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What are the best music players for listening to high quality audio (FLAC etc)?

17

Options
Considered

404

User
Recs.

Sep 1, 2023

Last
Updated

Here’s the Deal

The Best 1 of 17 OptionsWhy?

Best music players for listening to high quality audio (FLAC etc)	Price	Platforms	Release Date
90 MusicBee	Free	Windows	January 3, 2022
89 Audacious	Free	Windows, Linux, BSD	-
83 foobar2000	-	Windows/MacOS/Android/iOS	December 31, 2019
-- MPV	-	-	-
-- AIMP	Free	Windows, Android	January 13, 2020

MusicBee

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Top Pro

WASAPI/ASIO support

High-end audio cards can be used to their full potential easily due to WASAPI and ASIO support without any additional software. See More

Top Con

Windows only

DebonairTiurakh's Experience

UPnP not being followed up and doesn't work reliably currently - cannot understand why since it is in so much demand these days. Shame because otherwise this is the best music player out there. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows

Release Date:January 3, 2022

License:All rights reserved

Top Pro

Lots of ways to organize media

Built-in music tagging system to organize your collection. See More

Top Con

Installs pictures that are irrelevant to the artist being played

damian101's Experience

Better than MediaMonkey. See More

Top Pro

Customizable look and feel

MusicBee can be skinned. Skins can significantly change the appearance of a player. To apply a skin it has to be downloaded, moved to the appropriate folder and after restarting MusicBee, applied. A collection of skins can be found here. It's also possible to customize the layout by choosing which panels to display. See More

Top Con

Non intuitive

Difficult to handle, very few playing options, doesn't find folders inside folders. See More

ProudClementia's Experience

was fed up with the EQ processing and lack of skins on my JetAudio player so went looking -- MusicBee is unbelievably customizable - i've been tweaking it for days - and the EQ is outstanding. See More

Top Pro

Functionality can be extended via plugins

A collection of plugins can be found here that extend the uses of the app from iOS support, last.fm support to streaming services support. See More

Top Con

MP3 and AAC transcoding requires installing separate encoders

Due to licensing reasons, MP3 and AAC encoders don't come bundled with the software and have to be installed separately. See More

IngeniousEreshkigal's Experience

if this is the best music player we are in trouble See More

Top Pro

Integrates with Last.fm

MusicBee allows scrobbling with Last.fm. See More

OptimisticNgariman's Experience

Does not allow drag and drop of songs to include them in a playlist. See More

Top Pro

Synchronized lyrics

In addition to automatically pulling lyrics for songs, MusicBee can synchronise music playback with lyrics. See More

Yanis's Experience

All the options you need... If you like to have tat many ! See More

Top Pro

Waveform seekbar

Top Pro

Simple interface

MusicBee offers a very straight-forward and easy-to-use interface. See More

Top Pro

Can autofill information on songs

MusicBee can automatically identify songs based on their sound signature and use that information to pull metadata about the song (such as tags, artwork, and lyrics). See More

Top Pro

Great EQ

It has a 15 band and applying positive EQ doesn't warp the other frequencies. One of the best of them all. See More

Top Pro

Discogs tagging support via plugin

Top Pro

Re-organize and rename files via tags and more

Move files, rename files. Use tags, logic and formatting. See More

Top Pro

Portable version is available

A version of MusicBee can be used without having to be installed. It can be kept on an external device and run from that. See More

Top Pro

Music Bee Remote is a great option for controlling music from using a phone while streaming from a laptop

Top Pro

Supports seeing time on seek

MusicBee tells you the time you are seeking to on mouseover on the seek bar. See More

Top Pro

Can convert media

Top Pro

Remarkably responsive interface with small to medium numbers of files

Your media library is stored in a flat file rather than a traditional database, limiting its ability to manage truly massive collections of audio files, but offering far reduced processing overhead for small to medium-large collections. See More

Top Pro

Ability to lock down access to settings

It's possible to lock down access to settings while still having access to the player. It's great for parties allowing guests to browse and play music without worrying if they will mess something up. See More

Top Pro

Auto-playlist creation with powerful rules

Top Pro

iOS sync support

There is a plugin available that allows users to sync their iOS devices including music ad podcasts. See More

Top Pro

Supports Winamp visualizers

Top Pro

Good podcast support

MusicBee allows the user to subscribe to and auto-download podcasts. See More

16 Other Options Considered

Audacious

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Top Con

Mediocre sound

Just mangles the notes. See More

Top Pro

Lightweight

Relatively speaking, audacious doesn't occupy much space in memory. See More

CromulentAmmit's Experience

Just compared this to Musicbee & XMPlay on Windows 11. Really poor, grainy & muddled in comparison. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Linux, BSD

Top Con

No bit perfect output past 24bit

Audiophiles require this, and while most users might not notice a difference, audiophiles will appreciate the improved audio quality. See More

Top Pro

Support for Winamp themes

Audacious can switch from its GTK interface to one that matches the looks of the famous Winamp player. What's even better is that this interface supports any Winamp themes, which allows for more options. See More

Top Con

Updates are not very frequent

Top Pro

Folder oriented player, but able to play any music container and highly configurable

Lets you play, delete and even change metadata of your music files. See More

Top Pro

The easiest player for multiple types of files - dts, aac multichannel, etc

Top Pro

Tons of plugins

Top Pro

Streamlined player not weighed down by unnecessary options

Audacious is a classic music player at heart that has not felt the need to weigh itself down with an assortment of unnecessary options. Advanced functionality can be attained through plugins available from within the program. See More

foobar2000

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Top Pro

Functionality can be extended with components

foobar200 has over a hundred componenets to choose from that add ui functionality, decoding support for various formats, etc. See More

Top Con

Outdated Plugins

Many, many plugins are outdated and not maintained for years, leading to stability issues with a lof of them. A rather complex SDK and missing sufficient documentation makes maintaining or creating new plugins unnecessarily hard. Getting to that neat GUI setup you've seen somewhere is probably impossible because of that. See More

damian101's Experience

I like the look of this software. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows/MacOS/Android/iOS

Release Date:December 31, 2019

License:BSD-2-Clause

Top Pro

Lightweight

Foobar2000 has a clean, minimalistic UI, small filesize and is light on resource usage. See More

Top Con

Requires a bit of work to get up and running

OptimisticNgariman's Experience

Won't save playlists. Worthless. See More

Top Pro

Transcodes all supported audio formats

The converter component allows foobar2000 to convert from and to any file formats that the player is capable of playing back. See More

Top Con

Cumbersome start-up

Foobar2000 requires a bit of work to get it up and running. See More

Top Pro

Highly customisable

Top Con

Not easy to skin

Out of the box it looks like something out of win2000. It is also very difficult to skin for the normal user. See More

Top Pro

Supports a wide variety of audio formats

Foobar2000 natively supports MP1, MP2, MP3, MPC, AAC, WMA, Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, ALAC, WavPack, WAV, AIFF, AU, SND, CD, Speex, Opus and support for additional formats can be added with plugins. See More

Top Con

Provides little in terms of hand-holding

Advanced things like skinning and installing components may be a bit intimidating to beginners because they require knowing your way around the computer not just the player. See More

Top Pro

Good quality

It was made in order to be as respectful to music as it can be. See More

Top Pro

Plugins can be used to bypass Windows mixer to output a bit-exact signal

Through the use of a plugin (of which there are three popular ones) users can get bit exact sound output straight to their DAC or soundcard. While not something every user will use, for audiophiles this is a pretty important feature. See More

Top Pro

Easy to use

You won't get confused because of its simplicity. See More

Top Pro

ReplayGain support

ReplayGain can be applied on a per album or track basis, allowing the user to set up an even volumed listening experience. See More

Top Pro

Advanced layout

The player has a layout-editing mode that allows for a wide variety of ui setups. See More

Top Pro

Skinnable

Foobar 2000 has powerful theming support. See More

Top Pro

The many add-ons (components) available

Includes dynamic range analysis, integrity checkers, equalizers, and visualizers, such as waveform, oscilloscope, spectrum, spectrogram (waterfall), peak and smoothed VU meters, and X-Y (Shpect Lissajous) displays. See More

Top Pro

Internal search is a beast

Foobar2000 provides an extensive search to look through your library. It supports special queries to only look for certain tags and other conditions and is incredibly fast in doing so even with over 20k of songs in your library. See More

Top Pro

Random/Shuffle on an album basis.

I'm old enough to have a lot of music where whole albums are worth listening to. This is also essential when the composers created music where the flow from one song to the next is part of the art of the album. E.g. on Queen's ANight_at_the_Opera_, the first song -- Death_On_Two_Legs -- is a very hard rock song with very pissed off lyrics. The next is _Lazing_On_a_Sunday_Afternoon, which is a very lighthearted amusing song. The contrast is wonderful. Also many artists have one song flow into another and breaking them up by using random on a song basis really breaks the music. Plus shuffle prevents repeats until the entire playlist is done. If you want, you can select individual songs and the are shuffled as if they are the entire album. It's harder to describe than to do: configure play mode to shuffle albums If you're like me -- and I know I am: add library to list play But you can be more selective: select albums (or songs if you only like a few) do { play_the_shuffled_list(list); if (mood("not in for the current")) skip(); if (mood("change_the_list)) change_the_list(&list); } while !shuffled_off("mortal_coil"); die("happy"); See More

Top Pro

Supports DSD via plugin

Plugin is needed, there are many tutorials online how to set it up. See More

Top Pro

Simply the Best

The most customizable with respect to UI elements and screen organization, hundreds of available high-quality free visualization, conversion, and analysis plugin tools. Free DLNA media server and compatible with Windows Media Server IR remotes and wireless keyboards. See More

Top Pro

Variety of skins available

Browsing a site like DeviantArt will give you hundreds of skins (that have been made by other users) to choose from. See More

Top Pro

MP3 player management

Users can easily send their music files to their MP3 device through the use of the right click menu when browsing their library. See More

Top Pro

Built-in support for Windows Media streaming

Foobar2000 can natively play ASX/MMS/RTSP streams. See More

Top Pro

Good compatibility with Windows Media Center IR remote controls and wireless mini-keyboards

Foobar works well with Windows Media Center IR remote controls with virtual mouse functions; also with wireless mini-keyboards. See More

Top Pro

Compatible with Microsoft Media Center (MMC) remote controls

MPV

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Top Pro

Lots of options. Complete documentation.

Top Con

You will have to read the manual if you want to get full potential.

Top Pro

Extremely responsive

Top Con

Lack of a typical GUI can be jarring to some

The minimal interface comes at the cost of beginner-friendliness. You need to know keyboard shortcuts by heart, settings are set in text files, right-clicking won't bring up a menu, etc. See More

Top Pro

Caches livestreams

Intelligently caches livestreams and enables jumping within the cached stream. See More

Top Pro

Minimal interface

Click to open files and get Video with sound (and passthrough of codecs like DTS etc) for a perfect cinema experience. Works okay for many files. Default window is not much more than a title bar - and if you drag/resize the window it resizes the video and leaves no empty areas. There is no visible control or display unless you use mouse/keyboard over the window. This is the best player to use unless you're going for a media center (then use MPV based Plex Media Player to display and play the Plex Server library). See More

Top Pro

Integrates with streaming services

When used with youtube-dl. See More

Top Pro

Needs no additional codecs

Everything MPV needs to play media files is contained within which means no outside codecs are needed. See More

AIMP

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Top Pro

Free

Top Con

AIMP "Help" only in Russian and English

AIMP's "Help" included in the software itself is only available in Russian and English. See More

OptimisticNgariman's Experience

Interface not intuitive. I don't want to learn another app just to play my mp3s. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Android

Release Date:January 13, 2020

Windows Versions Supported:Vista/7/8/8.1/10 (64-bit)

Top Pro

Useful audio library

AIMP can play, manage, and filter music stored in the whole computer or specified folders. It is able to read metadata from music files' tags and perform real-time searching out of it. See More

Top Con

Cluttered and confusing interface

The interface is very busy and not intuitive so it can take a while to become familiar with it. The skins don't conform to specific design standards so they often have different behaviors. You can read more about it here. See More

PersistentKinieGer's Experience

Excellent handling of WASAPI and ASIO. Select files in Explorer and bulk send to Converter. Explorer integration in general. Uses BASS as audio engine. See More

Top Pro

Multiple playlist management

AIMP can manage multiple playlists by a tab system, similar to web browsers. See More

Top Con

No MacOS option

CredibleGoibniu's Experience

I'm in love with this player for 10 years now, as far as it will keep on updating and improving, i'll never change it. It deals with my 1TB internal memory of music (all flac) in seconds, even in shuffle mode. Amazing. See More

Top Pro

Extra add-ons

Top Pro

Delete files from player

Simple and good working ability to delete files right away from the player. See More

Top Pro

Supports audiophile-level playback quality

Other music players usually require separate plugins for this, but AIMP comes by default with the modern WASAPI (Windows Audio Session API) audio output support thus providing purest sound output unadultered by the Windows mixer (in WASAPI Exclusive mode) out of the box. See More

Top Pro

Among the best audio quality for Windows audio players

AIMP uses the BASS library, which provides one of the best audio quality of all currently available music players for Windows. See More

Top Pro

Playlist creation

Top Pro

Tag Editor + Audio Converter can carry out a multitude of tasks

AIMP has two tools for further music management. Tag Editor lets you add album art to audio files, fix metadata to individual files or to all files included in a folder, rename filenames, complete tags from filenames and viceversa, and more. Audio Converter lets you convert an audio file into another format (for instance, from FLAC to M4A). You can choose quality parameters, renaming of files, and output paths for converted files. Audio conversion supports multiple core encoding, so if your CPU has four cores, you can convert audio using 1, 2, 3, or 4 cores. See More

Top Pro

Lightweight skinning

Even with lots of skinning options, AIMP is lightweight and works on the smallest computer. See More

Top Pro

Internal updater

AIMP updates using its built-in updater, so you don't have to visit AIMP's website and download the whole installer every time a new version is available. See More

Top Pro

Multiple audio codec compatible

AIMP supports a huge list of audio formats and several playlist types. See More

Top Pro

Mini Player support

AIMP can be maximized, restored, sent to the tray, or switched to Mini Player for your convenience. See More

Top Pro

DSP manager allows for sound effects

AIMP has a digital sound processor manager which lets you apply sound effects to the output audio in real-time. These effects include: echo, reverberation, Flanger, Chorus, bass, enhancer, speed, tempo, and pitch. It also has a voice remover feature for stereo audio files. See More

Top Pro

18 band equalizer + 22 presets + preamp

AIMP has an 18 band equalizer (which is manually customizable), plus 22 presets by default [user can add his/her custom presets]. It also includes a +15/-15 dB preamplification. See More

Top Pro

Multiple other features

AIMP has many more features including: dither, anticlipping, customizable hotkeys/shortcuts, customizable player's user agent string, access to Favorites audio files and playlists, rating for tracks, tracklist export, optional temporary information bar with track info every time a track begins, volume normalization, ReplayGain support, volume fading between tracks, and more. See More

Top Pro

Excellent equalizer

Top Pro

Multiple languages available

AIMP is available in 36 languages, including: Russian, English, Arabic, Portuguese (Brazil), Spanish (Argentina), Spanish (Spain), French, German, Italian, Chinese (China), Chinese (Taiwan), and more. See More

Top Pro

Great controls

Top Pro

Icon sets available for download

The user can download icon sets for different audio formats. See More

Top Pro

Allows for radio capture

AIMP can grab internet radios' audios and save them to drive, in real-time. You can save the streaming in its original format, or choose the codec manually [AAC, OGG Vorbis, OPUS, etc] and its bit rate. You can even save its CUE log and split files, if desired. See More

Top Pro

Support for several WinAmp's plugins

AIMP supports several plugins originally designed for WinAmp. However, it also supports new plugins designed for AIMP itself. From visual plugins to extra codec support, YouTube playlists playback, Soundcloud playback, or spectrum analysing, these are a selection of supported plugins. See More

Top Pro

Built-in scheduler

AIMP has a scheduler which lets you stop playback, close the program, or turn off your computer at a specified time/period. See More

Top Pro

Waveform seekbar

AIMP's seekbar features a waveform display of the entire audio file for easier navigation within the sound file. For example you can easily see where are the silences which is especially useful for podcasts and talked content. See More

DeaDBeeF

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Top Pro

Extremely customizable

DeaDBeef has support for title formatting scripting, like foobar2000, which allows you to customize group patterns, the converter output, the window titles, etc. to your needs. DeaDBeeF also has a Design Mode, which allows you to add new widgets to the interface and move/delete existing ones. See More

Top Con

Terrible GUI

Stop reinventing (ugly) GUIs. Just play music! See More

HarmoniousSuijin's Experience

lightweight and simple, support most extension See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Linux, Mac, BSD

Top Pro

Lightweight

DeadBeef uses few system resources, making it great for low end systems and for those requiring a media player that uses as few resources as possible. See More

Kirill Gorin's Experience

A foobar2000 under Linux) See More

Top Pro

Uses GTK2 or GTK3

Users are able to choose a GTK2 or GTK3 build of the application to use within DeaDBeeF. See More

Top Pro

A lot of plugins

DeadBeef has a lot of different plugins users can use to customize the interface, controls, and options. See More

Top Pro

ALSA plugin allows bit-perfect pipeline to DAC

Top Pro

Supports single-album CUE files

Resonic

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Top Pro

Pure sound

Groove sounds better than VLC. Resonic sounds better than Groove. IMHO See More

Top Con

Rip off

Specs

Platforms:Windows Vista, 7, 8, 8.1, 10 (32 and 64-bit)

Release Date:March 21, 2019

License:Proprietary

Top Pro

Clean interface

Top Pro

WASAPI/ASIO support

High-end audio cards can be easily used to their full potential without any additional software due to WASAPI (Player and Pro) and ASIO (Pro) support. See More

Top Pro

Lightweight

About 8 MB, and about 11 MB with the integrated Soundfont for its MIDI playback synthesizer. Native application, no dependencies (no .NET runtime). See More

Top Pro

Supports all formats

WAV, BWF, RF64, AIFF, AIFC, FLAC, APE, ALAC, WV, TTA, DSF, DFF, MP3, MP2, MP1, M4A, MP4, AAC, MPC, MP+, OGG, OPUS, SPX, WMA, WMA Pro, WMA Lossless, MP4, WMV, AVI (certain codecs), MID, RMI, KAR, IT, XM, S3M, MTM, MOD See More

Top Pro

Fast

Top Pro

Portable version available

VLC

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Top Pro

Can also display movies

Top Con

Learning curve for some advanced uses

VLC has terminal roots VLC was originally written as a terminal extension for media over lan, hence video LAN. This does make for a convoluted situation on creating bindings and some text based command line instruction in modifying advanced features such as digital channel expansion and non-standard filters. See More

lostinlodos's Experience

Cross platform See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows/MacOS/Linux/Android/iOS/ChromeOS/AppleTV

Release Date:August 19, 2019

Top Pro

Can play every format video available (as of 2017)

Top Pro

Free, open source, and cross-platform

VLC is licensed under the CC-SA v3.0+ and available on Windows, OSX, and Linux with source code available here. See More

Top Pro

Tons of advanced settings

Besides basic configurations, video player has an extensive amount of adjustable settings. See More

Top Pro

Doesn't require additional codecs

Everything VLC needs to play media files is contained within which means no outside codecs are needed. This makes it one of the most hassle-free music players as it can play virtually anything as soon as it's installed. See More

Top Pro

Simple to setup and use

VLC is an incredibly robust application but very simple on the surface. It makes playing music simple, yet still manages to give the user all the tools he/she wants in a music player. See More

Quod Libet

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Top Pro

Great for organizing and editing large collections

Quod Libet gives the user the necessary tools to edit and organize their library from within the app. There is support for tags as well to help you quickly find the music to fit your mood. To help you sort through large libraries, you can use the filters which help filter by genera or other search perimeters. See More

Top Pro

Lots of plugins available

Quod Libet offers many plugins including Last FM sync, lyrics support, and iOS sync. See More

Top Pro

Easy to use

Despite very good library management capability, Quod Libet is easy to use. The base music player doesn't have too many features, making it a breeze to use. However, if you want to go deeper you can install plugins. These plugins can sometimes add complexity, but it's up to you what you do or don't want. See More

MediaMonkey

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Specs

Platforms:Windows/Android

Release Date:January 10, 2020

License:Proprietary

Windows Media Player

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