Someone reviewed v on Jul 5, 2022

Pros: 555

Cons: 555

Bottom Line: 555

roj reviewed v3.8.0.5 on Jan 14, 2014

Always loved this and unlike Foobar2000, the WASAPI implementation on this player actually continues to work properly with USB speakers.

FIVE stars.

dhry reviewed v3.8 on Dec 27, 2013

Excellent little multiformat player with low resource usage and a long development history. However, I've been wishing for years that they would provide an option to just use standard Windows UI as an interface in addition to the custom skin system. The auto-updater could do with a tweak as well - instead of sending you back to the website when it detects an update (where you then have to try and figure out which zip file to download and where to extract it to), it could do with taking a leaf out of Foobar2000's or Miranda NG's automated plugin and main exe updaters. Still, this guy gets 5 stars.

smaragdus reviewed v3.8 on Dec 27, 2013

XMPlay now renders the Cue Sheets the way I like- as separate tracks! With plug-ins XMPlay can play almost all audio formats, is extremely small, light and portable! A great player!

smaragdus reviewed v3.6 on Jun 3, 2013

The current version of XMPlay is 3.7.0.0.

Apart from the default skin which I dislike my problem with XMPlay is that it did not list the tracks within a cue sheets as separate tracks but treats them as sub-tracks so one can see neither the name nor the duration.

sweathog reviewed v3.6 on Mar 21, 2011

Lite on resources. Plays everything. Outstanding sound quality. BTW, I don't get the UI complaints voiced by others, below. I use the MMD3 skin, which works virtually the same as the MMD3 skin for Winamp and several other media players.

betabettabest reviewed v3.6 on Dec 28, 2010

-Great sound quality. The better your equipment, the more you'll appreciate that.
-Best ASIO support of any player, significantly better than Foodbar's. Best WASAPI support, too.
-Plays anything you throw at it -- files, playlists, urls.
-Their Winamp plugin converter wasn't working with the latest DFX, so I emailed them--and they wrote an update in 1 day. Show me that kind of service anywhere else.
-Excellent file info.
-Interface takes getting used to; try different skins until you find one you like.

Plumber reviewed v3.6 on Dec 23, 2010

Ditto to what tranglos said. UI suck is endemic in this category.

Input Overload reviewed v3.5.1 on Sep 25, 2010

Brilliant little program, AIMP was my music player but I saw XMPlay mentioned on another review I decided to investigate. I'm glad I did. Great program, lots of skins if you are into skinning. An easy 5 stars.

tranglos reviewed v3.5.1 on Sep 17, 2010

Another entrant in the competition to make a media player totally unusable to most people over 20!

This one wins hands down in the category of "Make all the important buttons tiny and devoid of contrast so that they can't be told apart or clicked confidently". Also in the category of "Put important functions where the user least expects to find them" - like the [x] close buttons in the upper right corner of one window, and the upper left corner of another.

And hey, developers! With Aero glass, Microsoft finally managed to design a pleasing UI, and the standard window interface has been pretty functional since Win95, so why not just use that instead of creating non-standard windows / titlebars that are all of (a) uglier (b) less functional (c) harder to use?

I should add that the screenshot above is in no way similar to what you see when you download and run XMPlay. Although that particular skin does indicate that the designer's ambition is to imitate early versions of QuickTime/iTunes - one of the suckiest UIs ever seen on Windows. And oh, the reason I run Windows is to have my apps imitate the Mac UI. Yeah... right.

Next!

garretthylltun reviewed v3.5.1 on May 21, 2010

It's small. It's easy to use. It lacks all the bloat and bull of other mainstream players. It's free.

roj reviewed v3.5.1 on Feb 10, 2010

I like Foobar.

However, I am in no way, shape or form going to say that it is far superior to XMPlay. As far as I'm concerned (and I've been experimenting with players for about ten years now so I'm quite qualified to have an opinion on the subject), there are only two players worth downloading if one is interested in audio quality primarily as well as a balanced feature set:

XMPlay

Foobar2000

They both sport a very high degree of audio quality (both feature WASAPI and ASIO support without which an audio player cannot boast any competency at quality audio), attention to detail, cleanliness of code (READ: BUG FREE) and necessary audio features sans useless frills. Furthermore, neither is bloated nor slow, an extremely rare commodity.

In short, both typify the very best of what an audio player should be, something no other audio player (or wannabe media player) can claim.

One final advantage that this player DOES have over Foobar is that it has a polite, helpful, intelligent and mature community behind it and special kudos go to the author who is very customer oriented (read: he listens to his users and does not make arbitrary decisions steeped in arrogance). The Foobar camp desperately needs to grow up and take lessons in all those departments.

This is excellence.

Enjoy it as such.

FIVE stars.

dhry reviewed v3.5.1 on Feb 10, 2010

Finally, a nice player to complement the far-superior, more feature-packed foobar2000. Perfect with Pieknyman's SID plugin and the HVSC.

bobad reviewed v3.5.1 on Feb 10, 2010

My favorite music player by far. I like the fact you just unzip it and run it. Send it to your flash drive and use it anywhere. I like the way it uses an INI file, making it hold on to music file associations reliably. Unlike the Windows Media Player abomination, It launches instantly and sounds great too. XMPlay makes all other music player look bloated and clumsy.

Bart Welson reviewed v3.5.1 on Feb 10, 2010

Finally a nice player to replace that clumsy, ugly, buggy, much overhyped foobar2000.

JustForMyMemory reviewed v3.5.1 on Feb 10, 2010

simple, fast, stable, lightweight and amplification killer-feature.

need i say more?

@Bart Welson: +3
I think foobar2000 is pretty idiot, it is really not smart and restricted..

anomoly reviewed v3.5 on Dec 24, 2009

I had a couple of plugins in the root and the newer versions in the plugin folder. It will read the root first and so kept telling me I needed updates. Streaming url's seem to work much better too. Now that's an update!

The Seeker 11 reviewed v3.5 on Dec 23, 2009

@nitnekpc

Under 'Miscellaneous'.

blast reviewed v3.5 on Dec 23, 2009

3.5 - 22/12/2009
----------------
* Built-in AIFF support
* Crossfading
* Track rating
* Configurable SRC quality
* More flexible search system (present/absent directives)
* Quick find shortcut
* Case-insensitive search support for non-ASCII characters
* Logarithmic volume option
* Volume muting
* Queue toggling is now optional and dequeue option added, allowing duplicate entries
* CUE sheets for written internet streams
* Timestamping of separately written internet stream tracks
* "Stop at end of track" option to temporarily disable looping & list advancing
* Options to close XMPlay at the end of the current track/list
* Playlist sorting by tags
* Options to only play newly listed tracks when not already playing or after bookmarking
* Optional moving of existing duplicate tracks
* Optional default queuing of new tracks
* Optional auto-sorting of new tracks by filename
* Optional removal of original file extension when writing to disk
* Optional replacing of filename underscores with spaces in titles
* Title format length limiting
* Separate title format for playlist panel
* Replaygain pre-amp adjustment
* Replaygain limiting according to peak level
* Support for LAME replaygain info
* Tracks played from library or search results are insterted at front of queue
* Random setting optionally affects next/previous controls
* Assignment of track actions to extra mouse buttons
* Shortcuts to jump to top/bottom of list/library
* Archive plugins added to input plugins list
* Winamp input plugins sorted by filename (so order can be changed by renaming)
* Playlist track tags retained in library
* Playlist periodic auto-saving
* Library backup file (XMPLAY.LIBRARY~)
* Auto-saving of settings upon closing "Options and stuff"
* Support for MO3 2.4
* Optional disabling of help bubbles
* Optional hour column in time displays
* Improved communication with Explorer (via OLE instead of DDE)
* CD plugin: Read speed limit option
* CD plugin: Support for CD drives with letter A/B

niknetpc reviewed v3.5 on Dec 23, 2009

Cool little audio-player. Portable and low RAM usage,only 1.3 - 3.5K .Perfect for netbooks. NO option to drop to sys.tray.

winamp reviewed v3.5 on Dec 23, 2009

new!! Crossfading!!!

netean reviewed v3.5 on Dec 22, 2009

an outstanding player. Just look at the download size! IT's portable, it's fast - almost loading instantly. It sounds amazig (using the BASS sound system - xmplay and BASS are developed by the same person)

The default skin sucks donkey arse though, but it takes 2 seconds to download a better one.

Media manager is ok but I don't really use/need that, but for what it is - it works well.

As a music player this is just the best there is. simple, fast, with loads of inbuilt features (auto amping, volume leveling to name but two of many)

roj reviewed v3.5 on Dec 22, 2009

The only alternative I have to Foobar 2000.

ASIO, WASAPI, ReplayGain, Crossfading, AND skinning.

This is what I call a triumphant return.

AIMP languishes in this player's dust.

FIVE stars.

dhry reviewed v3.5 on Dec 22, 2009

Awesome player. Pieknyman's SID plugin is the icing on the cake. *8-)

Zoroaster reviewed v3.5 on Dec 22, 2009

Quote:
"XMPlay 3.5 released
Adds crossfading, AIFF support, track rating, some track searching enhancements, some Replaygain enhancements, and a bunch of other stuff. See the "readme" for a full list."
---
I just love this little gem, small & fast, add a few plugins and choose iXMPlay skin (downloadable on homepage, that's the one you see here), and you've got a slick bass-engined audio player. Accesses also CDDB databases for cda files. Neat, nice!

Virtual_ManPL reviewed v3.4.2.1 on Jul 22, 2009

poor interface and library management...
but based on bass files ;)

Sephiroth... reviewed v3.4.2.1 on Apr 9, 2008

Wow, now support for cover download and Winamp visualisation. With this now need for useless bloated crap like winamp

Chocobito reviewed v3.4.2.1 on Nov 27, 2007

One of the best Music Player and with the best sound quality engine. The only player that I found that plays real audio on-line radios.

wind11 reviewed v3.4.2.1 on Oct 6, 2007

superb sound quality. i like xmplay bass engine.
stable / no bloated wares.

roj reviewed v3.4.2.1 on Sep 30, 2007

The deafult skin isn't great art but is palatable. I now use Neutron which I do like. regarding resizing the playlist, use the extended playlist, turn off autosizing and enjoy. My beef with the player was that it was too small for me to see at my screen res but a resize of one of the skin sources cured that. There are now ASIO and DirectSound plugins which really hit the spot. I'm away from the invasiveness, bloat and poor memory management of Wianmp and rocking in the free world again.

FIVE stars for excellence and good to be home.

cricri_pingouin reviewed v3.4.2.1 on Sep 4, 2007

I'm back to foobar2000.
My major complain about XMPlay is that you can't get away WITHOUT using a skin, and I didn't find one that I love.
Besides, maybe I'm dumb or something, but I can't find a way to resize the playlist, so my files names are trunked, making the playlist totally useless.
I switched back to foobar2000 for which I use the foo_ui_columns.dll plugin, and for me, it does the trick much better.
I give it a 3, i.e. 1 point down from my previous review for the problems mentionned above, and tbh I think I'm generous. Let's say it's a 2.6 rounded up.

Comit reviewed v3.4.2.1 on Aug 21, 2007

Switched from Coolplayer to XMP last week. Very nice lil' program. The best bang for the buck from what I've seen (buck being system resources) :P

dhry reviewed v3.4.2.1 on Aug 4, 2007

Always happy to see new versions of this player, but it's pointless to run 3.4.2.1 until it either supports the aforementioned plugins (ESPECIALLY the SID plugin) or else all those plugins get updated to the new version. I'm staying with the previous version until one of the two conditions above are met.

anomoly reviewed v3.4.2.1 on Jul 31, 2007

Xmplay will tell you when it needs an update which is handy indeed. Although when I added the cover art svn's I had to hunt for xmplay.exe v3.4.2.121 to get it to work.
For very large folders of music you MUST add in parts. Because it will always be a truly portable ap, using it for your 'library' of music is not recommended imo.
Foobar does not do radio streams, but it's lib interface is noncompar, even in a portable setting.
As a simple no nonsense dedicated portable audio player there is no other but xmplay.

Zoroaster reviewed v3.4.2.1 on Jul 31, 2007

@blast, provided link here is ok and corresponds to ver 3.4.2.1, while your link downloads old ver. 3.4.2 : perhaps the author hasn't updated his website yet...

A 5+ for XMPlay, my favorite player. This new version 3.4.2.1 brings an enhanced and modified settings interface, an ever better overall quality.

Best sound in town in less than 300kB, amazing.

blast reviewed v3.4.2.1 on Jul 31, 2007

The download link is bad. (older version 4.2)

Lastest(?):
http://us.un4seen.com/files/xmplay34.zip

Tao2005 reviewed v3.4.2 on Jul 13, 2007

Here's a good media player. I can still name better.

Ian C. reviewed v3.4.2 on Jul 9, 2007

Been using this app for a while now, never saw it on BetaNews though before now. Great program, very light weight, and no stupid unneeded features.

nms04 reviewed v3.4.2 on Jun 29, 2007

it needs multi-playlist support!!
but the rest of this program is more than perfect!!

bunghole reviewed v3.4.2 on Jun 29, 2007

Still only 305k. Friggin awesome.

Lands reviewed v3.4.2 on Jun 29, 2007

Great little application and some awesome plugins. I use it for a very long time already and I have anything but very good words about it.

bobad reviewed v3.4.2 on Jun 28, 2007

I think XMPlay is the best of its type ATM. Just the features you need, and without a lot of bloat. It's portable!

Here is the changelog. I guess the author got lazy. ;)

3.4.2 - 28/6/2007
-----------------
* Library menu options and shortcuts to select all tracks with matching tags
* Reverb "time" parameter
* Configureable internet connection timeout and pre-buffering
* CDDB and CDTEXT info shown separately
* Option to prefer CDDB or CDTEXT for tags
* Updated version notification

grimpr reviewed v3.4.1 on May 22, 2007

A little player with more than meets the eye...compact,extensible through various plugins, skinnable, library manageable, but the one feature that Xmplay that outshines its other strong merits is its fabulous BASS audio engine, simply put nothing comes close to this programs excellent audio output fidelity (no dsp plugins pls) except Videolan. Xmplay was born as a mod player years before but since then has emerged a full featured and very compact program for simply listening to digital audio and seems has a lot of evolution to it.

Very highly recommended.

bunghole reviewed v3.4.1 on May 21, 2007

This player is the best. My only gripe is that the photo here shows some Mac-ish skin...which could turn some people off from trying XMPlay. The default skin doesn't look that crappy.

No offense to whomever made that skin, though. (To each their own.)

cricri_pingouin reviewed v3.4.1 on May 1, 2007

Now that there is a DirectSound plugin that does not restrict the output to 2 channels, I'm back to XMPlay! I also like the Neutron skin available on the website, I'm not a fan of the default skin.
Apart from that, it's very nice overall, small, efficient, and it doesn't need to be installed. However, I wish I could drive the program from the keys of a multimedia keyboard though, so that's 1 point down for a score of 4. I'd like to find a way to link it to Samurize as well, but that doesn't affect my rating.

Kal-El reviewed v3.4.1 on May 1, 2007

3.4.1 - 1/5/2007
----------------
* Updating of saved settings
* Amp slider range increased to +/-15dB in DSP options
* Replaygain levels shown in "General" info
* Shortcuts for auto-amp and to reset amplification
* "-list" command-line option to add files to list
* 3D spectrum speed toggling (middle-click)
* Library display options moved to header right-click menu

alecmg reviewed v3.4 on Apr 17, 2007

Was my favorite player for a long time before I got a 5.1 sound system. Now with 3.4 a DirectSound plugin was released - and that means I will hear my favorite music from all speakers once again. Its very compact, no-nonsense, but all-included. It sticks to playing audio and does it wonderfully. Also looks and skins very well. And media library best of its kind.
VUPlayer was my previous pick, same author.

anomoly reviewed v3.4 on Apr 13, 2007

Trying to add all 22956 properly tagged mp3 files crashes it. I had to add incrementally. Too bad I sold the pc with the asio driver card as it now has an asio plugin. nice update!
Skins and plugs are updated too. Too bad the plugs aren't dated for easy reference.

M a t t L e e reviewed v3.4 on Apr 10, 2007

small, doesnt have to b installed, nice sound, can create play lists. whats not to like? whatever this doesnt have their is a good free alternative. deep burner for burning, cdex for ripping. those three combined take up less space than my ex fav player in media monkey

thebig429 reviewed v3.4 on Apr 3, 2007

Excellent! Better sound than before. Wish it had shoutcast listings built in like winamp

xcorpio22 reviewed v3.3.0.6 on Dec 5, 2006

I have to say that I'm impressed with the sound quality of this program not to mention the few resources required to run it (Under a MB with visualization running!!). I don't really see a problem interfacing with the program because you can choose from 50 + skins to please your eyes.
Goodbye Foobar, Winamp, QMP.

anomoly reviewed v3.3.0.6 on Dec 1, 2006

YES!. As far as 'eyecandy', since when does a player need to be seen? I stare at my screen enough without spending hours just getting a stupid gui to do what I want especially when it's entire purpose does not even require that. The biggest difference between this & foobar is the fact this requires no install, and has everything in a simple interface that does not require a learning curve ( fn retarded). even if foobar was easily configured, I like the fact this is portable. Foobar ,eat my dust.

roj reviewed v3.3.0.6 on Nov 30, 2006

Another incremental release that refines an already excellent player. I have to agree on the default skin and the others offered are little better (often worse) with the notable exception of the WMP10 skin.

Small, light, fast, excellent playlist, excellent sound, no bloat of any kind *and a volume control where users require it*.

This is my baby. :)

FIVE Stars.

JEdwardP reviewed v3.3.0.6 on Nov 30, 2006

As I suggested in my most recent review of foobar, this player does have the POTENTIAL to make me switch to it (and it's one of only two players I've seen since I started using foobar three years ago that I can say that about).

And I do agree with the earlier reviewer who points out that we tend to make too much fuss over the interface of AUDIO players.

But that's one of three reasons why, for me, foobar still rates higher than XMPlay. I don't sit and watch my audio player do its job, so I don't want ANY eye candy, but for those times when I do need to look at the player or playlist, I want the cleanest, simplest, easiest to read display possible, and this is what foobar gives me --- out of the box --- all I need to adjust is the playlist font.

XMPlay's default skin is a highly colored, hard to read mess, and even the best alternate skin I tried for it was far less comfortable than foobar's default UI, which some have dubbed the "Notepad Look".

In addition, foobar offers two or three plug-ins that I find FUNCTIONALLY useful, which XMPlay lacks, and which are worth the increase in size and memory usage to me.

As for output, foobar's will be the equal of XMPlay's if kernel-streaming is used.

XMPlay is very good. I follow its progress, and I'd recommend it to anyone who had already rejected foobar for whatever reason. For me, though, foobar is still better.

Nikkie reviewed v3.3.0.5 on Nov 2, 2006

The program that got me to switch from coolplayer.Nice work!!

Hendei reviewed v3.3.0.5 on Oct 14, 2006

the best
simple, functional and beautiful too

moserw reviewed v3.3.0.5 on Oct 13, 2006

Excellent piece of software. I read in a forum that its output was the best and now after having checked it out for myself I can attest to the fact that its true. Don't know why people keep complaining about its GUI/interface. After loading the playlist my media player sits in the tast bar or tray, while I continue on with my work. You need to listen to a media player, not watch it, not at least while listening to music. System resources too are way too low. The best of the lot right now and I have tried most of em'... Winamp, MediaMonkey, iTunes, Windows Media Player, Coolplayer, Foobar2000, QCD, VLC to name just a few.

http://nela.in/

brotherS reviewed v3.3.0.5 on Oct 2, 2006

"All supported file types (including MODs and archives) can be streamed from FTP and HTTP servers (inc. Shoutcast/Icecast/Icecast2), optionally writing a copy to disk" --> I didn't yet figure out where the options for the last part of that are hidden, but it's a great tool to run from your USB drive!

bunghole reviewed v3.3.0.5 on Aug 7, 2006

Genius

Mirrebex reviewed v3.3.0.5 on Aug 1, 2006

Excelent.. a powerful lightwheit player!!

Pantagruel reviewed v3.3.0.5 on Jul 17, 2006

Amazing player, the only mp3 player I use. The sound is so much better than anything else i tried. Very cool.

Hall9000 reviewed v3.3.0.5 on Jul 16, 2006

Lets see. Small size. Unzip and play. Voila! No install! Now that's different from a lot of bloatware I'll leave nameless. The settings and preferences are a bit different from what I'm used to seeing, still, because of the ease I had making it go and the good sound quality I got from it I will give it a four without any hesitation. The five will probably come after having played with it more.

Well now it's a FIVE. I wonder if the EQ could come in a ten band version. Yes, I'm finicky. :P But even as it is I'm just loving it more and more. A few quirks but I blame those more on my slow learning curve than the program itself.:P

Skizelli reviewed v3.3.0.5 on Jul 15, 2006

I'd give it a 5, but there's no DirectSound output.

thebig429 reviewed v3.3.0.5 on Jul 15, 2006

Excellent! I wish AAC+ And Shoutcast radio listings would be built into it. ( Yes you can install AAC+ Pluging your self)

DarkMana reviewed v3.3.0.5 on Jul 15, 2006

You also need to remember that this is THE player for any tracked music. The fact that it's so extendable is merely an afterthought (in my opinion.)

bobad reviewed v3.3.0.5 on Jul 15, 2006

I like the small size, portability, flexible config, and support for many file types. I do not like the high memory and CPU usage, and noticeable lag when launching. A change log posted on FileForum would be very nice. And what's that postage stamp-sized screen shot about? May as well not post a SS at all.

benZin reviewed v3.3.0.5 on Jul 15, 2006

Good, very simple, and the iTunes skin rocks.

cyberia reviewed v3.3.0.5 on Jul 15, 2006

If it would run G-Force, which is my goto visualization plug-in, then I'd give it a 5 without hesitation.

InSuboRdiNaTioN reviewed v3.3.0.5 on Jul 15, 2006

Unequivocally the best.

Don Juan reviewed v3.3.0.5 on Jul 14, 2006

My favorite audio player. Very light weight compared to any other player out there. Has every type of functionality seen on any other audio player plus much much more. Only thing it's missing is an "About" window so that you can see what version you're running (Unless it's already there and I missed it).

anomoly reviewed v3.3.0.5 on Jul 14, 2006

Fixed crash when you try to load one to many songs(200gb music folder), except now with that much music loaded it takes 50+% cpu-Not that I use it to organize my music. I don't. Just wish xmplay had an asio driver plugin like foobar. What it really boils down to is sound & ease of use & in this respect there is no equal. And it will play any radio stream you can get your hands on.
Thank You XMPlay devs

roj reviewed v3.3.0.5 on Jul 14, 2006

Having tested the new last version of Foobar, it's pretty clear to me that it has no inherent advantages over XMPlay and falls significantly behind it in the interface department. The two players produce excellent detailed sound on my Revo (it too has dithering / soundshaping for those that require it) but I personally prefer to have little amenitieslike a volume control on the interface proper instead of kludged into a hotspot at the bottom right hand corner of the player where no one would ever expect it to be. In addition, ape support actually works on XMPlay in bug-free fashion, and there are a plethora of other formats supported natively. Finally, obvious little niceties like Explorer context menu support have long been standard and were not an afterthought - foobar has just lately acquired this feature. That speaks for the finesse and ease of use of one player when contrasted with the "oh yeah, maybe I should add that obvious feature" interface design mindset of the other. In short, any claims that Fb2k is "superior" to this player or somehow more "real" are nothing more than elitist rhetoric.

It's a small player for people who appreciate a minimalist approach that doesn't compromise audio quality, functionality or usability. It doesn't use the Registry, requires no install program, is lighter on resources than every other player of note today (3.9Mb / 3-5% CPU on my XP 2600+ with 800+ files in the playlist) and and in general is a pocket gem.

Other players should take lessons from this software.

FIVE stars for my default player of choice.

Sintares reviewed v3.3.0.4 on Jun 25, 2006

Excellent player for older machines and operating systems.

Using XMPlay on an ancient P2, 350mhz machine running Win98FE and it only uses 15% cpu cycles.

Its skinnable, has plugin support, can save streamed radio to disk, and does not need to be installed and thus does not steal associations !

Much better sound than jetaudio and winamp (i use the older 2.91 version as the new one barely runs on a machine as old as this) , faster opening files than WMP or MPC.

The only thing I miss from using winamp is to be able to run a visualisation plugin such as an old version of Milkdrop , if it could do that it would be next to perfect !

anomoly reviewed v3.3.0.4 on Apr 7, 2006

I love xmplay. WAY BETTER than foobar which is ugly and a pain in the a** to customize (don't waste my time). As long as there are no plugin conflicts you are good to go. Will only play mp4 if quicktime is installed. And as far as direct sound, I HAD to purchase a sound card (creative's x-fi extreme) just to GET quality audio output from my pc. Once you get your skin (i like the one shown) & your plugins set, you can copy the folder to any pc (or flash drive) & use it. No need for reinstallation ever. Simple, powerful, & free.

dhry reviewed v3.3.0.4 on Apr 7, 2006

This is a pretty nice player (although Foobar2000 kicks its a** almost across the board). Pieknyman's Delix and SID plugins are what makes this program shine (http://dhost.info/pieknyman/download.html) - if you want a 'real' player for MP3, MPC etc then get f2k. I can't say I like this interface of this one - if you're skin-crazy then you might, but I've tried about ten skins and each one of them cramps the buttons, places them in strange areas and you just need to spend way too much time looking across the program trying to find the button you actually want. An option to allow a simple, regular Windows GUI interface for this would be much appreciated.

Skizelli reviewed v3.3.0.4 on Apr 7, 2006

Sweet little media player. I only wish you could use DirectSound as your device/output.

Pantagruel reviewed v3.3.0.4 on Apr 6, 2006

Great player. Very light, very good sound. Produces much better sound than winamp and others I've tried.

lilcech reviewed v3.3.0.3 on Mar 22, 2006

This is a really good program so ill have to give it a 5

heybirder reviewed v3.3.0.3 on Mar 19, 2006

Very impressed with this player. I've been a long time user of Quintessential player but was looking for something smaller and this fits the bill.

Not a lot of bells and whistles but I have other best-of-breed tools to do the things lots of players do half as good and waste resources.

Kal-El reviewed v3.3.0.3 on Mar 6, 2006

i like xmplay, i love the ixmplay skin :D

Update (.3)
"the changes include faster playlist loading, updated Winamp DSP wrapper (reset option), disabling of "Insert disk in drive" (CD/floppy) dialogs, "PT1 -filter" MOD mode, support for track numbers in CUE titles, support for filters in XM files, an "Auto advance" shortcut, and a "NoReg" secret INI setting to disable file association options."

Mirrebex reviewed v3.3.0.3 on Mar 6, 2006

Simply amazing.. the additional plugins you can download at support.xmplay.com make this tiny player a excelent choice.. A player as it should be.. light, stable, customizable and free!!

dejavu reviewed v3.3.0.2 on Mar 1, 2006

Light. Excellent. Superb freeware!!

kmrdeva reviewed v3.3.0.2 on Feb 25, 2006

Superb audio quality, but XMPlay's configuration options are hopelessly complex, and its playlist management features are too confusing.

I've gone back to Winamp Lite.. :-(

Update : Damn, I'm back with XMPlay - it took me all of 10 minutes to miss its audio playback quality..

InSuboRdiNaTioN reviewed v3.3.0.2 on Feb 17, 2006

Minimal resource usage and all the features you could ever want. Simply the best.

agamen0n reviewed v3.3.0.2 on Feb 8, 2006

This is really the best player ever... It have the plugin support of winamp, with the possibility of same visual, with about 2mb usage of ram. The menu is a little confuse in the beggining, but nothing from other world. You have to try it!

anomoly reviewed v3.3.0.2 on Jan 27, 2006

Thanks for the plugin info. neva knew. I wish all soft was standalone. What a relief that would be

alabaster reviewed v3.3.0.1 on Jan 23, 2006

to anomoly:

xmplay it's winamp input plugins compatible, so you can use the winamp ape plugin

but you can also use the xmplay native ape plugin: http://support.xmplay.com/Plugins_native.html

anomoly reviewed v3.3.0.1 on Jan 23, 2006

good for a portable player say for an external drive of music. doesn't support some types though. ape for one. I'll stick with jetaudio as it will play anything I throw at it.

bobad reviewed v3.3.0.1 on Jan 23, 2006

Very nice player. The Good: Just the right set of features. Flexible configuration. Sound is good. Setup size is small. Plays MOD, IT, S3M, and 669 files. Once set up, the program is portable. Nice selection of skins. The bad: A little bit slow loading when an associated file is clicked in Explorer. Score it a 4.4 out of 5. Dead heat with Billy and Evil Player! :)

WebWarp reviewed v3.3.0.1 on Jan 23, 2006

Surprice :)

One of the few programs I hadn't tested before, and I was actually impressed, a long time since the world has seen a new, good, music player .. Still a lot to do but an impressive filesize, its memory consume are however as high as foobar so nothing to gain there as fare as I can see..

Kal-El reviewed v3.3 on Dec 23, 2005

v3.3 rocks for two reasons:
settings are now stored in an ini file instead of the registry.
and the release of the iXMPlay skin. :)

roj reviewed v3.3 on Dec 23, 2005

So, now we have CD-TEXT support and a lot of other refinements to an already great player. Those refinements were achieved without adding any unnecessary bloat or resource utilization from a CPU and RAM perspective. Also, the settings are truly portable now - they've been moved OUT of the Registry and into a .INI file.

XMPlay even has a volume control on the main interface and a slide out to make the EQ easily accessible (take a lesson, FUBAR devs? this is how it's REALLY done).

The sound quality of course remains superlative courtesy of the BASS engine and there is a very comprehensive group of input format plugins.

My two recommended players of choice, XMPlay and VUPLayer, both use that excellent BASS engine, which bespeaks their audio quality (XMPlay is the author's showcase of his engine). Both also have managed to maintain a sensible balance between functionality and resource usage while having UIs that are very simple to use. Finally, both support a plethora of formats.

No other player out there can claim ALL of these qualities in a single package: not QMP, not FUBAR, certainly not Winamp and not even Apollo.

FIVE stars for a terrific Christmas present from the author of XMPlay (and BASS).

knivez reviewed v3.2.0.7 on Nov 10, 2005

This is the best player around, i used to be a hardcore winamp (2.91) fan until i discovered this jewel.
It's small, portable, it doesnt messes with your registry (i really hated all the redundant right-click on folders menu elements winamp added), it has plugins for most audio formats, it's completely skinnable (don't get turned down by the default skin, you can change its default look in a snap), it has advanced customization options for the power users, plugins (there's even a msn messenger "what's playing" one :P)..

give it a try, you'll love it.
Kudos to the developer.

prudon reviewed v3.2.0.7 on Oct 8, 2005

Hace rato que vengo siguiendo este reproductor, y es el mejor. No requiere instalacion, usa mínimos recursos de procesador(el que menos utiliza de todos los que he probado), y bastante poca memoria. Aunque tiene muchas opciones para modular la salida del audio, es muy sencilla su utilizacion.
Soporta plugin de Winamp para ampliar los tipos de archivos aceptados, y es Freeware.
Que mas se le puede pedir?
Gracias!

bunghole reviewed v3.2.0.7 on Sep 27, 2005

XMPlay needs more love. A review of another audio player on FileForum was the only place I'd ever heard of it before. Since I've been using it I've had no problems whatsoever. It's feature rich and damned near perfect. I have no idea why it isn't more popular or why it hasn't spread like wildfire.

Thanks very much to the author(s). 6 stars for this one!!

biggman15 reviewed v3.2.0.7 on Aug 1, 2005

Nice Roj... Drop the Q completely... At any rate Maybe you know what's new in this version? Any Ideas?

Anyway... You forgot to Mention the Tiny download Size.... :)

marcdesbiens reviewed v3.2.0.6 on Jul 24, 2005

Best player ever. I used 12 different ones over the years, this is the only one I think is 100% bug free, it's not fancy but it has ALL the features that I think ae essential, hotkeys, etc. I'm listening to it right now actually, it's my
default player for mp3's.

fraksion reviewed v3.2.0.6 on May 20, 2005

+ Sound quality
+ Streaming support (no drops even when dl/ing - immediate resume)
+ Stream diskwrite
+ Sound settings on frequency, depth, etc (no need for MAD plugin)
+ Plays all important formats flac, ape, mpc, mp3, ogg
+ Zero bloat

- Needs skinners, any skinners outthere get your hands on this gem

imposeeugenics reviewed v3.2.0.6 on May 20, 2005

Not exactly sure how the ability to pretty up the sound post decoding renders MAD useless, but maybe I'm just ignorant and lazy : ).

Apart from that I agree with you in full fraksion sir.

Brian49 reviewed v3.2.0.3 on Mar 7, 2005

The overall score given to this program (3.5/5 at the time of writing) is just absurd - it's a superb player on almost every count. The only drawback for me is that it lacks the range of polished skins some other players can boast (QCD, Winamp), which I'm convinced puts off potential new converts. By the way, the screenshot shown above is of the version 2 default skin, which doesn't help; it was superseded some time ago, and in any case there are better non-default skins.

christoofar reviewed v3.2 on Feb 14, 2005

dang, does anyone but Roj review this thing? LOL
Pretty nice player, lots of flexibility, good forum support too.

roj reviewed v3.1.0.6 on Sep 26, 2004

To counter:

There is nothing wrong with the sound. While that is subjective, it is also quite often a function of equipment that isn't up to the job and needs a helping boost from an equalizer. I prefer absolutely flat playback (the more linear and flat it is, the better as far as I'm concerned). To that end I have equipment that supports that, specifically a M-Audio Revolution 7.1 and Monsoon Planar Media 14s. On that rig with AutoAmp and all audio do-dads neutered including the equalizer, XMPlay is indistinguishable from my mainstay QMP + MAD. I do have dithering and sound shaping turned ON in the Devices menu which matches MAD, a decoder that also uses dithering and soundshaping in similar fashion.

Memory Usage? 6.7Mb when playing a 293Mb FLAC file, which means it has the Winamp FLAC plugin loaded. Apart from that I also have the Winamp Monkey's Audio plugin in there as well. That's pretty slim and certainly less than Winamp / on par with QMP.

Loading sluggish? Not on the P3 733 with an old 15Gb Quantum Fireball Plus LM that I tried. CPU usage is a wee bit high on that box though, oscillating between 2 and 8 percent.

As I mentioned above I turn off AutoAmp and similarly can appreciate the comment on not posting the history of changes.

Improved Explorer integratiuon would be appreciated a la QMP. There is however a third party plugin which can be downloaded from the XMPlay support site (which is not the same URL as the main player site) that will happily add the two Registry keys to the Explorer interface to enable that.

Seamless / gapless MP3 and OGG playback work extremely well.

I'm giving this player a 4.5 rating (DirectSound support and a Crossfader a la QMP would be nice – something for the future) but since this site doesn't support half values, I'm rounding it up to 5.

bobad reviewed v3.1.0.6 on Sep 25, 2004

Very nice and stable player. Freeware is always appreciated. Here are a few beefs, all of which downgrade only a little, but add up to a 2 point hit: **Memory usage is higher than necessary. **Loading is sluggish on slower P4 and P3 machines. **Sound is consistently dull, and must be brightened up.**Default volume is unnecessarily low and the Auto Amp must be overridden. **Author does not post change history when submitting to FileForum. Come on man, post the history! :(

roj reviewed v3.1.0.4 on Aug 11, 2004

Gapless Playback! Halleleuia! It's About Freaking Time! Welcome to the 21st Century!

Note: I wasn't limiting my beef to the lack of ogg gapless playback only. I was miffed that the player didn't support gapless playback for ANY format (and ogg in particular).

To the person complaining about resource usage:

I have no idea what you're talking about. On this XP box with an Athlon 2000+ and 256Mb of DDR266 (it's my office machine) the player uses almost zero CPU and a whopping 6.5Mb of RAM. How much leaner do you want it to be?

Well done!

ghammer reviewed v3.1.0.3 on Aug 8, 2004

Pretty nice player with good support.

roj- maybe most people don't really care about OGG. MP3 or WMA work fine for lossy compression. APE is great for lossless.

bobad reviewed v3.1.0.3 on Aug 8, 2004

Nice, very nice. Just the compact size and features I want. My only beef is that it uses a lot of resources. It uses so much RAM and so many CPU cycles the computer is practically unusable for anything else. Try to move the player during playback, and it causes "trail" type video artifacts. The sound is not as clean as CoolPlayer, but that's no disgrace. No other player's is either.

Brian49 reviewed v3.1.0.2 on Aug 3, 2004

The composite 3.1/5 rating (before I submitted this review) doesn't reflect the excellent characteristics of this program. Its sound quality is superb and its ability to connect quickly and smoothly to audio streams in different formats is the best I've come across. My only reservation is that most of the available skins are pretty uninspiring!

roj reviewed v3.0 on Feb 25, 2004

STILL no seamless ogg gapless playback? After over a year and being provided with a pointer to the source code of a player that implemented it over two years ago?? Come ON - let the lead OUT!

ap1978 reviewed v3.0 on Feb 25, 2004

If you're into the demoscene or just a big fan of tracked music (MOD, IT, S3M, XM and several other formats) there aren't any player out there that reproduces the sound as correct as this one. The interface could have been better yes, but the comfort of not having to launch the trackers the songs have been made with for every format makes XMPlay a killer-app in my opinion. It also play mp3, ogg and such and has support for Winamp plugins so lots of other formats can be played too. It also supports a variety of archive formats -important because compressing the mod type files saves a lot of space. It seems that other people judge this as "yet another audio player" but aren't aware of it's qualities as a player for mod formats, where it really shines and for that it deserves a crystal clear "5" on the rating scale.

scodan reviewed v3.0 on Feb 25, 2004

Terrible interface, like most skinned applications.

adaminferior reviewed v2.8.3 on Dec 15, 2003

Great program I have used this for over a year now and enjoyed it greatly. I am now switching to winamp5 lite with the MAD decoder. I tested both winamp+MAD and xmplay and found them to be comprable on my system and to my ears. Since I like the interface of winamp better I am choosing to go with that at this point. Still excellent program and I would be happy with either one. As for loosing a playlist I have never had the happen even with my 3500+ mp3's and their is always a save playlist option if you're find that that is a problem.

calamari reviewed v2.8.3 on Dec 6, 2003

Don't waste your time downloding this crap. The program is highly unstable, I lost my entire playlist after a crash. Over one hour of work down the drain:((

poberlin reviewed v2.7 on Jul 2, 2003

Back with an update. Been using Jetaudio for a few months, also tried coolplayer for quite a while also. Jet audio has mucho features, plus it plays wma and ram files. But, the bass is just muddy, and the preamp gain can't be adjusted, had to normalize lots o' files because they were distorted otherwise. Coolplayer is about the same featurewise and for sound quality. But, XMplay gives you the reverb and surround options, giving it the overall edge. So, xmplay remains my first choice for best sound quality, Tried 'em all, so far this one's the best!

roj reviewed v2.6 on Mar 29, 2003

This player has the best audio quality of any I have heard to date and that includes Winamp + MAD (stock Winamp with the FhG decoder isn't worth mentioning), FB2K (see the comment on Winamp), Sonique and even CoolPlayer. The BASS engine is remarkable. It also uses a whopping 2.5Mb *with full freeform skinning capability* - this is something no other player can match> This is living proof that one does not have to have a stripped down interface to save on resources; one simply has to know what they are doing. I have one minor and one major quibble with the program: the Add Directory function does not work unless the "recurse subdirectories" checkbox is selected and OGG gapless playback has not yet been implemented. The author has promised to look into the latter and the directory bug has been reported so I have no doubt that it will be squashed. With those two issues fixed, this player will become my recommendation of choice for audio quality, appearance and lean-and-mean-while-still-having-a-quality-interface.

poberlin reviewed v2.6 on Mar 4, 2003

Very good sound quality. I've been using Quintessential player with DFX plugin. XMplay sounds just as good maybe better, but that's so subjective... A bit less reverb and not as wide a soundstage, but that could be a plus or minus depending on your preference. I highly recommend trying this player, it definitely sounds better than most all of the others out there. Plus some unique options for the sound like interpolation and reverb.

NYC60 reviewed v2.4a on Jul 28, 2002

It's small, feature packed, and just plain sounds terrific! The author manged to put in very useful features while maintaining a small footprint in both size and system resource usage. Well done. It's free, not to have this is just palin wrong!

tonywaihi reviewed v2.2 on Jan 16, 2002

move over winamp. this little player is nothing short of brilliant with interpolation and ramping and the reverb option just blowing me away. i am telling all my friends to try xmplayer. streaming on my trusty rockwell 56k (without constant buffering)is just too good and winamp and ultraplayer pale into insignificance. tiny memory footprint, limited cpu use, huge sound,heaps of options, beautiful interface and free!!! what more could an old zakk wylde fan want?keep up the good work. xmplayer rules!

regards

tony bird
waihi
new zealand