When comparing Winamp vs Dopamine, the Slant community recommends Winamp for most people. In the question“What are the best audio players for Windows?” Winamp is ranked 5th while Dopamine is ranked 18th. The most important reason people chose Winamp is:
Modern features are essential for power listeners nowadays, proving that Winamp (while an old app) still offers features users look for in a modern player.
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Pros
Pro RSS, Atom Podcasts, and Internet Radio streams (among other modern features) are available
Modern features are essential for power listeners nowadays, proving that Winamp (while an old app) still offers features users look for in a modern player.
Pro A huge selection of skins are available
Winamp allows skinning the interface and there are thousands of community created skins available.
Pro Functionality can be extended via plugins
A wide variety of DSP, input, and visualization plugins have been created by the community.
Pro Great search and Playlist functionality
Considerable functions to search and develop playlists.
Pro Good sound quality
The sound quality of Winamp is good, especially with DSP plugins like enhancer.
Pro HTTP streaming support
HTTP streaming is necessary for both live and on-demand content, which it can deliver without lengthy buffering or waiting periods. It is also less susceptible to network hiccups than other forms of streaming.
Pro Beautiful
Can play FLAC too.
Pro Light, easy to use and looks good
Pro Fetch artist biography or lyrics
Pro Play by folder possible
Pro Can use your Windows 10 theme
Pro 2 visualizer to choose from
Pro Can display lyrics
Pro Miniplayer mode
Pro Built-in equalizer
Cons
Con Relatively poor quality audio
Compared to other players, Winamp doesn't offer high quality audio.
Reason for Winamp's lesser audio quality compared to other modern audio players is that it uses deprecated audio output interfaces (APIs). In fact since Windows Vista onward, those APIs Winamp is using (such as DirectSound, WaveOut) are emulated in software mixer for compatibility purposes further distancing the audio path from the hardware.
Modern audio players support modern WASAPI audio output for direct access to the audio hardware (especially in WASAPI exclusive mode). For more info see Wikipedia's entry on DirectSound.
Con No Major updates
There are no major updates since version 5.
Con Heavy
At the beginning it was simple to download and install, now it has so many things it became very heavy to download.
Con Cluttered interface
With all controls, skins, and options it's hard to find the basic commands.
Con When track ends, next alphabetical track plays automatically, even when playlist empty
This app will continue to play unrequested music until you press the stop button.
Con Doesn't support Album titles that are shared among different artists
"Greatest Hits", for example, will be treated as a single, huge album with different artists' tracks and a single album cover that will be wrong for most.