AIMP is the best audio player we’ve tested in a long time. It’s beautifully designed and has tons of features that make it the perfect choice as your default player.

With AIMP you can organize your MP3 files in a library, edit tags if necessary and enjoy them in excellent audio quality. AIMP works with other popular formats as well, including karaoke files and several playlist formats.

AIMP offers all the standard playback functions you find in other similar apps: an 18-band equalizer, visualization effects, a separate window to view your current playlist, fading effect between songs, a normalizing filter to avoid sudden volume changes and support for global hotkeys.

But there’s more to AIMP than just that. The program also plays online streaming radio stations, includes a complete tag editor and can be set to repeat a certain part of the song – which comes in handy when you’re trying to decipher the lyrics!

The interface in AIMP is both attractive and intuitive. All functions and buttons are clearly laid out, and the design can be easily tweaked with skins.

We tried hard to find any, but there are really no cons about AIMP. It’s an awesome audio player you just have to try.

If you’re still searching for the perfect music player, AIMP may be the answer.

Download AIMP 3.20.1165 in Softonic

Features

KMPlayer has a small desktop footprint and its minimalist interface makes video playback quick and hassle-free. The player's interface is fully skinable, and there are some nice aesthetic touches, such as the changing of colour on the player with every new track.

There are all sorts of options to help you pimp and customize KMPlayer, such as visualizations, plug-ins and playback options. But the beauty of KMPlayer is that these are turned on at your request rather than being forced upon you at the outset.

Quality

KMPlayer handles both audio and video, and supports a wide range of different formats, meaning that once installed, you should never need to touch another player.

Video playback is particularly impressive thanks to the range of processing tools available that allow you to sharpen, change picture properties, apply filters and even make video captures from within the program.

Conclusion

If you're looking for a customizable, light yet powerful video player, KMPlayer is exactly what you need.

What's new

Supports 3D Formats. (Side-By-Side, Top-and-Bottom) to (Anaglyph, Interlaced)
Supports 10-bit H.264. (Libcodec.dll)
Supports Intel Widi
Added video codec "DV5P"
Add new function album art (Thumnail image extraction from FLAC file)
Thumbnail image display enhancement when playing audio files. (MP3, FLAC, WMA)
Fixed ColorSpace bug
Fixed Intel Codec H.264
Fixed Winamp plugin
Error correction of images infected with malicious codes. (EIP register Corruption Vulnerability. Provided: KISA)
Fixed view as a desktop mode in Windows 7
Fixed improper load of Album Art bug
Correction of screen display error when using EVR(C/A) - if you skip from the WMV file.
Fixed KMP HTTP Reader
AAC codec Parser error correction from MOV file
MKV Skip Problem

Download KMPlayer 3.6.0.87 in Softonic

Features

Version 2 ("Twoflower") brings a new interface, faster decoding, support for more formats and the ability to play HD and BluRay. It still remains however the most stable, flexible and lightweight audio and video player around today. While other media players will play unusual formats after downloading a codec, or simply refuse to play things,

VLC media player handles tons of formats, from MPEG to FLV and RMBV files. Version 2 has seen some important additions too such as support for 10 bit codes plus multi-threaded decoding for H.264, MPEG-4/Xvid and WebM.

Also useful is the fact that you can use VLC media player to preview files you are downloading since it plays incomplete parts of video files. VLC media player is not just for video playback however. It also offers superb integration with video channel streaming services such as Channels.com giving you access to channels such as ESPN, Reuters and National Geographic. Just right-click or CMD-click on the playlist, select Services Discovery and Channels.com.

Channels.com will then appear in your VLC media player playlist. Click on it to reveal the the different categories of channels available. Click on the category you want and a drop down list of all available channels appears in VLC media player. Just click on the channel you want to watch and streaming should begin almost immediately.

Usability

VLC media player also has great hotkey support and if you take the time to learn the shortcuts so it can be controlled without touching your mouse. If you're watching DVDs or video files through it, this is not an issue. For music, it plays more or less any file and features an equalizer and playlist creation. VLC media player isn't as intuitive as iTunes as a media manager, but it's a much more flexible player in terms of file formats. You can even use VLC to convert your files, and on top of all the formats and physical media it will play, many streaming protocols and TV capture cards are supported.

VLC media player makes it easy to add subtitles to your video files too - just add the SRT file to the folder where your video is kept, and it will automatically play with subtitles.

Finally, the interface in VLC media player has been somewhat improved in version 2 although it remains strictly functional. However, you can download skins to completely change VLC media player's appearance. The preferences menu is comprehensive without being overwhelming, and there is extensive documentation online.

Conclusion

VLC Media Player is quite simply the best multimedia application for Windows and Mac. It plays just about anything, hassle free - what more could you need?

What's new

Rework and fixes of the Mac OS X interface

Fix Pulseaudio initial synchronization

Fix MKV, SWF, AIFF and subtitles demuxer crashes

Translations updates and new Welsh translation

DVB-S delivery system detection

Fix audio and video track selection through libVLC

Fix system sleep issue on Mac OS X 10.5

Download VLC media player 2.0.6 in Softonic

When it comes to audio players, most people choose between the three or four most popular apps: iTunes, Winamp, VLC, AIMP Player… but there are many other interesting choices like Songbird.

Songbird is an open-source music player and organizer with which you can manage, play and discover music. It's free, cross-platform, highly customizable thanks to a wide variety of plug-ins and can be improved and extended by the contribution of its user community.

The first thing you'll notice about Songbird is its resemblance to the iTunes interface, which means that if you've ever used iTunes you won't have any problem in learning how to use Songbird. Then, as you explore the program's menus and options, you'll start discovering all the goodies it has to offer.

Songbird automatically imports your music files from a selected folder, monitors that folder for future music additions, organizes your music in a handy, easily browsable catalog, is compatible with iTunes and Last.fm libraries, can be controlled from any other app thanks to global hotkeys and also supports Last.fm scrobbling. It also includes album art and a simple equalizer.

Songbird is such a complete tool that's hard to find negative sides to it. Plus there's an army of developers constantly working on improvements and new features. The only thing I missed so far, in fact, is support for podcasts – which I'm sure will probably be added some time soon.

Songbird is a complete, full-featured music player and organizer with support for plug-ins and an extensive user community.

Download Songbird 2.2.0.2453 in Softonic

Songbird Portable is an open-source music player and organizer with which you can manage, play and discover music. It's free, cross-platform, highly customizable thanks to a wide variety of plug-ins and can be improved and extended by the contribution of its user community.

The first thing you'll notice about Songbird Portable is its resemblance to the iTunes interface, which means that if you've ever used iTunes you won't have any problem in learning how to use Songbird. Then, as you explore the program's menus and options, you'll start discovering all the goodies it has to offer.

Songbird Portable automatically imports your music files from a selected folder, monitors that folder for future music additions, organizes your music in a handy, easily browsable catalog, is compatible with iTunes and Last.fm libraries, can be controlled from any other app thanks to global hotkeys and also supports Last.fm scrobbling. It also includes album art and a simple equalizer.

Songbird Portable is such a complete tool that's hard to find negative sides to it. Plus there's an army of developers constantly working on improvements and new features. The only thing I missed so far, in fact, is support for podcasts – which I'm sure will probably be added some time soon.

Songbird Portable is a complete, full-featured music player and organizer with support for plug-ins and an extensive user community.

Download Songbird Portable 2.2.0 in Softonic

If you're tired of dealing with all the big name audio players like iTunes, Audacious might just be a good option to try out.

One of the nice things about Audacious is that it's quite lightweight, meaning it won't steal your computer's resources from other tasks. It has a convenient drag and drop feature for folder and song organization, as well as an easy to use search feature. Just like with iTunes, you can also create and edit your own custom playlists.

If you're more concerned about the sound of your music listening experience, Audacious lets you tweak sound settings. You can also alter Audacious' appearance with Winamp classic skins, with which it's compatible. Additional plugins will let you do anything from fetching song lyrics to setting a timed alarm to wake up to.

Audacious doesn't really bring anything new to the table, but it's a good alternative for those who don't want to deal with iTunes' additional features that are unnecessary to actually listening to their music library.

With an easy to navigate interface, Audacious is a nice, no-frills audio player for Windows PCs.

Download Audacious 3.3.1 in Softonic

It is possible to add manually more information about output MP4 video and MP3 audio files or by default the program will automatically fill the title tag and the artwork, taking a snapshot from the middle of video which can be seen in iTunes, Winamp, Windows Explorer. Embedded Preset Editor lets to change any of the existing presets or create a completely new one.

The program combines harmoniously an easy-to-understand functionality and advanced custom options. So it is suitable as for neophytes, as for advanced users.

Download Free AVI Video Converter 5.0.11 in Softonic

It is possible to add manually more information about output video files or by default the program will automatically fill the title tag and the artwork, taking a snapshot from the middle of video which can be seen in iTunes, Winamp, Windows Explorer. Embedded Preset Editor lets to change any of the existing presets or create a completely new one.

The program combines harmoniously an easy-to-understand functionality and advanced custom options. So it is suitable as for neophytes, as for advanced users.

Download Free Video to Tablet PC Converter 5.0.11.508 in Softonic

In all honesty, Winamp Media Player 11 Skin isn't revolutionary. It gives Winamp a gentle blue tone, and changes the buttons so that they do indeed resemble Microsoft's default player a little more closely. Unfortunately, however, that's where the similarities end.

Let's face it, no one uses Winamp for its looks. That said, Winamp Media Player 11 Skin is hardly a change, and although the blue color is pleasant, it would take a lot of convincing to persuade anyone that Winamp Media Player 11 Skin will turn Winamp's looks into even a distant relative of Windows Media Player.

Winamp Media Player 11 Skin turns the media player a nice shade of blue, but not much else!

Download Winamp Media Player 11 Skin 1.0 in Softonic

True Launch Bar aims at making your favourite programs and common tasks accessible from your desktop in a click. This launcher application woos users thanks to a high level of customization and in-depth configuration.

When you install True Launch Bar, you’ll be able to insert a number of plug-ins to quickly access popular programs like Winamp, Media Monkey and for specific tasks like playing a CD, checking your battery or adding a printer. Another nice touch is the ability to set up hotkeys to access your favourite programs in a snap. You can also decide to protect your launch bar with a password if it contains access to sensitive information. While you can get lost in the thorough configuration process, once you’ve got everything in place you should find True Launch Bar to be a convenient tool.

True Launch Bar can be configured to your will and may be placed anywhere on the screen. It can hover on your desktop, hide away or sit in any corner of the desktop. The default style is not particularly attractive but luckily you can change the background colour, adjust transparency, insert original icons or switch to one of the different skins available.

The only drawback to True Launch Bar is that it doesn’t include a quick search tool, which is often found in similar programs and incredibly handy when looking for files. However True Launch Bar makes up for this thanks to its usability and total customization. If you regularly work with loads of applications then True Launch Bar is a good way to access them quickly and to simplify your work process.

Download True Launch Bar 5.4 in Softonic

G-Force includes a host of impressive features such as anti-aliased effects, millions of effect combinations, savable and scriptable effects and video file export capabilities. You can also customize and extend G-Force in various ways.

G-Force is basically a mathematical application which takes sounds and turns them into images. It makes an impressive piece of eye-candy but with one drawback. You have to pay an annual subscription to keep using it which will no doubt put off many users. It's therefore probably more appealing to professional DJs and other performance artists that need a visual display to accompany music.

G-Force is an impressive application but will probably appeal more to professionals than general users.

Download G-Force 4.2 in Softonic

LyricFX uses advanced 3D graphics with smooth scrolling and highlighting capabilities to display the lyrics in sync with the audio playback. You can now sing the correct lyrics and not make them up while you learn to sing a new song.

The lyrics obtained by this software are downloaded from the Internet and cached for easy display when the song begins to play. This software also has powerful lyrics editing capabilities so you can add time stamps to the lyrics.

This is an ideal feature to have when you are trying to learn how to sing a new song. Other features of LyricFX include mouse movement support and a standalone lyrics browser.

Download LyricFX 1.9 in Softonic

When playing a MIDI file you can also:- extract the lyrics contained into the MIDI file- disable some selected MIDI tracks and change their instruments- increase/decrease the song tonality (transpose)- increase/decrease the playback rate of the song- save the MIDI variations and settings into new standard MIDI files, to create your personal MIDI backgrounds.

MidiRunner supports PLL Playlists and ASX,M3U,PLS Playlists (used by other players like WindowsMediaPlayer and Winamp). NEW! - File Search, using partial names or embedded tags.

Download MidiRunner 1.5.2 in Softonic

This allows you to set properties for each Playlist/Library file entry. TCMP also Supports both Winamp(tm) 2. xx Digital Signal Processing (DSP) plug-ins as well as Winamp Visualization (VIS) plug-ins.

Advanced users will like the builtin Graphedit Server for manipulating audio and video streams, Multithreaded capable for optimized speed, Console mode with Full Command Line Interface Features, Easily customizable hotkey support, Player database statistics.

Download The Core Media Player 4.xx 4.xx in Softonic

- New database-format [Groups, Songs, CDs]- Extended mixing-functions [volumes, muting etc. ]- Freely programmable keyboard-shortcuts. - Show elapsed or remaining time.

- MultiSelect in the track-window. - New songs can be marked. - Shuffle new songs. - Physically deleted files will be deleted from database. - The playing-history can be printed now [for GEMA]- Improved crossfading.

Download SoundServer Light 3.x in Softonic

Koolkam 2d is a fun and powerful evolution in entertainment and personal image broadcasting. The days of needing spend hours getting to know many powerful and expensive programs to produce stunning and artistic images are gone!

With Koolkam 2d you can create amazing images in no time at all! How? All the special effects are all done in real-time as you watch! New in RC6- winamp song title support- mini view- animated gif in video stream - Advanced caption editor- many many more kool features!

Download Koolkam 2d 1.0 in Softonic

Hate editing tags manually? We`ve got something you should take a look at! ManiacTools mp3Tag is a tag processor for MP3, WMA, OGG, AAC, MP4 and APE files with great features, like an automated search for lyrics and pictures (album covers).

Another important advantage is the automatic tag filling option, which works great for mp3 albums that come without tags and meaningless file names, like 01.

mp3, 02. mp3, 03. mp3, etc. The program takes the track lengths and compares this information with FreeDB data to find the appropriate album to import tags from.

After confirmation the information is stored in the tags and if required can be used to rename the files. mp3Tag also import tags from Amazon.

com. ManiacTools mp3Tag allows the users to view and edit tag information, save lyrics and pictures inside MP3-files, view technical information about music files and delete unused MP3-tags.

The program is capable of changing one or more tag fields simultaneously (including multiple files), generating WinAmp and Windows Media Player playlists, exporting tag information, renaming groups of files according to their tag data and much more.

Other important program features are the Drag&Drop technology and is fully compatible with Windows Media Player 10. It does not require any special skills and has received over a dozen awards, including prestigious WebAttack Editor`s Pick.

The program is translated into all major European languages. The new version of the program is extremely fast, very stable, completely bug-free and is incredibly easy to use.

Download mp3Tag Business 4.96 in Softonic

The SoundServer Professional application has been reduced in size compared to the older version and can work on CD players that have CDDB-support.

It also has ID3v1 and ID3v2 tags. This program acts as a ripper and MP3 encoder and supports Winamp and SoundServer plugins. SoundServer Professional has a new database format, which can group songs and CDs, and even has an extended mixing function to adjust volumes and mutes.

The program has programmable keyboard shortcuts, and you can select multiple tracks in SoundServer Professional’s track window. It can show elapsed time, mark new songs, and even shuffle songs that you want to play.

Download SoundServer Professional 3.x in Softonic

Let’s begin with a very simple question: why should we surrender to the most downloaded software when there are good but not so popular alternatives? Robert Frost said: “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the one less traveled by” which, applied to software, may be translated as “take a risk and use new apps... even if they’re not that famous”. So, if you’re looking for a free, fast, simple MP3 player, and don’t feel like bowing down to Winamp the Almighty, just give XMPlay a chance.

The first thing I liked about XMPlay is the fact that you don’t need to install it on your system. Just unzip it to whatever folder you like (for example Program Files/XMPlay), and you may start enjoying your music right away. The range of file formats supported by XMplay is reasonably wide, including Internet streaming, CD tracks and playlists. Surprisingly, XMPlay does not work with video, a feature that other “alternative” players such as KMPlayer do include.

Bearing in mind the large amount of MP3 players available, comparisons are hard to avoid. XMPlay does its job and it does it well, without using too many system resources. The XMPlay interface offers two possible sizes and can be customized with nice skins, a popular feature with users. But what I really loved about XMPlay is the fact that you can control almost every function in the program by means of shortcuts, which turns out to be very handy if like me, you listen to music whilst working with the computer. No need to maximize the XMPlay's window, look for the appropriate Pause button and click on it every time somebody talks to me: one simple shortcut gets the job done.

But hey, XMPlay is an MP3 player we’re talking about here so, what about the sound quality? In fact, this may be XMPlay’s major weakness, as those with a good ear will notice it doesn’t sound as good as other players I have tested so far, particularly Winamp or ALSong. It’s just one weak point, but quite an important one when talking about a program that is intended to play music. Besides, and while this may be precisely its main function, XMPlay lacks some extra tasty options that we find in other players, such as the built-in audio converter featured in Spider Player, the Lyrics Viewer included in ALSong or the impressive skins offered by Xion Audio Player.

Summing up, although XMPlay will not be able to compete against the “big ones” in the MP3 player market, it’s still a very nice, free application, as long as you don’t ask for high-fidelity sound quality.

Download XMPlay 3.6 in Softonic

You can even check your email with a single keyboard shortcut! Create new emails, load your most frequently used documents - this is just a part of FlexTouch features!

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