Phenquestions
I'm always in constant search for good audio players because I love listening to music and many times have the audio in different formats. The first one I always like and use is WinAmp Player which is still my personal favorite. After this I use Windows Media Player with some codec packs. Recently I came across this music player called XM Player. Even though this software may be old, this is the first time that I'm hearing about it. Here is a quick run through of the features about XM Player.
XM Play is a very minimalistic player with some good features such as DSP Filters, Interpolation & volume/pan ramping etc. Here is a full list of features according to XM Play developers:
- 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, crossfading - 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 filetypes 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!
On the main interface offers you the option to pick the formats that are supported, like:
- OGG - Ogg Vorbis
- MP3 - MPEG1/2/2.5 layer 3
- MP2 - MPEG layer 2
- MP1 - MPEG layer 1
- WMA - Windows Media Audio
- WAV - any WAVE format that has a codec installed
- AIFF - Audeo Interchange File Format
- CDA - CD Audio
From these, you can choose the list of song or select a URL from which you can select the song from. It operates like most of the music players nothing fancy but it's gives one of the best outputs I have tested so far. I'm not sure if it's a placebo or is it really making a difference while playing music.
You can download various skins from the developer's website. There are lots of options using which, you can customize your player. Since it's a more like a no-install player, it will not associate common extension with the player, but if you want to manually set it you can go to the Options, select Integrate and select the formats and click Apply.
XM Play free download
XM Play is an excellent under-appreciated player for your music needs with good plugin supports. You can download XM Play from the developer's website.
