This came from a friend today:

> I uninstalled Winamp today.  Installed Quintessential player.
>  Its GOOD.  check it out:
>
> www.quinnware.com

Here’s my review:

I hesitate to give it a “GOOD” in all caps. I’d never tried it before, really giving it a shot because of your all caps-ness. I installed it and the following plugins to get it close to where I was with Winamp.

* enc_LAMEMP3encoder.exe: the built-in encoder sucks ass, lame is a req if you were gonna use this. don’t know if I will, I don’t encode that often and when I do I’ll usually use EAC or something.
* enc_OggVorbisEncoderPlugin.exe
* gen_Alpha.exe: for alpha blending the display
* gen_QCDBillboard.exe: flash song title “on-screen-display” style when switching songs. I haven’t gotten it working yet but I have a plugin like it on winamp that I like a lot.
* gen_QCDResumer.exe: will restart exact m:s where you left off when you start player
* gen_QCDScrobbler.exe: ? looked interesting
* gen_ShoutcastLister.exe: vastly inferior to winamp’s browser
* in_FLAC.exe, in_MonkeysAudioPlug-in.zip, in_MP4Plug-in.exe, in_WinampInputplug-insManager.exe: so I can get all my formats. I needn’t've (is that a word?) bothered with anything besides the winamp plugin mgr, that one seems to work fine

cons:

* NO LIBRARY! This sucks, might not use it because of this. Saw a couple of lib plugins, they sucked.
* Hotkey config won’t allow the WIN key as a modifier
* Changing window styles is awkward. I only use a minimal display, some skins didn’t seem to have one
* The mp3 icon in Windows Explorer is kinda lame
* Not a lot of plugins and skins. I went through the plugins in about five minutes.
* Default skin is not my cup of tea

pros:

* Their website design is really nice. I mean, really nice. I like it a lot.
* The UI is snazzy, there are lots of sliding and flashing going on in the right places, it works well, even though I hate the default skin. I changed it and now I feel better about the whole thing.

default skin, hal is not a fan

playlist