Someone reviewed v on Jul 5, 2022

Pros: 555

Cons: 555

Bottom Line: 555

michelle2010 reviewed v5.0.121 on Sep 3, 2010

I Love Music and the 128kbit amount sux. And would all you kazaa users alpha zipping your being things are takin too continued to dload. Takes too continued to alpha up and able-bodied they could accomplish bigger user interfaces im gettin ailing of that old one. Could addition column the armpit for morpheus plz. MaNiC
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triathlon reviewed v5.0.121 on Jun 18, 2010

Hi! I Love Music and the 128kbit rate sux. And would all you kazaa users start zipping your stuff things are taking too long to d load. Takes too long to start up and well they could make better user interfaces I'm getting sick of that old one. Could someone post the site for Morpheus plz. Thanks for sharing informative information. http://www.halfmarathontrainingschedule.net/ half marathon training schedule

garretthylltun reviewed v5.0.121 on Feb 20, 2009

Like many others, I used to enjoy it, but alas, moved on due to lack of activity on it's development. I tried several other MP3/Media players but settled in on Xion when I found it recently here. It is what QMP used to be, simple, clean, easy, and an excellent skin engine.

For nostalgic reasons I give QMP 3 stars.

ltsnow reviewed v5.0.121 on Feb 19, 2009

It's finally back and better than ever.

Sammo reviewed v5.0.121 on Feb 19, 2009

The best QMP release yet.

Tao2005 reviewed vDevelopment Build 120 on Jul 7, 2008

The only problem with these folx, is that I hope you enjoy waiting for updates. I used it for about 3 years. Just fine, Waited for QMP's final release. Never happened, so I sent them a bunch of hate mail, and went with JetAudio, which updates frequently. Supports more Audio formats then this one. One problem with them caused me to move on.

They where sitting on their fannies, with thumbs stuck up their butts, and just chatting about releasing QMP non beta version.

netean reviewed vDevelopment Build 120 on Jan 23, 2008

Used to be my player of choice. Just loved it.

However, since development changed to making it a media player/media manager. It's not nearly as good. DEvelopment has slowed right down and it just doesn't *feel* as elegant and useful as it once was.
The last build I used was buggy, slow and a bit bloated.

On the up side, the developer (there is only one). has cut back the download side quite a bit.

Some of the skins are lovely, and the build in skin browser/downloader is superb.

QMP might be brilliant when it's finished, but it's been 5 months since the last update, so *finished* might be quite a while yet!

brunok reviewed vDevelopment Build 119 on Aug 2, 2007

Nice program, but it's been in development since 2004....

Tao2005 reviewed vDevelopment Build 118 on Jul 12, 2007

Good program, still buggy. Be nice when they get to the finish product.

Gives winamp a run for its money.

some guy reviewed vDevelopment Build 118 on Jul 4, 2007

best interface I have seen on any player.

tinkerdill reviewed vDevelopment Build 118 on Jul 3, 2007

not bad but Winamp or Foobar2000 are better

sn1p34 reviewed vDevelopment Build 118 on Jul 3, 2007

One of my favorite Media Players, very feature rich.

Change log for 118
* fixed bugs #1771, #1720, #1733
* fixed bugs #1743, #1775, #1767, #1691
* fixed bugs #1776, #1779, #1777, #1791
* updated core - wired up icons for preference pages
* updated core - skin fonts settings reworked
* updated plugin - HotKeys general plugin updated

terrofist reviewed vDevelopment Build 115 on Feb 15, 2007

For all the 'normal' people around - i have a decent middle range PC and used to use Windows Media for it's functions but found that far too CPU intensive. Winamp always bummed out my system for some reason (on a mates crappier box it worked fine - i don't know why). I changed to Quintessential (full release) and never looked back.. until now. The newest beta version is far better; The new version takes far less time time to add BIG folders (70Gb in my case) and also the search function takes no time at all (opposed to up to 10secs in the full release). I love this app; The 'play song next' is the killer function.

Only thing to complain about is the lack of the streaming thing that the new WinAmp now has. I don't really care that much cos i RDP on to my box when i am away from it anyway, but would like to see this in future releases.

Go Quinn go, is what i say.

ModderXManiac reviewed vDevelopment Build 115 on Feb 14, 2007

Good, but actually quite bloated.

May I suggest a better player? I'll do it anyway; Musikcube.

ahjefri reviewed vDevelopment Build 115 on Feb 14, 2007

This is my best Player after trying most of the players,, The only thing it could make it the ultimate is the tab playlist like foo2000 other than that is still my best,, I like it,, it has everything I need and in top of this I can play my fav. DSP winamp Plugins,, specaily the enhanced .17 ,,(if you have not try it then you should it makes my reqular speaker at work like 5.1 suround),,

You can do so much with just the Icon tray and the mouse,, this is the only player that has this power feature ,,

I like the new structure of menus ,, well done,,

Best luck to the author and many thanks,,

Nikkie reviewed vDevelopment Build 114 on Nov 2, 2006

My only problem is how it is too much eye candy (how this ever got bad is beyond me).I guess it got a bit much and made it hard to navigate.There is soemthing i cant put ym finger on but it feels restricting.

pyridox reviewed vDevelopment Build 114 on Oct 7, 2006

This is not a bad player. The author puts a lot into it. Although, I've been using Winamp for years and I'm a creature of habit. :-P

Bagobie reviewed vDevelopment Build 114 on Oct 6, 2006

tinkerdill:
"Good, but not as good as Winamp lite"

So it deserves a 1 just because, in your opinion, another program is better? So no matter how good the program is, if there's a program that's even just slightly better, it gets a 1. Yeah, that makes sense.

stopbuggingme reviewed vDevelopment Build 113 on Sep 18, 2006

QMP is perfect. The community is great!
I love it!

PS: Thanks for mentioning Enhancer. A true Romanian work of art! It works great with QMP.

tinkerdill reviewed vDevelopment Build 113 on Sep 18, 2006

Good, but not as good as Winamp lite

SuzzyWoozy reviewed vDevelopment Build 113 on Sep 18, 2006

Good point ahjefri, this was one of the requirment I had in mind before dropping winAmp - aplayer that manager its DSP plugins.
As for Enhancer: one of the best plugins (Made in Romania)

fenrisswolf reviewed vDevelopment Build 113 on Sep 17, 2006

Great media player.
It WILL PLAY VIDEO just fine, altough I have noticed a few issues with video playback being temporarily unavailable if you also have windows media player 11 installed. WMP 11 seems to hijack video access from QMP even if it is not the default player for anything. (I might have some settings misconfigured, so as always YMMV.)

I greatly & gladly recomend this player to anyone.

ahjefri reviewed vDevelopment Build 112 on Jul 20, 2006

I have problem with this beta, the previous one was OK, this freezes alot, I switch back to the previous one.

I like this player very much and XMplay they both support winamp DSP , and you have not try Enhancer 0.17 DSP plugins ,, you are missing alot,,

Best regrards,,

spiked reviewed vDevelopment Build 112 on Jul 13, 2006

Yes, it's a very nice audio player but that's it. No video, so it's not suitable as a replacement for WinAMP or MPC or WMP or VLC or any other "media player."

Why in the world was it renamed from Quintessential Player to Quintessential Media Player (instead of, say, Quintessential AUDIO Player)?

I know some people are happy to have a cool player dedicated to music, but I prefer to have a single default player for all media.

Bagobie reviewed vDevelopment Build 112 on Jul 13, 2006

Finally a better replacement for WinAmp.

ahjefri reviewed vDevelopment Build 111 on Jun 14, 2006

This is my favorite Player, this release , I noticed greate deal of improvment towords speed of lunching, I use this player because it support winamp DSP and it has some nice skins and a lot of features you name it, but at the same time I use XMplay for single file playing just to check the attachment or so..

Sorry winamp, your light is gone,,

zeus_hunt reviewed vDevelopment Build 111 on Jun 10, 2006

No where near Bloatware.
Superb Prog with a few good skins.

Comit reviewed vDevelopment Build 111 on Jun 9, 2006

Bloated? lol. I've used QCD for well over a year now simply because its the least bloated player, aside from a couple which lack features. 3-6 MB RAM useage, can't ask for more.

SuzzyWoozy reviewed vDevelopment Build 110 on Apr 24, 2006

Great improvment from the previous version, especally the memory usage reduction improved the responsivness of the interface.
I was on the edge to lose it in favor of the XMPlayer, but the changed my mind. (at least until XMPlayer will fix the advance/loop issue with their playlist)

elpopi reviewed vDevelopment Build 110 on Apr 23, 2006

This is a great audio player.
The comparison to XMPlay is not fair, as it has much less features and a much simpler media library, but otherwise a great player.
Memory usage does get significantly down if you use the great looking iTunish skins iQCD & Titanium. I am only waiting for those skins to get an integrated ML (now only a separate window)

ModderXManiac reviewed vDevelopment Build 110 on Apr 21, 2006

*cough* BLOATED!

It's just a freakin' media player, and the memory usage of it is rediculous.

XM Play is skinnable and far more compatible and capable, they made a version for Apple and Linux! With an iTunes skin and a 3d visual at 640x480, it uses less than 3 megs memory playing a 320kbps mp3 file and a playlist of my entire mp3 library(1,751 songs as of now)

Startup time is slow, and it really bogs down my 233 mhz "lightweight app" test system unlike XM play, even with a large complex visual.

Bagobie reviewed vDevelopment Build 109 on Apr 6, 2006

In the development stage it has quite a few bugs I've noticed, but nothing too big to bump it down. It's still the best media player out there IMO.

And for the record, Winamp sucks.

cool_guy reviewed vDevelopment Build 109 on Mar 19, 2006

It's good but what's up with the memory consumption? Even WMP 9 consumes less memory on my system. I still give it five points.

Zoroaster reviewed vDevelopment Build 108 on Mar 1, 2006

I am definetly very enthusiast about Quintessential Media Player. After many years with Winamp I've replaced it with this very very nice Media Player. It is well thought, ergonomic, comes up very fast. A gem. When using this player, you are at the center: nothing is further than 1 or 2 clicks away. The media library is brilliant, and GraceNote features are astonoshing. Should I dare the word? A beautiful piece of software, indeed. Pardon for a non technical review: I'm no chef, but the dish is "délicious".

Dwiebelhaus reviewed vDevelopment Build 108 on Mar 1, 2006

This is my first expirence with this program , and WOW! I love this thing amazingly well thought out with "us" (the end user & the end user in us all)in mind.

*****

I will be telling people who are looking for an alternative to the same ol' huge resource confusing hogs out there about this jewl of a program.

Also....

This is the best find since i've been surfing this site for about a year now.

Primis reviewed vDevelopment Build 108 on Mar 1, 2006

Well, it finally happened.

Something finally supplanted Winamp as my default player. I've had and used QPlayer for a while now, but wasn't completely happy with a few thinsg in it (namely that output didn't SOUND right no matter how I EQ'd it). But I hung onto it and chekced in every now and again.

That's changed, QPlayer now has at least as good, if not better, output. The max memory footprint I've ever gotten it to hit is 15 Meg.

NOTE: Qplayer supports Winamp plugins. If it runs in Winamp, it runs in QPlayer (I have TomSteady going in it as we speak, just as an example). So Winamp's library of plugins isn't really any advantage...

sn1p34 reviewed vDevelopment Build 108 on Mar 1, 2006

Seems to be alot more stable then previouse builds, the start up time seems to have improved aswell.

SuzzyWoozy reviewed vDevelopment Build 107 on Feb 6, 2006

nice one, still prefer XMPlay: faster, simpler, support all WinAmp plugins (no question Winamp have the biggest plugin selection so far), and for those concerning about mem usage - 5MB.

I will look forward for future verisons of QMP, it looks promissing.

sn1p34 reviewed vDevelopment Build 107 on Feb 5, 2006

25mb's of ram . . . are you seriouse thats nothing unless you have like 64mb, or 128 mb's it's praticly nothing, I have a gig of ram and it useses about 18 mb's for me.

Besides winamp is no were near as nice as this, winamp is not customizable like qmp is with plugins, and this is also a beta so they will probably optimize it befor it is released.

agamen0n reviewed vDevelopment Build 107 on Feb 5, 2006

I finally give a try do this software. The looking is very nice, but the engine still bloated. With my playlist, this software spent 25 mb of ram, against 8 mb of winamp... Make us think... It worthy?

Zankur reviewed vDevelopment Build 107 on Feb 5, 2006

Very good build,this one,i mean.The 104 or 105 build which was released after a long hiatus,was very much the same expect a few bugs fixes which were no where to be seen..
Anyhow,a hell of work has been done by paul in recent times,which not obly is there,but is visible too.
But,start-up is still slow,otherwise good and worth its weight in silver,since its beta

siggy reviewed vDevelopment Build 106 on Jan 26, 2006

Bloated?!? I think not with a 3 MB installer. This app has come a long way, and I doubt its the video capability that's taking up resources. It has a massive media library plugin that goes way beyond what other players do, and you can still disable it if you want to. I say 5 stars on tweakability alone.

ZippyHappyChimp reviewed vDevelopment Build 106 on Jan 26, 2006

What the previous reviewer has said is not nice, but is unfortunatly true.

QCD has started down that path to worthlessness pioneered by Winamp by deciding that being a great audio player isn't enough, it needs to be a mediocre vidio player too.

QCD got solid 5's from me. QMP? 3's and falling.

Every vidio feature is done better by a dedicated vidio app. The Audio features are still solid, but the bloat caused by worthless vidio bits drags the score down.

ModderXManiac reviewed vDevelopment Build 106 on Jan 26, 2006

Such a bloated audio player...I think...

darthbeads reviewed vDevelopment Build 105 on Jan 22, 2006

IT'S ALIIIIVVVEEE!!!!

sn1p34 reviewed vDevelopment Build 105 on Jan 22, 2006

There have been huge improvements since 104, just because the change log isnt big, dosent mean they didnt do much, all the bugs they fixed were to big to fit into a change log. There were atlest 30 bugs fixed. Besides its not how frequently it updates, its how usefull the program is.

Zankur reviewed vDevelopment Build 105 on Jan 22, 2006

I really don't think its worth the time,there hasn't been much improvement in 4 mths from build:104
Those who are addicted to qmp may praise it and appreciate it but i feel there are better programs which much better features,constant development like winamp,itunes,foobar2000,media player classic etc..

biggman15 reviewed vDevelopment Build 104 on Sep 26, 2005

@sQin
Open Preferences then under the settings tab go down to Playback and Untick Manual Playlist Advance... and Remember to Hit Save and Close...

sQin reviewed vDevelopment Build 104 on Sep 11, 2005

^^ biggman15 ^^

manual playlist advance always on (playback stops atfer 1 song), i cant switch it off.

Its unticked and doesnt work

Blackhole8746 reviewed vDevelopment Build 104 on Aug 19, 2005

No 5.1 channel support? Neither 7.1 I'm pretty sure about that... Very nice media player but its good look, simplicty and ease of use don't cover for its big loss of technical abilities

Zankur reviewed vDevelopment Build 104 on Aug 16, 2005

The sound-quality,ripping,encoding,features are better than WinampFull version!
I think Qmp is a good step forward,but i personally feel the author should pay some attention to it's slow start-up,everytime i start it reloads the entire lib and playlist,which contains 1452 songs and 221 video clips to be exact!

jsc315 reviewed vDevelopment Build 104 on Aug 15, 2005

So much better than winamp. there is acctual updates for it. I have always been a fan of QCD player, but the QMP just shows you what there capable of. Yea there are some minor bugs but nothing that bad at all. Great job guys. Cant wait for the final product.

weezly reviewed vDevelopment Build 103 on Jul 20, 2005

after a while i can say that the qmp is very good alternative in compare to rest top players. to that moment i've been using xmplay32. but qmp give more options, it's more like standards on playermarket.
for me 5.

deeelan reviewed vDevelopment Build 103 on Jul 13, 2005

Nice alternative to Winamp. The media library is great, especially various playlist options. It's still pretty buggy but what can you expect from a beta version. My biggest complaint is the speed. The entire thing seems pretty slow right now. Slow to load, slow UI response time, slow media library scanning, etc. I hope this improves in future releases. Otherwise it's great!

Zankur reviewed vDevelopment Build 102 on Jun 30, 2005

i think qmp is moving in right direction,sound and video quality is good,media library is good addition,rip&encoding is also doing well.
however,i would suggest cosmetic refinement of the player,and to address the stability problems in this build.
Overall,great work!

egg83 reviewed vDevelopment Build 102 on Jun 29, 2005

Though I am having problems with this particular build of this player (crashing because of cddbplaylist2.dll problem), I still give a 4 rating because of the direction that this program is going in. The inclusion of the media database listing feature is most welcome for those with a lot of mp3 files. Once this program has the bugs worked out, will be one of the best media players on the market.

lordgibbness reviewed vDevelopment Build 102 on Jun 28, 2005

Actually the default Nullsoft mp3 decoder is based on the Fhg decoder, not xing, but you're right there isn't much discernable difference between them all. For peace of mind, however, I like to use Shibatch decoder (based on mpg123 - the one used in foobar) as it supports replaygain and uses 24-bit decoding. I'm more of a hifi purist so none of the 'sound enhancers' appeal to me at all.

sn1p34 reviewed vDevelopment Build 102 on Jun 28, 2005

QMP does not have horible sound quality, you must have a horrible sound card or something. Winamp is way to bloted, and the sound quality to be honest dosen't sound much diffrent, and honestly if there were two players that had the same core, but one looked a whole lot better would you take the ugly one? No probably not...

wingo reviewed vDevelopment Build 102 on Jun 28, 2005

everyone recomennded this one so i gave it a try but unfortunately its crap wrapped in a nice skin.

can't see why ppl want to use this.

the name is definately not a winner either. it helps if ppl can spell it out. :(

balashome reviewed vDevelopment Build 101 on May 23, 2005

Simplicity, Sane design and sterling Support from the community is what keeps this player going. I must say i have learnt a lot about digital music and players since i have been associated with the Quintessential community.

As far as the features are concerned - there is not one glaring omission. You want a media player feature - chances are you will be pleasantly surprised by the implementation of that feature in QCD earlier and now QMP. The Quicktrack, Media Player, highly useable Playlist and Tag/music file management are all a pleasure to work with.

The newly introduced media player (edit: i meant media library) is still in the process of fully gelling with the other parts of the player but i am confident that the final build will be outstanding. Well worth the adulation it receives.

(The 4 is solely for the beta status!)

pyridox reviewed vDevelopment Build 101 on May 23, 2005

I stumbled upon this player over a year ago. It works really well, does the job intended, and it's free of adware & spyware. I don't use all of it's features though, I mainly use it to play my mp3 collection. I prefer it over Microsoft Media Payer, which is truly bloated.

netean reviewed vDevelopment Build 101 on May 23, 2005

Like siggy I've always liked this player. Looks good, sounds great, does everything I need.

Knowing this build was coming I was deeply sceptical, afterall I don't need a media library for my player- I thought it would be a bit "bloaty" but truly, I'm surprised by how good it really it. Having started using the media library I really like it.

I think there is a new playback back end, and it sounds great.

New default skin looks clean and great.

The only criticism I'd level at it, is the amount of ram it uses. Approx 12-15MB. Not a great deal admittedly, but I think it's a bit too much for a music player (but it is beta still)

siggy reviewed vDevelopment Build 101 on May 23, 2005

I've always been a fan of this player. Even though its now got a full blown media library, the installer is still under 3 megs, hardly what I'd call bloatware. This player is lean, mean, and has enough customizations, settings, tweaks, and knobs to keep the most hardcore users entertained for a long time.

emredondo reviewed vDevelopment Build 101 on May 22, 2005

Another bloated piece of crap.

jkrzok reviewed vDevelopment Build 101 on May 22, 2005

I'm something of a media player slut and can say I've tried every palyer I've ever come across. While I may play around I still come back to Q everytime. There are just so many little things it does well that when taken in aggregate make it the best in my book. Try quicktrack; you may never have to open a playlist window again. CD ripping, stream recording, the modularity of its plugin structure ensure you have the media player you need and nothing else. Eye candy skins if you want them. Now it has a media library, an addition I actually value; at one time I had thought media libraries were a waste of hard drive space.

If I was rating the stable build I would give it a five in a heartbeat. But this is just the second dev build of the beta. Bug fixes are on the way as are enhancements. The best just keeps getting better and better.

biggman15 reviewed vDevelopment Build 101 on May 22, 2005

I have Tried Many Audio Players out there... This is easily one of the Best Audio Players I've ever Used and it continues to Improve...

Nikkie reviewed v4.51 on Feb 13, 2005

I used this a while back and it's nice but more focused on eye candy rather than convenience .

It's a bit bulky and isn't as advanced as many of the media players out there ..Plays audio well but still lacking in functions .

It can become pretty annoying to newbies .BSPlayer is better and uses little resources .

crowbar82 reviewed v4.51 on Jan 6, 2005

Why I use QP is becose its faster then Winamp. And thats just the only reason. Winamn is just to slow and I dont want to wait 5sec to change a song.

I have a p4 2800mgh and Im not the only one who dont want to use winamn just becose of that.

QP is the best and fastest music player!

lovemayo reviewed v4.51 on Jul 23, 2004

kevinz: Laugh as much as you want. Why would you want video playback in an audio app anyways? Haven't tested QCD's videoplayback, but does it support matroska? stream switching? rescaling the image(for encodings in 4:3 that should have been 16:9 etc)? I use Mediaplayer Classic for video playback, and it works great. Just as foobar works great for audio.

siggy reviewed v4.51 on Jun 9, 2004

QCD is suweet! Its got just the level of customization I want. Throw in a few amazing skins, an alpha plugin and a lame encoder, I'll take it over the other players any day.

christoofar reviewed v4.51 on May 13, 2004

QCD plays video files now too? When does it get a browser?

  reviewed v4.51 on May 13, 2004

Wow, I just had to check back for roj's latest immature response. To clarify, I did NOT say that QCD had no EQ or playlist--I was replying sarcastically to your pointing out the most-basic functions and saying "what more do you want?". My point was that I WANTED to use the EQ and playlist, and doing so is difficult with QCD's interface. (That would be where reading comprehension should have kicked in.) In fact, yes, I do use Winamp in double-size mode. It looks perfect, and it is easy to use. QCD is nowhere near as easy to use on my system. I don't care how rare my system specs are; I will rate the application as it works for me. But as I already pointed out (that reading comprehension thing again), I wouldn't like QCD on ANY system. I know you can't stand being contradicted, but that's life. Deal with it. My criticism of QCD is thereby substantiated the same way yours is: By how it works for us on our respective systems. You like the application and its interface, and rate it highly, I don't like it, so I rate it poorly. That's how reviews work. And now you have ZERO reason to reply caustically.

roj reviewed v4.51 on May 12, 2004

"as good as Winamp"? LOL. That milestone is long in the past. The much cleaner plugin architecture alone (never mind the sound quality and remarkable bug sanitization) guaranteed that a while back. This latest release consists of the inevitable fit-and-finish fixes that surface when a program hits a large installed base. There weren't very many tweaks required and certainly no gaping security holes which warranted the "install this NOW" type of warning seen with at least two other notable mainstream players. A solid upgrade, especially for detailed skin aficionados.

Zankur reviewed v4.50 Development Build 81 on Apr 30, 2004

A good media player.Good UI,sound quality,encoding,skinning,variety of formats played.I think by
version 4.7 quintessential player will be as good as winamp.

kevinz reviewed v4.50 Development Build 81 on Apr 30, 2004

it makes me wanna laugh seeing people compare QCD with Foobar. can foobar play video files? i think not

lovemayo reviewed v4.50 Development Build 81 on Apr 30, 2004

Well, it works. As usual... I'm not a big fan of skins and all that. I like a clean and simple interface... Less is more in some cases :) I'll stick with Foobar2000 since it has all the features i need, and more, in a lightweight package. But for the skin-loving crowd, Quint is very nice. atleast i like it better than winamp. btw, does it have replaygain support? winamp has, using in_mpg123.dll from http://www3.cypress.ne.jp/otachan/in_mpg123.html
maybe it could be used in quint too...

blurred reviewed v4.50 on Apr 28, 2004

okay , i love the program & i have been using it as my default player for about 6 months till now though i was a big fan of winamp , but the problem is that i hate the new skin layout , the remote with playlist , what happened to the medium & small windows of this player , i found it very useful and now it's gone :S

roj reviewed v4.50 on Apr 17, 2004

I use this player for all things audio now. The list of advantages it brings to the table for me are: best-of-breed audio quality, seamless and gapless playback or crossfading if desired, a slick and easy to use interface, freeform skinning and the lightest resource usage (both memory and CPU utilization) of any full featured player even when skinned (yes, that is indeed a commentary on those who claim minimalism and have grown chunky but funky over time). For users who want more, it adds: full speed ripping and burning capabilities *without* any silly pay-for-play nonsense (tongue squarely in cheek), video playback, the ability to use Winamp DSP and input plugins (via plugins developed by Shaohao), a well developed and laid out skinning and plugin API, Shoutcast and on and on... Those extra functions are layered via a true plugin interface - not a kludge with messy hooks left in if they are removed. Finally the biggest and most important advantages it sports are an experienced, well-versed, extremely professional and responsive author who genuinely cares about the quality of his product, a dedicated core of plugin and skin developers and a vocal and uncompromising multinational user community who ensure that the high standards that this player has set are maintained. I'm very pleased with it - I strongly recommend it to anyone.

madjo reviewed v4.50 on Apr 17, 2004

I've been using QP (or QCD) since 4.11 came out, and nearly every developer version in between.
And now with 4.50 out, it can just say that this is the ultimate media player on my machine. I rarely have to use other media players anymore, only for divx files I use BSPlayer (which suits my needs there, never really tried using QCD for divx's)

dabson reviewed vDevelopment Build 75 on Apr 7, 2004

Build 75 (and build 76 on the Quinnware website) fixed a number of issues for me from the development builds including better custom skin support. Keep up the great work Paul!

Arnvid reviewed vDevelopment Build 75 on Apr 1, 2004

Apart from my personal view on some of the complaining here I got to say that a good proof of a good product is the love/hate attitude one sees here. A bunch of "Cold" voters don't show any great future for any program IMHO. Have used it as default audio player for half a year now, and updates has always been improvements and not downgrades. So far it has neither turned into a bloatware as many developers tends to do with many great original products. How people can complain on interface with all the skin options is just what it is, a personal opinion, which hardly reflects more than the complainers view (or screen). If it remains as freeware I see a great future for Quintessential Player. Not that I refuse to look at shareware or don't believe that developers should have a pay, but solely since it would be very hard to come up with a reason for users to use a shareware product in a software segment there still are alternatives, and good so (QP being one of the best proof of this).

roj reviewed vDevelopment Build 75 on Mar 31, 2004

Mr. Blank: How can you xpect credibility when you make clearly erroneous statements? You said there was no EQ. You were wrong. You said there was no playlist manipulation. Again you were wrong. You said it doesn't look right on your 24" monitor. With all due respect, few things look right on a 24" monitor, especially if extreme resolutoins are employed. That being said, a solution was tendered where it was suggested that you use a different skin to compensate for the size issue (no pun intended) or roll your own if you were unable to find a suitable one. that was a perfectly logical suggestion, yet yu greeted it with with derision. You are yet to comment on the primary reason for the existance of any player: the sound. Similarly you have made no comment on the utility of the player. You limited yourself to flaming the player because it didn't look right in an environment that fewer than 0.5% (yes, I did say zero point five percent) of ComputingKind uses. That's your sole beef, as stated. Furthermore, one can only infer from your statements that you were using the 2x feature of Winamp, since in its natural state, that player is decidedly *smaller* than QCD and would be *much more more difficult to see and use*. One has to wonder how you can use a word processor. As I have often said elsewhere, you are perfectly entitled to publicly air your viewpoint as long as you can substantiate it. Unfortunately, you appear to be having trouble doing that. Back to business: on the subject of this latest build (75), I'm hoping that it is a penultimate one before a final - it appears very solid on the test box I've tried it on.

  reviewed vDevelopment Build 74 on Mar 27, 2004

You guys are incredible; insulting me simply because I dislike the interface! I am just as entitled to my opinion as you are. It just so happens that QCD does NOT work well on my system, so I'll rate it as I see fit. Should I add points just because it works well for YOU? Some other players work fine for me, and I rate them appropriately. To say that I should make my own skin just to obtain reasonable usability is completely ridiculous. (And actually, I'd hate the QCD interface at any resolution.) To act self-righteous because you use one player and not another is even more ridiculous, not to mention utterly immature.

bbhermit reviewed vDevelopment Build 74 on Mar 27, 2004

Awesome! When did they add video support? I always liked this program, but it lacked video, so generally went with Winamp. Now, this could just take over as my favorite media program.

roj reviewed vDevelopment Build 74 on Mar 26, 2004

Where do these people come from?? I take it you missed the rather prominently displayed VCR buttons for forward and rewind? Good Lord...

Freidrich of Austria reviewed vDevelopment Build 74 on Mar 26, 2004

Where do I begin? Click the play button: instant crash. Click the close button: instant crash. The feature set is OK, other than the lack of FF and Rewind capabilities. I guess those weren't considered important?!

vagabond reviewed vDevelopment Build 74 on Mar 26, 2004

It has an EQ. It has Playlist manipulation. And if you insist on running 2400x1billion mode on your 24 inch p****, er moniter, then go download a bigger skin if the default one is too small. your "average joe" is just about migrated to 1024x768 size, finally. 800x600 should have died along time ago. There is zero reason to whine about how a skinable app looks. Don't like it? find another skin, or make your own.

davidtb reviewed vDevelopment Build 74 on Mar 26, 2004

You guys should try the decaf.

roj reviewed vDevelopment Build 72 on Mar 12, 2004

~C~: You're right - there have been a bunch of interface tweaks but there have also been meaningful changes to the real part that matters: the sound. As an example, a number of things have been done to the Crossfade Plugin.

christoofar reviewed vDevelopment Build 72 on Mar 12, 2004

I'm seeing more "visual" addons, such as skinning & scrolling stuff I'd never need/use. Hope this player isn't going the bloatware route.

Bug(.)(.)Eyes reviewed vDevelopment Build 72 on Mar 12, 2004

Very nice program, for free it doesn't get much better than this. Since switching to JetAudio (commercial) I find some things lacking, but what do you expect for free. Nice job.

dabson reviewed vDevelopment Build 72 on Mar 12, 2004

I've been using this program since it was just a CD player. It has evolved tremendously since then and continues to do so at an amazing pace. Simply the best audio player for Windows.

scodan reviewed vBeta Build 71 on Feb 22, 2004

I hate the interface. Looking "like Windows" isn't a bad thing if it helps usability.

christoofar reviewed vBeta Build 71 on Feb 19, 2004

I guess Failed never learned the difficult art of skin-changing?
I noticed on last build that each time I used it, it somehow changes my Windoze Volume level to 50%, so I have to re-set it each time I boot up. Kinda a PITA.

FailedCRC reviewed vBeta Build 71 on Feb 19, 2004

christ this has to be the ugliest player ever. just another winamp clone. there's always quite a lot of cafuffle from from users of this in the anti-foobar camp. i thought i'd try it and i have no idea what all the fuss is about.

Comit reviewed vBeta Build 71 on Feb 18, 2004

An amazing media player. I was a long time loyal user of winamp for years, but switched to QCD since it can do everything winamp can and more, and more importantly only uses a forth of the RAM and less CPU utilization. Very efficent player.

christoofar reviewed vBeta Build 70 on Feb 1, 2004

welp....I've been a staunch Coolplayer fan for ages, since I just like simple apps that just do what they're supposed to.
I've tried QCD before, but never really go into it. For a lark I grabbed this latest version, along with the Ayla skin from the site & a few plugins (MAD,Monkey'sAudio) And I have warmed up to it. Took minimal effort to config it, uses the MAD decoder , which I like, and can play MAC files, which CP can't. Not interested in Foobar, just not into all the tweaking needed to set it. So....I'm kinda liking this!

Ehrihk reviewed vBeta Build 68 on Jan 12, 2004

This player is good with a nice skining engine. Still, I think Winamp is better.

softssa reviewed vBeta Build 68 on Jan 10, 2004

QCD is great in every possible way, fast, great sound and the design is really nice. But it lacks functions which are greatly apreciated by me and surely also by others who have large collectiobs of audio files.
1! A library, a vital part of my music experience I can assure you.
2! A playlist design that can be changed by the user.
3! A function to change the size of the different program modules both the main player and the playlist.

Other than the above there isn't much more to say about QCD other than excellent.

Bluezion reviewed vBeta Build 67 on Jan 3, 2004

s***...sorry about that people. The last message was just a joke from a colleague of mine. Don't pay it any attention. I personally think that QCD is a decent player and does the job well (I've already offered my opinion 2-3 posts back). Just to make justice to it I'll rate it 5 stars to balance the idiotic last post. :(

FXSoftware reviewed vBeta Build 67 on Dec 17, 2003

QCD is still an excellent player with lot of plugins, good sound quality, and very low memory footprint. But please, improve playlist, add the ability to stretch it. Thanks.

Tidus41 reviewed vBeta Build 67 on Dec 16, 2003

great program!

sld reviewed v4.11 on Nov 19, 2003

The equaliser is there for users to tweak for themselves... the presets are there only for lazy users to apply 'quik tweax' to their music. QCD gets better with each version. Playlist does need some upgrading though.

pvolk reviewed v4.11 on Nov 17, 2003

The equalizer presets absolutely suck and the EQ is questonable but other then that its an excellent media player! nice and light weight but still plenty of features

dkg_ctc reviewed v4.11 on Nov 12, 2003

As a straight up media player, it's the best that there is, IMO. However, if you need powerful playlist/file management and flexible jukebox capabilities, I recommend J. Rivers Media Center/Media Jukebox.

wolseleydude reviewed v4.11 on Nov 12, 2003

Very good player! One can't go wrong.

roj reviewed v4.11 on Nov 12, 2003

This player earns the highest accolade I can give any: it is my player of choice.

ahjefri reviewed v4.10 on Oct 10, 2003

Very nice program, I just start using it lately,, best thing that I like about that it support winamp DSP plugins, it would be the best player if it had better playlist, and library feature like the new winamp 2.91 or tab playlist like foobar2000 wow, until that gets in the rate is 4

DigitalSin reviewed v4.02 Dev Build 63 on Oct 7, 2003

My new favorite player! Very professional, stable, small memory footprint.

Le Shibby!

finalcut reviewed v4.02 Dev Build 63 on Oct 7, 2003

jcl1973: reference speakers CAN do harmonic accuratly

sorry

pitti reviewed v4.02 on Sep 15, 2003

I switched from winamp to QCD several months ago when my computer kept freezing while I was listening to music. Great program with many features and more in the works.

szpok reviewed v4.02 on Sep 5, 2003

Equalizer + ogg --> off

3nos reviewed v4.02 on Sep 4, 2003

I rate it 5* as it is good & I feel comfortable with it. A nice work!

jcl1973 reviewed v4.0 Build 60 on Aug 31, 2003

Hi,

I'd like to put some perspective on things here. I'm not an 'audiophile' but a classically trained musician. I play Chopin Piano Sonatas and other difficult works. I enjoy concerts now and then. My range of hearing is significantly greater than most (yes, I've had it measured). I have been invited to listen to very expensive audio equipment (20,000+) for quality. What I've noticed, is that computer audio is not worth arguing about. Yes, it's good (pro recording stuff) but even with the largest sample sizes, most audio recordings lack depth and warmth of acoustic instruments, and the 'presence' of a live performance. Records have a richer sound, but have significant drawbacks.
My point is, it's not worth arguing about a tiny perceptual difference. Speaker technology is ultimately going to be the limited factor, and it hasn't changed much in years. Speakers can't produce the harmonics accurately enough and digital technology has taken sound waves, which we don't fully understand, and created a reasonable approximation.
Enjoy the versitility of computer audio, but don't forget there is no substitute for live performances.

Dan_Dare reviewed v4.0 Build 60 on Aug 31, 2003

Roj: 'nuff said indeed. You just forgot the other half or 2/3 who disagree with you and your blatantly subjective stories.
You are good at your mouth, no doubt about that. Fortunately many people across the internet knows you and your incredibly big ego. If you happen to dislike some people, it affects very much on your opinions etc. I don't know why I'm telling the obvious. Probably because some people on betanews might not be aware of something which everybody else know on audio related boards and usenet groups. Some people might be tricked to think Quintessential sounds better than some other player, because the player's damn EQ is automatically on when you install it and run for the first time. Things like these pisses me off in a player. Of course people who think they are always right, have superior hearing etc BS, which can't ever be proved. Good thing is if one is enlightened enough to know whose opinion to trust and whose not. And you are definitely a person whose opinion should not be trusted, because you just don't know how to be objective, your opinions are always surrounded by things which seem to influence you too much for you to be objective. I'm not probably too wrong if I guess that there are many people who don't choose Quintessential Player, just because you are recommending it.

roj reviewed v4.0 Build 60 on Aug 31, 2003

Dan: Too bad anyone can claim anything on the Internet. Someone can claim they actually know something about audio when in reality two tin cans and a piece of string are superior to any experience they have had with the genre. They can be wannabes who follow the (usually uninformed) crowd and essentially be hangers-on without ever having to prove anything they say. Fortunately, I can honestly saw that I don't fit into that category. It is a matter of record on many a bulletin board and even Epinions that folks have taken what I've said, tested it for themselves - and then reported back that I delivered the goods. I wonder when (if ever) you'll be able to make that claim... 'nuff said.

xm41907 reviewed v4.0 Build 60 on Aug 31, 2003

Brasse,

Your concern with playlist handling appears to me that you use one playlist for all your mp3's. If so, then break down your music into playlists of based on something, maybe genre of music, favorites, or most often played. This would allow QCD to load up your playlists much faster and it wouldn't be bogged down with tracks that you seldom play. If you already do this then great. MAybe you just have too many in each playlist. As for QCD, I think it is a great product. For the last year and a half I have been bouncing back and forth with QCD and Winamp, but with version 4 I have drop Winamp altogether. As for sound quality, I'll leave that up to individuals because I am no expert in the matter, besides everyones hearing abilities and preferences are different. I for one hear little difference between the two

Brasse reviewed v4.0 Build 59 on Aug 28, 2003

please make the program work better with HUGE playlists... (and when i say huge, i dont talk about 20GB or so, i got 80 GB mp3s on my winamp playlist), otherwise nice program!!

geminiz reviewed v4.0 Build 59 on Aug 28, 2003

man Roj just appears in almost every message boards...
3dsoundsurge, coolplayer, neoseeker, ultimatezip.....

QCD is my default player
sound quality aside
maybe it's just me but
I think Foobar has some sort of small problem with randoming the songs from the beginning, probably something wrong with the algorithm.
For some reason, the songs that has been played has way way higher chance of getting randomly played than the rest; so it often end up playing the same dozen of files and left the rest of the thousands mp3 files untouched.

Dan_Dare reviewed v4.0 on Aug 18, 2003

Hello Roj. What is the programming experience of yours so that you can say the directsound interface of QCD is done right? Are you an audio programmer? Have you seen the code? Or do you base this only on your subjective listening?
Because if I haven't understood something wrong, the directsound interface in its purest form shouldn't really affect the quality (change bits) and the digital-to-analog conversion is done either in soundcard or in external DAC. Have you ever played with TotalRecorder...

QCD 4 is a solid and fancy looking player, I give it 3 stars. But it's not as configurable and quality oriented as Foobar2000. And the praise of QCD's better quality is of course without *any* evidence (same goes for Foobar though), which is normal zealot/placebo activity. Fortunately the majority of Hydrogenaudio.org community which tries to stay away from zealot/placebo/totally subjective influence is behind Foobar2000.

roj reviewed v4.0 on Aug 15, 2003

Dan, I'm going to take this one step at a time to make sure you understand it. As someone else has pointed out, 24bit support is there, especially if you use the MAD plugin (I have a true 24bit card - a Revo 7.1). If you use the MAD or even MPG123 plugins, you will also get decidedly superior playback to the default decoder included and any other player with the possible exception of XMPlay. This is due at least in part to the superb output plugins. The majority of other players fall on their a** for DirectSound playback and have to rely on .WAV output whereas QCD's DirectSound-based Crossfade plugin is at least on par and usually superior to those aforementioned .wav playback mechanisms. In short, it's done *right*. I experience no slowdowns with large playlists - and my OGG are in the hundreds - several hundreds as in "more than two hundred" - and they're also pulled from across my network. I will warrant that Shaohao needs to do some work on his various plugins (MAD / MPG123) but that is not the fault of QCD. All decodoers created by Mr. Quin (including the downloadable APE plugin) work flawlessly. This is a remarkably fast, stable and bug free new release of a "first tier" player, which is why it gets five stars from me. THAT is the hallmark of professionalism and more than I can say for almost any other player I've seen listed here, some much more so than others.

QP reviewed v4.0 on Aug 15, 2003

Funny how grumps below says QCD isn't about quality sound. I'm playing 24-bit audio with QCD right now. Get the MAD mp3 plugin from its website and check it. Of course, your soundcard has to support it 24-bit playback.

Dan_Dare reviewed vBeta Build 57 on Aug 15, 2003

As said before, using a large collection produces weird slow downs and glitches at least for me. The sound quality of this software is totally overhyped by zealots. Lack of 24 bit support tells the unprofessional approach and indifferent attitude towards the sound quality which is even worse than most other players. But for many people unfortunately "seeing is hearing". Fancy looking player nontheless.

FXSoftware reviewed vBeta Build 57 on Aug 12, 2003

about playlist loading. QCD load my 15gb *much* faster than foobar and as fast as winamp2. The sound quality is excellent.

styckx reviewed vBeta Build 57 on Aug 12, 2003

Not good for playing large collections? I load my 20gig collection in the playlist and it doesn't miss a beat, and your issues about the sound quality are false also.. If I didn't know better, you sound like you work for Nullsoft

kabir_advani reviewed vBeta Build 56 on Aug 7, 2003

QCD is f*****' wild. Awesome interface, sound quality and totally user-friendly. Amazing developer support and help, along with mind-blowing skins and plugins. Just hope the CDDB support is up and running smoothly soon enough !! Keep up the good work guys ---- QCD is the biggest thing that has ever happened to PC Music !! Cheers !!

Scorched Earth reviewed vBeta Build 55 on Aug 6, 2003

QCD is a pretty good audio player. It has all the features one would expect and more. It runs well; a lot less buggy/bloated than Winamp 3. I've used it for several months and have never had a crash.

S!aaps reviewed vBeta Build 55 on Aug 2, 2003

I have just got b55 so not installed it as yet, but have used QCD for a long time now and have never had a problem with it. It plays every music file I have ever thrown at it, I use an 8Gig playlist on a day-to-day basis (adding to it all the time :) which it plays no problem, never uses more than 2% or 3% of the CPU power. What more could you want from a player. I almost never give things top marks but this is worth 6 !!!

mad_audio reviewed vBeta Build 55 on Aug 2, 2003

Hey, I don't need an unconventional player, I need a player which offers a great functionality. However, QP is nothing but bloatware. Don't use it.

lushmonster reviewed vBeta Build 54 on Jul 30, 2003

Fix the playlist.. please.. i love everything else... But it still as isssues with huge Playlists and searching..

Steven Orgen reviewed vBeta Build 54 on Jul 27, 2003

What is this supposed to be? It gives me eye cancer!
It keeps hanging on my system, plays only a fraction of the music on my HD and is hardly anything the developers claim it to be. Wasted time!

Brasse reviewed vBeta Build 54 on Jul 24, 2003

Very nice program, excelent sound quality, and so on. But the playlist system is not so good, if the number of songs goes up to a couple of thousand songs the program runs slowly and crashes from time to time, too bad.. I'll stick around with winamp until the playlist works better...

christoofar reviewed vBeta Build 53 on Jul 9, 2003

I still like this player for its sonics, but am getting a little worried as I see most of recent improvements have to do with eyecandy (i.e. skinning). I'm starting to drift back to coolplayer again - I just need a player that *plays*, shows bitrates, timings, & titles. And my *fave* CP feature - shuts off when it's done!
QP has more features and sounds great - hope it doesn't go by way of WinBloat

dragonmaster1030 reviewed vBeta Build 52 on Jun 17, 2003

After every new release of WinAmp, I install, try it, and then uninstall in favor of QDC. Great controls, sound and looks. I'm not big into skinning, but this program is great for skinning. Love the free form design. If anyone from the QDC development team reads these reviews, keep up the GREAT work.

roj reviewed vBeta Build 51a on Jun 6, 2003

"Seriously fellows, why would would should anyone choose snazzy looks over functionality :). Use Winamp 2.91 instead :) "

Seriously folks, why would anyone choose inferior sound over quality sound? Use QCD instead.

'nuff said.

michaelisitsa reviewed vBeta Build 51a on Jun 6, 2003

hi. i've used both programs winamp + qcd. QCD uses half the resources of the new version of winamp (i know it doesn't make sense). both crash not very often. qcd has improved a hell of a lot. qcd has quality plugins, winamp has a lot of plugins, some good some bad. qcd has a few really good skins which i always uses, winamp has a lot of good ones, but they aren't freeform. i now use qcd. i find it is now really stable, and has all that i need including a good hotkey plugin. the advantages of winamp would be good MIDI support, good for streaming audio. otherwise choose qcd

shantanu reviewed vBeta Build 51 on Jun 5, 2003

Seriously fellows, why would would should anyone choose snazzy looks over functionality :). Use Winamp 2.91 instead :)

gren99 reviewed vBeta Build 49 on May 22, 2003

either turn off all the internet connectivity (prefrences > settings > 'i have no internet connection' drop down box) or go to prefrences > plug-ins > libraries and untick the CDDB plugin.

@thehop reviewed vBeta Build 48a on May 17, 2003

good Stuff,
But, I want use/start the Player WITHOUT
the dbb-Feature,is there a way ?

roj reviewed vBeta Build 48a on May 16, 2003

There are always those who will indulge in paranoid rantings and ravings about "security" and "spyware" whether or not they actually have a clue about the topic upon which they are discoursing. It seems that this is quite fashionable to do these days.

The current "fashion statement" on Gracenote CDDB by Floodland (which has been thoroughly debunked by QP) is an excellent case in point. The author of QCD neither condones nor employs spyware code and / or services in his application.

It should be obvious to readers at this point just how much credibility such "assertions" deserve.

QP reviewed vBeta Build 48a on May 16, 2003

Floodland stated below:
Gracenote ... tracks everything you listen, how you do, etc etc (including if you skip a track or not).

That is simply not true. The CDDB control is not told about the tracks that are playing, so how can it report it (even if it wanted to?). Whenever the CDDB controls sends or receives anything it puts up it's logo (not very secretive eh?), and it only ever does that when YOU want it to. If you have QCD set to query CD's, it will query them when you put them in. Gracenote CDDB exists in ALL players because player developers know it's a _must_have_ feature. The feature is there for you, the user, as a convenience. Commercial players have to pay Gracenote just to include the feature and they DO. What does that tell you? And why accuse QCD when ALL players use the same CDDB control?

Floodland reviewed vBeta Build 48a on May 16, 2003

I was not looking the responses. Paul: we already discussed about the nasty cddb controls in the forums of your site...
To the rest of you, that tells gracenote cddb is not spyware: Gracenote assign YOU a UNIQUE identifier and tracks everything you listen, how you do, etc etc (including if you skip a track or not). Somebody said "nobody cares what you listen". If you were right, there is no need to IDENTIFY your player like they do, so, this is bad. Gracenote refined the mechanism: In older versions, you had to give them a email, now they "only" assign you an ID. Same sh*t, ID+IP=You
I think that Gracenote makes MONEY selling our info to the discographic industry (I have no proof on this, just my guess), and the bad part is that you don't even know that data is being transfered from your machine to them (unless you have a firewall). That's pretty lame, not ethic, not good at all.
The first answer from paul (he's a gentleman), was that gracenote dlls were part of the core of the player, but you still can disable the "service", or lie to QCD, marking it as not connected to internet to avoid reporting. Then, a solution suggested was to move to another cleaner cddb service, as freedb, which is open source. Paul said no. Ok, then, at least, make by default QCD to not to report usage to gracenote. No answer then, but QCD continue to report by default.
Paul if you are really against spyware, make your software avoid using spyware components, and if you can't, at least, make not to spy by default. That's as easy as changing a setting by default.
I really likes QCD sound quality and features, and low resource usage, it shines if you compare it against winamp or almost any player, but it could be better! I can disable reporting (I did), or block access to gracenote site, but there are many people that don't know how, and well, you can help...
Sorry, too much typing, sorry...

angelgirlindy3 reviewed vBeta Build 48 on May 15, 2003

best player i've seen in along time--i love it--keep up the great work!!!

hochwimmera reviewed vBeta Build 47 on May 14, 2003

Excellent music player. Outstanding support too from the developer.

IoWolf reviewed vBeta Build 47 on May 10, 2003

Nice little skinable winamp3 like player.
However; the chameleon type skins can cause jumps in the music. MP3Pros get a little muddy from time to time.
And what is up with the four way arrow when you can't "move". I'll stick to MyMP3Pro4, less than $20 after rebate.

emperor reviewed vBeta Build 47 on May 9, 2003

Previously using QCD I used winamp2.8, then when moving on to the next version I’ve seen how badly winamp3 performed. QCD satisfy all my mp3 playing needs, nice skins, and have most of the function winamp3 has, still using a fairly low system resource compared to winamp3. If you have slow computer go for winamp2.9 though

hvs reviewed v3.51 on May 1, 2003

Getting better, better, better and be... Simply the best!

crowbar reviewed vBeta Build 45c on Apr 29, 2003

The best player!!!!!!!

angelgirlindy3 reviewed vBeta Build 45b on Apr 23, 2003

Excellent player, just wish they had a plug in for burning, but i was very impressed with the new version.

amStart isignz reviewed vBeta Build 45b on Apr 22, 2003

It´s by far the best audio player I´ve used. Even better than the one and only WinAMP2 (not 3). It´s not as easy to use as WinAMP2 but has almost the same features as WinAMP3, but without using as much resources as WinAMP3.

Plugins support, dynamic Skins support and ... well check their homepage. Worth a try.

veeoh reviewed vBeta Build 45 on Apr 22, 2003

Excellent! Now if only someone ported it to Linux....

or maybe hoping too much..

Faris reviewed vBeta Build 44b on Apr 16, 2003

This software is great .. now i used it for more than 4 hours straight listening to music and changing playlists and loading them.. no errors very light.. lots of free plugins and skins.. sound is great too. tested foobar for 2 weeks now and i saw this .. i think ill be using it from now on

LisaO reviewed vBeta Build 44b on Apr 15, 2003

This is the only version of this I've tried and it was enough for me. I love the different sizes you can make it so it's not in the way of my browser or other programs. The sound is simply incredible compared to what I was using. The equalizer was a surprise because I hadn't noticed that feature in the description. I also like the timer being able to count down the remaining time or the playing time. Great player and all I need. Thanks!!

roj reviewed vBeta Build 44a on Apr 11, 2003

This released fixed a couple niggling bugs such as the truncation of tracks if the DirectSound-based Crossfade / Gapless output plugin was used.

- 5 stars for audio quality (especially DirectSound)
- 5 stars for CPU usage
- 5 stars for versatility / configurability
- 5 stars for interface / skinnability
- 5 stars for author response time and willingness / patience in fixing issues

This player is now my default across my six systems.

crowbar reviewed vBeta Build 44a on Apr 11, 2003

Beta Build 44a and 3.50???? I dont understand! What´s different between the 2 vertions??

remml reviewed vBeta Build 44a on Apr 11, 2003

WOW!! Thanks for the stream fix with 44a .. what a fast turn around. I love this prog .. simply the best .. superior sound - clean and natural the way it should be -, skins, transparency. My one and only player.

ghammer reviewed vBeta Build 44a on Apr 11, 2003

Excellent media player. Cool default skins, excellent sound. Lots of functionality.

As for others who post "Spyware", can you tell me exactly how CCDB or other music lookup services are spyware? And can you tell me exactly why what music you play should be treated as a national secret? Handwringers like that confuse and devalue the real issue of privacy. Quite franky, you overrate your importance. Nobody gives a rat's a** about what you listen to. They collect that info in case you want to buy music, then they can give you suggestions. Oooo, Big Brother's coming. Give me a break! QCD is an excellent player. Does many things for you. Spying is NOT one of them. Educate yourself a bit before you go spouting off in public.

zephlin reviewed vBeta Build 44a on Apr 10, 2003

CPU usage is the #1 reason to use this program. CBBD is of no importance. Spyware? Ever use windows update? WMPlayer? This program is top notch! Don't post frivilous comments downgrading one of the best players out there based on everything but how good it "PLAYS"!! A comment for File Forum, why not post reviews of software for the version and build there posted under? Every version of a software product is a change in functionality and frequently interface and code. You do users an injustice by posting positive reviews of software two version or more ago as it does not have any relevance to the current build! Can you Say winamp3! You are the best source for up to date software, now do the same with your user reviews and you will also be trust worthy of the ratings you post! I have been burned by you more than once. Please take this in a positive way a company who is striving to provide the best service it can should. Thank You!

remml reviewed vBeta Build 44 on Apr 10, 2003

I installed this release and it would no longer play "live365" .. re-installed v3.50 and the live365 stream was restored .. love the player, but also love live365 .. hope this gets worked out in next build.

QP reviewed v3.50 on Apr 5, 2003

Gracenote is the company that provides CDDB. CDDB is the service that sends the name of the tracks of CD's to players. All players use CDDB, and I do mean ALL. Winamp 2 & 3, Music Match, Real, QCD - they all use the exact same CDDB control. The is no spyware here, Floodland is sadly misinformed. However, if you remain against CDDB for whatever reason, you can easily stop all access to CDDB by removing the CDDB plugin. Get HTTP Tracer and see what QCD sends to the net. Get informed on Gracenote and CDDB. You will see that QCD is hiding nothing. I dispise spyware and would never stoop to implementing it.

geekboy2000 reviewed v3.50 on Apr 5, 2003

Where do you disable the automatic reporting? (Oh, sorry to use this space as a forum, but the previous reviewer raised a good point.) I just checked the settings. May have missed it, but I don't recall seeing such an option.

Floodland reviewed v3.50 on Apr 5, 2003

I'm pretty sad to see a really goog quality player to fall into spyware category... My previous review was 5 stars because of their excellent features and quality. Later I found the nasty dependence on gracenote controls (yes, like a trojan, they install on windows\system32 folder and like gator, you cannot remove them if you want qcd to keep working). When asked, the developer Paul Quinn said that core of qcd depends on gracenot crap, but you can disable the AUTOMATIC REPORTING of usage to gracenote.
The last request to him was to make qcd by default to NOT report usage or try to communicate the gracenote sites (last resource, accepting the weak excuse of dependencies on the cddb controls). And the latest release continue the lame behaviour. It should be rated as spyware, not freeware anymore :(
Updated spyware CDDB controls should say on the update news

krayon reviewed v3.50 on Apr 3, 2003

Still the best around!!

crowbar reviewed v3.50 on Apr 3, 2003

The best audio player!!!!

roj reviewed v3.50 on Apr 3, 2003

OK, the buck stops here.

I have finished extensively playing with Winamp 2.9 (released last night), CoolPlayer 2.10, FB2k, XMPlay and QCD.

Best audio quality goes to QCD (tight punchy bass that has less of a tendency to distort the way XMPlay occasionally can, a detailed midrange that surpasses CoolPlayer's, highs that reach where they should without sounding tinny and harsh like FB2K or slightly muffled like Winamp + MAD). XMPlay is second, CoolPlayer third and Winamp + MAD / FB2k more or less tied trailing for fourth place. Best skin implementation goes to QCD again – it's everything Winamp 3 tried desperately to be but without the bloat, glacial slowness and terminal instability / bugginess that caused it to fall on its face and fail so abysmally. QCD lives in the System Tray like a civilized player should unlike XMPlay. It has gapless OGG playback courtesy of a DirectSound implementation that actually sounds equivalent to .wav out unlike Winamp + MAD and FB2K, both of which make DS sound like a second class citizen intyheir stock implementations (no kernel streaming hacks employed). It has a well laid out and friendly user interface unlike FB2K (there is a difference between minimalism and being ridiculously Spartan to the point of penalizing function).

In short, it takes the best of all the players named above and the resulting synergy creates a truly outstanding player – without foolishness like media libraries, video support and the rest of the rot.

I'm finally home.

chimpypimpy reviewed v3.50 on Apr 3, 2003

Sporting it's newly polished default skin, Quintessential Player is the best audio player on the internet. WMP 9 may be the best all around media player but for day to day listening, you can't beat QCD.

Winamp 2.x is now old hat, and Winamp 3 bites. There's a new sheriff in town, his name is Quintessential Player.
The King is dead, long live the King!

Psych reviewed vBeta Build 42c on Mar 15, 2003

I've been continuosly switching betwen sonique2 and this. And now i've found my perfect skin for qcd, i''ll probably stick with it unless lycos can pull off something amazing. QCD has the best cddb/freedb integration i've seen, with superior playlist mananagement, add to that a proper cd player, the ability to use winamp plugins and sonique's vis, and you have the best audio player around.

krayon reviewed vBeta Build 42c on Mar 13, 2003

This is the bestest player I have ever used. I am uninstalling all the other junk such as winamp.

Niliaend reviewed vBeta Build 42b on Mar 11, 2003

Simply the best audio player! The sound is great, the appearance too, with tens of skins downloadable and viewable directly within the player.
And for the features, it's full of good things too! Equalizer, visualization (sonique vis in addition with a plugin) streaming, folder mirroring to add any new files in a folder to the playlist (useful for p2p), all sorting methods for playlist (name, date, duration, artist, ...) complete control from tray (one click pause, two restore, ... customizable), tag id1 and 2, lot of hotkeys, gracenote cddb support. It reads mp3, ogg, wma, plus all common formats and more with plugins.
You can also find excellent plugins on the site, to control qcd with more hotkeys, joypad, to add mru, bookmarks, tray icons control (to display an icon for each function, like play, stop, ...), Nero direct playlist burning, search for music files in your drives, freedb, and much more!
And it takes only 3.5mb while playing! Take a look on it, you won't be disapointed!

wmd reviewed vBeta Build 42b on Mar 9, 2003

This is one of the better players out there in my opinion. It loads very fast and has excellent features and then some found in other players you have to purchase to unlock what this one offers as standard features. Great job Paul & Matt Quinn for your efforts and making this a free product...:)

swizz reviewed vBeta Build 42b on Mar 8, 2003

perfect :)~~

Blisk reviewed vBeta Build 42a on Mar 6, 2003

The best mp3 program I have ever used. Simple, yet good looking GUI, and advanced plugins. Its worth it to download and try this mp3 player and I promise you won't regret it. I was a big fan of winamp for a few years, I came across this one from hearing about it from a friend... and I haven't gone back yet. Best of all its FREE.

Dapumkins reviewed vBeta Build 41 on Feb 25, 2003

LOL I didn't call him an idiot. Please re-read. Also "brought up on the book" is to anyone's interpretation. I think there's something wrong with it and that's my opinion.

gangstah reviewed vBeta Build 40b on Feb 21, 2003

I liked this prog, very nice to have an all-in-one. I'm not much of a skinner so I'll leave that to the mod-heads out there. However, Dapumkins, I guess I have to take exception to your "You must have been brought up on the book ;p" comment. I don't think that kind of comment has much of a place here. I was "brought up on the book, I'm raising my kids to be "brought up on the book" and I don't think there is anything wrong with that. I also think that just calling someone an "idiot" out of the blue will raise some flame, of which I'm not sure needs to be fanned here.

My opinion for what it's worth.

lotsamosi reviewed vBeta Build 40a on Feb 13, 2003

Very fast, stable, lots of customisation, wide variety of skins, and awesome support.

darthbeads reviewed vBeta Build 40 on Feb 12, 2003

This is a fantastic AUDIO player. I haven't taken the time to measure the resource needs of QCD vs Winamp 3 during playback, but it definitely loads a ton faster. Furthermore, I don't want my audio player to even be able to play video files, as, if nothing else, this makes my icons all wonky. It's silly, but I like my audio file and video file icons to look visually different without having to mess around with registry settings.
Finally, IMHO, the only people who are not welcome at FileForum/BetaNews are people who claim that other people "are not wanted on Beta News" (ahem....)

netean reviewed vBeta Build 40 on Feb 12, 2003

QCD is arguably the best music player around.
On my machine QCD QCD takes relatively little system resources (4.1M ram, 10Mb Vram) and uses 0-2% processing power for playing audio (AMD Athlon XP 2400+) This is marginally less than winamp 2 and quite a bit less than winamp 3 (on my machine)

I like some of the skins, but like winamp there are loads, some great, some rubbish, so I'd hunt around until you find one you're happy with (Note, there is a skin to make it look exactly like winamp)
Audio quality is good, IMO better than winamp, better than Coolplayer, Freeamp etc. But not quite as good as XMplay (www.un4seen.com)

Audio is a fairly subjective process and audio software will never satisfy 100% of the people 100% of the time, for me though QCD is my favourite player by a long way

nman2600 reviewed vBeta Build 40 on Feb 12, 2003

Excellent application. Small, fast, great sound, and good plug-in support.

Yet, Why can I not resize the playlist window!

egg83 reviewed vBeta Build 39e on Feb 6, 2003

If "Whatever" wants to keep using Winamp to view all of his videos, thats fine. QCD is a music player, and a good one as well. We are entitled to our opinions.

Dapumkins reviewed vBeta Build 39e on Feb 6, 2003

Well whatever_-_, I think you are the one not welcomed here. I also don't think the word "idiot" constitues a potty mouth. You must have been brought up on the book ;p I also said IF you only liked a media player for it's skinning that you're an idiot. Well you complied to the IF statement, therefore you are an idiot. Obviously, you can have whatever opinion you want, but I fail to see why you hate this player so much that you think it deserves a 1 rating. It's free and it's easy to use. It takes less resources than Winamp 3. Lets also not compare it to Winamp 2 because Winamp 2 is not being upgraded anymore.

Also if you bothered to look at the extra skins, there are media player-ish and winamp-ish skins for this player.

TurinsRevenge reviewed vBeta Build 39e on Feb 6, 2003

My best no-frills, incredibly good sounding audio player is Foobar2000. It's the absolute best sounding, low resource player available. BUT...the next best player is QCD. It's got the good looks and the extras that Foobar2000 doesn't have. QCD is a great player with a good reputation for quality.

dreamgarden reviewed vBeta Build 39e on Feb 6, 2003

What is the highest rated media player on download.com? QCD: 94% approval, winamp2: 83%, winamp3: 31%

on Betanews, QCD is 4.3, winamp2: 4.8, winamp3: 2.7
(i'm sure repeated posts by the same person *ahem* with one star don't help QCD)

Some people like QCD and some don't. If you don't like it, get a different player. If there's something you would like to have improved on QCD, the creator is very diligent in listening to all views in the QCD forum. If you don't like the skins, feel free to make one for yourself. I did.

ryker reviewed vBeta Build 39e on Feb 6, 2003

I respect your opinion "whatever_-_"; however, I don't agree. Sure, QCD isn't the MOST resource friendly and you can also find the same and more features in other programs (ie. video plugin), but I don't agree at all with the skins being ugly. Of course, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I have been using QCD for well over a year now and I think it is one of the best players out. It has an excellent feature set, the skins look great, and of course you can always add plugins to it also. It's pretty resource friendly on my machine. Playing a 128k shoutcast stream uses about 0 - 1% cpu and 12M resources. Not the best for resources, but not too bad. The main reason I use it is it's integrated ability to get a skins list, preview a skin, and then download it. Everyone I show this player to, likes it and downloads it. Also, from the ratings of everyone else here, it is obvious that many others also like the player. But of course, everyone should try it out for themselves to judge it.

whatever_-_ reviewed vBeta Build 39e on Feb 6, 2003

It's hilarious that you would talk about someone making misinformed statements about a thing when you've made several ingnorant statements here, either deliberately or out of a partial understanding of reality. That people like you still continue to operate as you do, denying reality, amazes me to no end. You are persistent, I will give you that. Nevertheless I still must put you in your place and correct your false and misleading statements.

1) A previous version of this thing did have video input plugin(s) and, if you go poking around the forum on the site, you will see several references to the ability to play video. In any case, even if this player never player video (which isn't the case), it's still relevant since Winamp 2.x has had numerous video plugins for *years* now. Noone can tout this as an altrenative to Winamp if it lacks a lot of the functionailty of Winamp. 2) The skins for this player are plain awful, no amount of misrepresentation on anyone's part can change that. But hey, I invite any third party reading this that is interested to, by all means, download the program, and try it for yourself. Have a look at the skins for yourself and make your own judgement. 3) I just downloaded this new build and tried it, and it *is*, *still*, a resource hog: it takes a lot of memory, and is slow. But once again, I invite any third party to download and try this app out for yourself. Please, by all means, give this program a try, see for yourself of what "quality" it is. The question I have to ask myself is, if this program is so great, why isn't it more popular? I mean, it's getting hyped. People know about it, and everyone is looking for a true alternative to Winamp 3 and the latest Windows Media Player revisions. I think it comes down to the crappy skins and lack of video support. But again, everyone should download it and try it for themselves. It's just too bad that File Forum doesn't track download stats so everyone could see just how many people are downloading QCD. That way we'd know if its lack of popularity is due to noone downloading it, or if it's just that people have downloaded it and determined, like me, that it sucks. My ratng stands.

gren99 reviewed vBeta Build 39e on Feb 6, 2003

1. i've used QCD for years now. it's never had a video plugin and having read through the forum section of the developers website, he's pretty much taken the stance that this program is a music player, not some do-everything media player like WMP or what winamp 3 wishes it would be. in other words, the previous reviewer had erroeous information (which a little research could have corrected -- but that's too much like making an effort, i suppose).

2. the QCD skins being ugly and whatnot -- please. compared to what? winamp 2.x? well, QCD has better skins than that player, hands down (imo). Sonique? perhaps not. WMP? yeah, right. WMP are unifromly sad. in terms of usability and diversity, QCD stacks up well with winamp 3 right now. QCD has some nice and functional skins that get the job done in a great many ways. some people prefer flashy/showy skins -- it's got that. i prefer easy to use and utilitarian skins -- got that also.

3. QCD as a resource hog. while the other 2 items i can take or leave with a grain of salt, this one is just hysterically inaccurate. on a pIII/1000 mp3 playback hovers around 8% CPU occupancy with a 5.2 meg memory footprint (running a 80 item playlist). i dare you to run that on winamp3 or or even 2.x and get similar results.

bottom line: everybody i've ever recommended QCD to have wound up loving it. if the only criticisms you can muster are ill-concieved and not supported by factual evidence, it should come as no surprise that some folks might question your cognitive capacity as a result.

whatever_-_ reviewed vBeta Build 39d on Feb 5, 2003

I c. I surely am not going to choose a player that has ugly skins, especially when one of its main features is its skinning ability. And who exactly are you to say whether an all in one player is better or not? See, that's the great things about a plugin-based player like QCD or Win Amp: it can be as basic or feature-rich as the developer and/or the user wants. I really have to ask myself exactly who you are. I mean, you come on here, spouting your potty-mouth bs. I think it's time you take your flame-baiting trash talk elsewhere. I mean it, get lost. You are not wanted on Beta News. Oh, I forgot to mention, this program is also a resource pig. Given that, it deserves an even lower rating than I first gave it.

Dapumkins reviewed vBeta Build 39d on Feb 5, 2003

If you look at the desription, it doesn't say it has video playback. If you're looking for a video player, try zoom player. There's no reason to use an all in 1 player, because they usually lack features in each department, whereas q player doesn't lack in the audio. If the only reason you choose a player is neat looking skins, you're an idiot.

Tiga reviewed vBeta Build 39 on Jan 30, 2003

Nice looking, good function controls. At last a good alternative for Winamp

Faction reviewed vBeta Build 39 on Jan 29, 2003

Sweet great great Mp3 player

romualdrichard reviewed vBeta Build 38 (Updated) on Jan 14, 2003

The best?

Yes.
Thanks!

egg83 reviewed vBeta Build 38 on Jan 14, 2003

Quite essentially, this is what Winamp 3 should have been. Not to sound hypocritical, I still use Winamp 3 because of the support and history of the player. However, Quintessential Player has a slew of useful functions, in addition to some new features that no other audio player has incorporated. Download this, and experiment with it. You will see that it is certainly one of the more innovative pieces of software on the market! (And the price is right too!)

Yeechie reviewed vBeta Build 37d on Dec 23, 2002

This player is really amazing.
I have also uninstalled winamp :)
And I also agree with that the standard skin isn't very good looking but there are plenty more skins like MMD3.

ctopaloglu reviewed vBeta Build 37d on Dec 23, 2002

Simply it is the best DOWNLOAD MANAGER ! Just try it. Forget FlashGet, GetRight, Download Accelerator ...etc. None of them are easy to use. This is very easy to use and very professional. And it is the fastest of them all. Nothing compares. Trust me !

Sunstar reviewed vBeta Build 37b on Dec 21, 2002

as you can see down lower, I was using winamp last time I posted about this
havent touched winamp since, its not installed anymore, and not likely will be again
two words describe this "the best"
as has been stated though, the default skin is pretty ugly, but there are lots of choices.
Sunstar

Floodland reviewed vBeta Build 36 on Nov 19, 2002

Yes! Another great piece of software.
If you want to know how much winamp sucks, try this beauty.
Best audio quality, less resources sucked, everything works and no spy included.
One complain though, default skin doesn't look good for me. Anyway, I bet you can find one of your taste. I did with 4-corners.

JEdwardP reviewed vBeta Build 36 on Nov 19, 2002

I've used QCD for almost two years, and tried at least ten other players. QCD offers the best balance of features and performance, such that I'd now have to be overwhelmed by another player before I'd switch permanently.

I'm not a believer in all-in-one applications as a rule, yet I've found I keep choosing QCD as my default for the various audio formats.

obewan reviewed vBeta Build 35 on Sep 12, 2002

I've tried every player out there (my registry is littered with orphaned entries), and I like QCD for performance/features the best. Only Nero Mediaplayer sounded slightly better (subjective), maybe because it has a 20 band equalizer, sure would like to see that in QCD. Has all the features I want though.

XF reviewed vBeta Build 33 on Aug 29, 2002

My favourite and only player for more than a year!! QCD rocks! I'm not a skinner but I've seen very cool new skinnning options and I'm starting to see them implemented in nice ways... :)))

Sunstar reviewed vBeta Build 31 on May 14, 2002

I use winamp normally, I keep trying new things and like this or that about them, but always go back to winamp because I'm so used to it...this is a very nice player though, I may have found the answer to winamp.

MadEx reviewed vBeta Build 30 on May 9, 2002

This is a great player! I like this one and Winamp both equally well. If you haven't tried it yet, do so now! 5 stars!

GimieGimieGimie reviewed vBeta Build 30 on May 9, 2002

Exactly what Winamp3 should be, apart from the main interface, but ain't. This is the next generation of music players, at least this is exactly what i want to get out of my music ;)

dejavu reviewed vBeta Build 29 on Apr 4, 2002

Excellent software! Excellent program! Five stars and a comet!

netean reviewed vBeta Build 26 on Jan 22, 2002

QCD is an excellent music player.
You DO NOT need to associate sound files with it for it to play
You CAN right click and add to qcd queue or play directly in QCD
has some excellent skins, if that is your thing - Although I think the default is still the best.
Has some nice visualisations - can use Sonique visualisations also
Supports Winamp skins, and DSP plugins to enhance sound
Doesn't eat a lot of system resources (visualations can though, but that is also true of winamp and sonique)

Sounds great in my opinion and for me, way better than winamp, in fact I like it more than any other music player.

MaNiC reviewed vBeta Build 26 on Jan 22, 2002

I Love Music and the 128kbit rate sux. And would all you kazaa users start zipping your stuff things are takin too long to dload. Takes too long to start up and well they could make better user interfaces im gettin sick of that old one. Could someone post the site for morpheus plz. MaNiC

captainahab reviewed vBeta Build 24 on Jan 9, 2002

Yarrr... I just need to clear up a few things. QCD is freeform skinnable (you can transfer Winamps skins to QCD as well), accepts Winamp plugins, and you don't have to associate anything to open it up in QCD. All my sound files are associated with WMP 6.4 and QCD works just fine. QCD opens at least as fast as Winamp.

It would be nice if someone actually tried this program before reviewing it.

turnaround reviewed vBeta Build 21 on Dec 1, 2001

kinda slow, kinda ugly, and not very user-friendly. Doesn't hold a candle to Winamp - to play anything besides CDs, you have to associate the file type with the program and open it via Windows explorer, rather than opening a file from the program. Annoying.

1450 reviewed vBeta Build 21 on Dec 1, 2001

This is a excellent program but BETANEWS change the status to FREEWARE because its free. I love the skins and i love the player, You should team up with Nullsoft to create winamp 3 that would be killer!

krusty747 reviewed v3.30 Beta Build 16 on Aug 17, 2001

I really like this player; it's one of the best out there, along with Winamp. The interface takes a little while to get used to, but I've found it very intuitive and fun to listen to music with. And, I like the fact that Winamp's plugins are compatible, at least, the DSP plugins, with QCD. A must have for everyone; you won't regret the time you spent downloading this.

bkrodgers reviewed v3.20 Beta on Feb 10, 2001

It's a great program!!! To those who miss the runt mode (or shadow mode), try the skin "SimplyQ" a shot. It's got it. If you liked the old QCD 1 skin, I think you'll like it.

And yes, I made it, so yes, this is a shameless plug. ; ) Enjoy!

captainahab reviewed v3.0.1 on Aug 27, 2000

Ahoy Mateys! QCD 3.01 is a ship shape MP3 and CD player that is great from stem to stern! You'll not find a cooler looking player either, arrrr.

Fixerman reviewed v3.0.0 on Aug 12, 2000

A awesome player! I paid for it in the past now it's free and better than ever. I still miss an equilizer though.

Ishtumba reviewed v2.1.010 on Mar 14, 2000

This is the best CD Audio program I have ever run across. The CDDB and skin integration is amazing. The only major complaint I have, is MP3 support. I have a P-200 and playing MP3's is nearly impossible in QCD. Constant skipping and system lag, unlike winamp. Maybe you guys should team up with Nullsoft or XING to offer us better MP3 support.

roddanger reviewed v2.1.008 on Mar 2, 2000

I just started using this CD player, I am very pleased with its performance. Seemless audio when playing CDs is most important to me, and QCD provides just what winamp cannot. Also the skins availible are phat, and the UI is highly customizable with the addition of various skins.

Gibbon reviewed v2.0.200 on Feb 18, 2000

Nice skinnable CD Player. It's got some neat features and is strong in the looks department. I'm getting to the point that I use Winamp for just about every audio need I have, but QCD is a fine alternative for some formats.

kowrek reviewed v2.0 Build 108 on Dec 17, 1999

I've used QCD1 for as long as I've known about it. There's not much new stuff that I have noticed between versions other than the awesome skin support. You don't have to stick to a certain format for skins, so there should be some VERY creative ones coming out for it. Including the "shadow mode" from version 1.
There are a few bugs still to iron out, but nothing huge. If you aren't using some variant of QCD, get this one.

chs93 reviewed v2.0 Build 108 on Dec 11, 1999

It another CD player. But the previous version had one feature that made it a step above others...the shadow mode. It was small and out of the way. The author's say you can do it with this new version by downloading a MiniMe skin for it. I tried it but it's not as nice as the previous version...so I'm sticking with the old verison. Maybe one day they'll decide to put the shadow mode back.