Old 06-10-2009, 07:14 PM   #1
J Kennedy
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Default Winamp revisited

Hi Guys,

I was looking for a new mp3 player since Winamp is sluggish. Was using Winamp with Cool Edit Pro long before Reaper. Not a bad player, but I just want something to open mp3 or wav files to preview and play them without excess delay and beating down popups.

I got Winamp 5.55 installed. Seemed like it was better in ancient times, so I went through the archived stuff and found Winamp 2.91, historically frozen in time with Justin and Christophe in the credits. Installing 2.91 over 5.55 was a mess, but after deleting everything from 5.x, Justin's ver 2.91 installed on win XP. There’s the familiar theme of kicking some anatomical parts of a Yak.

What a difference. Winamp 2.91 loads and plays in less than a second. Lean and optimized program. Fantastic. Too bad J&C didn’t bring Winamp with them.

Unless I missed it, there’s not a Reaper-like archive on winamp.com where you can download previous Winamp versions. It’s 5 bloat or shop elsewhere.

Just curious here. Justin’s separation from Winamp was the end of an era. The guys left and efficiency took a major hit in subsequent upgrades. Anyone have an opinion where the optimized point was before J&C left and everything went to hell in a cyberbasket. Would like to get that version.

Here’s a link for Winamp 2.91. Fewer bells and whistles, but blows the current competition away. Speed and stability. Too bad what happened to it.

https://stash.reaper.fm/oldsb/539056/winamp291.exe

John
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Old 06-10-2009, 07:21 PM   #2
dub3000
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recent winamps run totally fine if you turn off the new skinning mode and media library. nearly as efficient as the old ones, i reckon.
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Old 06-10-2009, 07:28 PM   #3
J Kennedy
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Thanks Dub,

Will give this a shot and see if I can get some of the original speed back.

John
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Old 06-10-2009, 09:22 PM   #4
JohnI
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http://www.foobar2000.org/

Small download for the core player, 3MB.

Plays most of the major formats out of the box, and several others are available as plugins (called 'components').

There are dozens of other components available which cover everything from scrobbling to tagging to prettying-up the interface to ASIO and VST support.

And it has a bugfix/minor upgrade cycle that rivals REAPER's.
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Old 06-10-2009, 10:44 PM   #5
SiKo
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+1 for foobar2000 ... great it also plays archives (zir, rar etc!)
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Old 06-10-2009, 10:44 PM   #6
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http://www.winampheaven.net/screenshots.php

Old versions (with a donate button humm)
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Old 06-11-2009, 04:59 AM   #7
politcat
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Quote:
Originally Posted by J Kennedy View Post
I just want something to open mp3 or wav files to preview and play them without excess delay and beating down popups.
fwiw, VUPlayer is fast and simple. Click on an mp3 and it opens and plays instantly.

It does a lot more than that so my search ended here
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Old 06-11-2009, 10:43 AM   #8
J Kennedy
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Guys,

Thanks for these leads. Looks like there is life after Winamp (and even a place to find the old versions of Winamp).

John
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