no longer necessary.

"Use VLC". Beyond hilarious! Something extra? Its a dedicated music player that hasn't been bettered. Coming from someone that uses the uber noob friendly VLC.

 

[Yppah]

Using it since 1997, never looked back. Simply put, using it daily for the past 25 years... still the best music player around. If Windows 10 2004 breaks it or something like that I might not update my OS just to keep it running...

I still use Winamp DAILY.

And I still have some mp3's I downloaded dating back to the year 2000.
Things that are not available ANYWHERE today.

Nothing beats having a flac//320kbps mp3 collection ready to go on your local hard drive.

Ditto. Those in the know eh..

 

[valoryea]

I use Winamp from beginning to end (still to this day) because it had a no-brainer convenient feature that other "modern" music just seem to ignore - play by _folder_ . That's all I want. I don't care about album, artist, genre, or whatever else category sorting. I have music files in a folder, play it.