Winamp 5

[poolking]

Please read back a bit, you switched to QCD because you thought Winamp 3 was rubbish. You have just based your whole argument saying Winamp 3 was rubbish.

Most of us who used Winamp 3 realised this and went back to Winamp 2 that works fine.

Which makes me think you never even bothered to try Winamp 2 and went straight for Winamp 3.

Read carefully AOL are the parent company of Nullsoft. Nullsoft still develop Winamp, so that blows your comment out of the water.

Methinks you are just clutching at straws to justify you berating a product and no you weren't just berating v3 you were berating Winamp as a whole.

As I told you put your shovel away.

[ffaBen]

Who said it never kicked off, maybe because it doesn't have a multi-trillion dollar company behind it.

Winamp only recently (in its lifespan) has had AOL behind it. It was popular way before all that.

But who cares, the fact is people don't know about it because they are so stuck in their Winamp world.

Well I can give you another reason for that, its name, quinwotsit, it's not very rememberable, Winamp is a name you can remember from seeing it once, this quin thing has this "elite" feel about it, you'll only remember it if you use it daily.

A skin should not be your reason for not liking a player, if it is then you're not using the player properly. I've always hated WA's default skin. So what.. I just changed it (when I actually used it).

It's not just the skin though, it's the whole User Interface, Sonique when it started out looked great, but the user interface wasn't exactly simple.

With Winamp people could use it without a guide to tell you what each thing did, its buttons resemble a standard cd player.
I look at Quinwotsit, and see there's fast forward (>>) and rewind (<<) buttons, now are these actually fast forward and rewind, or are they next track and previous track? If they are FF and rewind, where's the next/previous track buttons? And that's from just looking at a screenshot.

You won't try it cause I am suggesting it.... LMAO.

As for this, I think you'll find people won't bother trying it because they are content with what they have, it's also why many people are still using Windows 98SE, it does what they want it to do, so why do they need to bother to switch to XP to find out if it's better, or even try to get used to the Luna interface?

[VolteFace]

I just downloaded Quintessential (hey, I'm open to new things, even though I'm currently a winamp user) and I'm looking through the skins. For one, MMD3 is available for it, complete with winshade mode (the rolled up one). Not as many color schemes though.

The player itself looks good. It's got visualizations and freeform skins and everything available for it, and it does what Winamp does in terms of playing music. However, the user interface is not as intuitive as Winamp's -- it took me 4 seconds to figure out how to use Winamp, but this program still confuses me. The context menu doesn't contain anything relating to showing/hiding the playlist, meaning that if the skin doesn't have a built in "Show/Hide Playlist Button" (and the one in MMD3 wasn't immediately obvious to me), you can't see the playlist.

It looks like it does have some good built in features, though, such as doing mass ->WAV and ->MP3 conversions.

Not bad, but I'll stick with my Winamp 5.

[Nicholas Brown]

I've used it. I'm too much of an audiophile to use DSP. All my audio gets piped through optical to my stereo reciever encoded as Dolby Digital 5.1 (or DTS if I'm playing a DVD) and can be processed by the hardware DSP, but all DSP sounds like crap unless its a sound effect in a game.

similar setup as myself Ive got my Hercules Fortissimo 7.1 piping sound via Optical out to my Sony STR-DB780 in Dolby Digital 5.1 - and have a set of Yamaha NS-P230 sat speakers with a sub connected to the amp - beats any software based DSP processing

[Kier]

similar setup as myself Ive got my Hercules Fortissimo 7.1 piping sound via Optical out to my Sony STR-DB780 in Dolby Digital 5.1 - and have a set of Yamaha NS-P230 sat speakers with a sub connected to the amp - beats any software based DSP processing

/me has a Pioneer VSX-D2011-S hooked up to B&W 603 S3, 601 S3, LCR60 S3 and ASW 675 speakers.

Sound output comes directly via USB for stereo (where the PC uses the Pioneer receiver as its sound card - very nifty indeed), or digital coaxial (far prefer the sound of this to optical) from my Hercules Gametheater XP for surround.

I have to agree with Ksilebo about DSP processing - the only post processing that I ever apply to music with this system is Dolby Prologic II Music, handled by the amplifier, and often I don't even want that. As far as post-processing for movies, some DVDs benefit from the THX post processing filters, but certainly not all.

[Throwing Shapes]

I just downloaded Quintessential (hey, I'm open to new things, even though I'm currently a winamp user) and I'm looking through the skins. For one, MMD3 is available for it, complete with winshade mode (the rolled up one). Not as many color schemes though.

The player itself looks good. It's got visualizations and freeform skins and everything available for it, and it does what Winamp does in terms of playing music. However, the user interface is not as intuitive as Winamp's -- it took me 4 seconds to figure out how to use Winamp, but this program still confuses me. The context menu doesn't contain anything relating to showing/hiding the playlist, meaning that if the skin doesn't have a built in "Show/Hide Playlist Button" (and the one in MMD3 wasn't immediately obvious to me), you can't see the playlist.

It looks like it does have some good built in features, though, such as doing mass ->WAV and ->MP3 conversions.

Not bad, but I'll stick with my Winamp 5.

Thank you for your honest opinion and review, poolking could learn a thing or two from you.

[shovel]

I completely agree Kier. Although, I believe that Dolby Prologic is looked down upon too many times I think that in many ways it has much more of an advantage that other amplifier output (by creating a virtual surround setting).

[MarkB]

How does one get DFX working with Winamp 5? I've installed it, it's placed an icon on my desktop, but when I click it it simply gives me a pop-up message saying 'display DFX control screen when winamp starts'? (which it doesn't...)

[tubedogg]

Hit OK on that and it should pop up (assuming WinAMP is already running).

[MarkB]

Alas, no.

[poolking]

Thank you for your honest opinion and review, poolking could learn a thing or two from you.

Sorry Throwing Shapes,

You were saying that QCD is superior.

I'm not a reviewer, sorry to shatter your illusions.

You were basing your experience on Winamp 3.

Again, I've not said Winamp is better and not once have I berated QCD.

So you cannot get away from the fact you berated Winamp.

Instead of berating a product, you should also take a leaf out of VolteFace's book.

You just assumed that AOL had bought Nullsoft they were directly involved in the development of Winamp, so you just assume that Winamp is rubbish.

One company can buy another without being directly involved in the day to day operation.

You berated one product in order to promote another, thats a no no.

You can point out where you think one product is more superior than another but no comments like "Winamp is going down the crapper".

So carry on digging.

[MarkB]

Now now, play nicely or someone will take the toys away.

[poolking]

Now now, play nicely or someone will take the toys away.

Erm, no I haven't insulted him.

[Mr. X]

It's just like music for some people, it makes them so blind, unless something is "POPULAR" they don't want to hear it or see it, and let me tell you there is a whole other world out there.

Lol, this kills me. So we're all blind because we dont want to check out QCD. It has nothing to do with quality of the product itself, or how we like WA better because it works for us, no, its because we only like WA because its popular.

I've been using WA since its inception. I've tried just about every player under the sun, and gave programs like QCD an honest chance. I didnt like it. It offered nothing that WA didnt that interested me. I told you to "deal with it" in the other thread, because like pointed out, you have this obsession with QCD, stating pure opinion as fact, and refusing to accept otherwise. When you come off with an attitude like that, dont be surprised you'll get a harsh reply. WA works just fine for me, I have no desire to switch, ever. It has never failed me and after giving numerous other players a chance, I've always favored WA over all of them. End. Of. Story.

[Kier]

I completely agree Kier. Although, I believe that Dolby Prologic is looked down upon too many times I think that in many ways it has much more of an advantage that other amplifier output (by creating a virtual surround setting).

I would have to qualify that - IMHO the original Dolby Prologic was generally pretty nasty for music, as it is really designed only to work properly with Dolby Surround encoded sources, but Prologic II is a major step forwards, and does a much better job at creating a pleasing sound field from stereo sources.