When comparing Vox vs Winamp, the Slant community recommends Winamp for most people. In the question“What are the best music players for OSX ?” Winamp is ranked 16th while Vox 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.
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Supports external DACs & HiRes audio
Pro WAV support
Pro Very high-quality playback
Pro YouTube playlist/channel support
Youtube URLs can be directly pasted to Vox.
Pro SoundCloud integration
Pro Last.fm scrobbling
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.
Cons
Con Interface can be confusing and unintuitive
Playlists and collections are sometimes interchangeable. Many interactions do not have the option to play music and the app is very centred around it's Loop subscription.
Con Collections and Playlists not good enough. Too simple.
When you have a big library you need a little more than just a bunch of names gathered. Adding folders to a collection put all files in a column and that's it. No sign of which album the song is from, cover etc... you have to play the file in order to see more info... Too simple.
Con Premium cost for basic functions like EQ
They upgraded to a "premium" model. Try and find an old version 2.8.x if you want a usable player.
Con Miss-reads iTunes databases
Reads compilations as multiple seperate albums. Creating a unique album for each artist in the compilation.
Con Buggy and hangs often
Con Cloud storage has hefty monthly fee
Con Uses almost as much CPU and memory as iTunes
While the interface is cleaner, the code is not.
Con GUI too small for HI Res screens
Not resizable and everything looks tiny including covers and texts.
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.