Written by Bogdan Popa on December 14th, 2011
It's pretty hard to convince an avid computer user
to abandon his favorite audio player and try something else. But not if we're t
alking about XMPlay.
Because this is a light audio player that has the power to fight with any other similar app on the market, as it offers users basically all the things they would ever want from such a software utility.
You may find XMPlay quite ugly and we've heard a lot of users saying that if there weren't the skins, they would most likely go back to Winamp. Well, XMPlay supports skins too, so the way it looks isn't that important, as every user can make the app look just the way he likes.
But what's more important is that the application comprises everything, and when we're saying everything we really mean it, you would expect to get from an audio player.
Excellent audio quality, the ability to play files straight from archives, thus helping you save some time, shortcuts, interpolation and ramping to be sure XMPlay is one of the best tools of its kind.
The program boasts a huge settings menu so you can change basically everything, including file associations, output options, playlist configuration, titles and other appearance settings.
But the real goodie is that XMPlay also supports Winamp plugins so if all these aforementioned features aren't enough to convince you, well, you can always teach the app new things with the help of plugins.
XMPlay has so many things to offer, so it's pretty impressive that it remains so light on computer resources all the time, beating most of the other tools in the same software category.
The good thing about XMPlay is the fact that it excels from most points of view, providing an unrivaled sound quality with excellent and well-developed features. If we were to name a bad thing, we would mention the fact that it didn't work with the multimedia keys on your keyboard, but a plugin would most likely solve the problem.
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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.
