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The winner of our roundup was SMPlayer. It wasn't the quickest player to launch
and load files, but it never took more than two seconds, which we think is an ac
ceptable wait. It excelled where it mattered though - in CPU and memory performa
nce. Thanks to a maximum memory footprint of just 80MB, and average CPU utilisat
ion just that little bit more efficient than the other two players on the podium
, SMPlayer emerges as the best performing media player for 2014.
------------MusicBee
Platform: Windows
Price: Free
Download Page
Features
Manages all your media and supports a number of formats including MP3, AAC,
M4A, MPC, OGG, FLAC, APE, Opus, TAK, WV, WMA and WAV.
Create and manage playlists, and "smart" playlists that update based on cust
om filters
Enqueue songs into a "Now Playing" pane for on-the-go playlist creation.
Watch folders on your hard drive for changes and automatically adjust your l
ibrary accordingly
Import libraries from iTunes and Windows Media Player
Sync Android phones, USB drives, some iPods, and many other portable music d
evices with your library
Convert files on-the-fly as you sync to your devices
Auto-tag your music using the music databases of your choice
Keep your files automatically organized in folder based on tags
Customize a number of different keyboard shortcuts
Subscribe, download, and listen to podcasts, either by searching MusicBee's
podcast directory or by adding feeds yourself
Use advanced audio features like a 10-band equalizer, crossfade, WASAPI and
ASIO playback, and more
Customize your player with skins, different layouts and views, and three dif
ferent players including a mini player and compact player
A plugin architecture that lets you add lots of functionality to the player,
like extra supported formats, skins, library organization tools, and other feat
ures (Winamp plugins supported)
An integrated browser that allows you to browse for just about anything in-p
layer (useful for browsing plug-ins, skins, and so on)
Where It Excels
MusicBee hits the perfect sweet spot between easy to use, customizable, powerful
, and lightweight. iTunes converts will have no problem getting to know the inte
rface, but will also be able to easily add and moving panes for things like lyri
cs, Now Playing, artist information, and a lot more without the pain of something
like foobar2000. You can sync with a number of devices (though iOS syncing is ve
ry limited), auto-tag your files, customize a ton of keyboard shortcuts, and per
form a ton of other advanced features or if you prefer, you can just play your mus
ic through a simple, good-looking player. And best of all, it's completely free.
Why Does Everyone Hate iTunes? Should I Be Using Something Else?
Dear Lifehacker, I feel like every time I browse a music forum online, people ar
e hating on iTunes.
Read more
MusicBee only has one active developer working in his spare time, but it's also
updated pretty darn often, has a great wiki, and a helpful forum where the devel
oper is very active.
Where It Falls Short
As the jack of all trades, there are always other players that will be masters o
f one, and such is the case with MusicBee. It's very customizable, but not as in
sanely customizable as foobar2000. It has some useful advanced tagging and synci
ng features, but doesn't quite reach the power of MediaMonkey. If you need to sy
nc lots of iOS devices, MusicBee will prove problematic (which is Apple's fault
more than MusicBee's), and you might be stuck with iTunes, MediaMonkey (which ca
n sync more iOS devices), or a third-party program like Copy TransManager just f
or syncing.
MusicBee also has a few other small annoyances. For example, MP3 and AAC encoder