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The age of MP3 players ended when streaming became ubiqutous. I know some OSS players that became worse over time. The usablity hero that was amaroK became so

The age of MP3 players ended when streaming became ubiqutous. I know some OSS players that became worse over time. The usablity hero that was amaroK became so bad after an overhaul that it was forked as Clementine. For example, if you had shuffle on, and double-clicked a song in your playlist, a different random one will start. Then Clementine now sometimes hangs when you rewind an MP3. It understands where the new position is and that it is supposed to be playing, just can't. They also unlearned a tiny UI improvement that I've contributed a decade ago. Indeed they would be a much better product if they did nothing other than fixing bit rot. I remember there was a Gnome option, wonder if it is alive. Can't remember the name though.

toast0 3y ago
> The age of MP3 players ended when streaming became ubiqutous. I mean, I'm an old man yelling at clouds, but I use Winamp to stream music all day at work, and I have for 20 years. I've been a paid subscriber at Digitally Imported [1] off and on (mostly on) since 2008. But I've been streaming from them with winamp and sometimes other players since probably 1999. Audio streaming existed before Winamp and Shoutcast, but a lot of early streaming was built around Shoutcast. I've used other players, but came back to Winamp. I could stream in a browser window, but winamp uses 18 mb of memory, and I don't think I can have a browser tab open for less than that. Plus, having it in a dedicated application means I don't have to worry about my browser freaking out and ruining my audio experience. [1] https://www.di.fm/ https://www.di.fm/
- throwway120385 3y ago
  I've been wondering where it all went.
- freedomben 3y ago
  I hadn't heard of them, and the price seems really good. I love the idea of being able to use apps like Winamp or similar. Does di.fm have much mainstream music? What is the selection like compared to a Spotify our Youtube Music? I wouldn't even care that much honestly if they have mainstream music, as long as they have music I would like and can discover without extreme effort.
  - toast0 3y ago
    di.fm is focused on electronic dance music. They serve currated 'channels' based on genres (radio style). I've never been impressed with mainstream services when listening to electronic dance music, and I stopped trying; for me, it's better to let someone else do the picking. Sometimes, a local FM station does well; I like my local station c895.org and there was a nice station in Los Angeles for a while when I was living there around 2003, but it got bought by a more mainstream competitor and then format switched to something completely different. If you want mainstream music, di.fm has a sister site https://www.radiotunes.com/ https://www.radiotunes.com/ with more mainstream genres; but listen for a while with the free browser based streams to see if you like it; sometimes I want to listen to dad rock and it's not exactly what I'm looking for. If you enjoy picking specific songs, this isn't the service for you. They've also got some other affiliated sites for classical, jazz, and rock, which I haven't used in quite some time. It looks like they all share accounts now, but classical used to require separate membership for ad free streams.
NoboruWataya 3y ago
Your post makes me realise that (unlike with most other software, like window manager, browser, office suite, etc) I've never really had a clear favourite FOSS music player. Even before Spotify (which has been my primary music player for years now). I've tried all the main ones, but none really stuck. ncmpcpp came closest.
- bombcar 3y ago
  My Most used player was mpg123 - being able to install that without bringing in X is why I started in gentoo.
- OkayPhysicist 3y ago
  I'm a passionate VLC fan. Got it on my phone and PC, and set up streaming audio from my phone to my computer (so that I can change songs and whatnot from my phone while listening to music in the background of a fullscreen game). Plus it has the uncanny ability to play any media file known to man.
  - thriftwy 3y ago
    VLC is great wheb you have 10 mp3s to play. When you have 10,000 you need library scanning functionality, etc. I believe these aren't VLC selling points.
    - OkayPhysicist 3y ago
      I've got a couple thousand music files on my SD card. Never ran into any issues, though come to think of it, unlike on my phone I'm not sure there's a clear "browse by artist/album/metadata" capability on the PC version of VLC. I don't run into that issue since I use my phone as the source of truth for my music collection for the most part, and just use VLC on the PC as a way to receive the stream from my phone.
freedomben 3y ago
> I remember there was a Gnome option, wonder if it is alive. Can't remember the name though. Are you talking about Rhythmbox? If so, yes it is still alive! And pretty good. Not as great as things used to be back in the glory days of Amarok, but still pretty good. The important thing is that it hasn't regressed. It is mostly bug free, and still has that really badass power-user shell/scripting API that you can use. It has a lot of features now that cater to self-hosters but still enable social (such as Scrobbling). I use it quite a bit to play FLACs I bought/buy on Bandcamp. Strawberry is another one that some people really love, but felt a little heavy to me. I think Navidrome is my future honestly. I have it set up but most of my music collection is disorganized so I usually return to youtube music. If more bands would sell their stuff on Bandcamp or anywhere DRM-free (besides Amazon, who I used to buy music from until one day they decided to make it really difficult to download. Now I don't trust them), I suspect I'd be all self-hosted before long.

toast0 3y ago

> The age of MP3 players ended when streaming became ubiqutous. I mean, I'm an old man yelling at clouds, but I use Winamp to stream music all day at work, and I have for 20 years. I've been a paid subscriber at Digitally Imported [1] off and on (mostly on) since 2008. But I've been streaming from them with winamp and sometimes other players since probably 1999. Audio streaming existed before Winamp and Shoutcast, but a lot of early streaming was built around Shoutcast. I've used other players, but came back to Winamp. I could stream in a browser window, but winamp uses 18 mb of memory, and I don't think I can have a browser tab open for less than that. Plus, having it in a dedicated application means I don't have to worry about my browser freaking out and ruining my audio experience. [1] https://www.di.fm/ https://www.di.fm/

throwway120385 3y ago
I've been wondering where it all went.
freedomben 3y ago
I hadn't heard of them, and the price seems really good. I love the idea of being able to use apps like Winamp or similar. Does di.fm have much mainstream music? What is the selection like compared to a Spotify our Youtube Music? I wouldn't even care that much honestly if they have mainstream music, as long as they have music I would like and can discover without extreme effort.
- toast0 3y ago
  di.fm is focused on electronic dance music. They serve currated 'channels' based on genres (radio style). I've never been impressed with mainstream services when listening to electronic dance music, and I stopped trying; for me, it's better to let someone else do the picking. Sometimes, a local FM station does well; I like my local station c895.org and there was a nice station in Los Angeles for a while when I was living there around 2003, but it got bought by a more mainstream competitor and then format switched to something completely different. If you want mainstream music, di.fm has a sister site https://www.radiotunes.com/ https://www.radiotunes.com/ with more mainstream genres; but listen for a while with the free browser based streams to see if you like it; sometimes I want to listen to dad rock and it's not exactly what I'm looking for. If you enjoy picking specific songs, this isn't the service for you. They've also got some other affiliated sites for classical, jazz, and rock, which I haven't used in quite some time. It looks like they all share accounts now, but classical used to require separate membership for ad free streams.

NoboruWataya 3y ago

Your post makes me realise that (unlike with most other software, like window manager, browser, office suite, etc) I've never really had a clear favourite FOSS music player. Even before Spotify (which has been my primary music player for years now). I've tried all the main ones, but none really stuck. ncmpcpp came closest.

bombcar 3y ago
My Most used player was mpg123 - being able to install that without bringing in X is why I started in gentoo.
OkayPhysicist 3y ago
I'm a passionate VLC fan. Got it on my phone and PC, and set up streaming audio from my phone to my computer (so that I can change songs and whatnot from my phone while listening to music in the background of a fullscreen game). Plus it has the uncanny ability to play any media file known to man.
- thriftwy 3y ago
  VLC is great wheb you have 10 mp3s to play. When you have 10,000 you need library scanning functionality, etc. I believe these aren't VLC selling points.
  - OkayPhysicist 3y ago
    I've got a couple thousand music files on my SD card. Never ran into any issues, though come to think of it, unlike on my phone I'm not sure there's a clear "browse by artist/album/metadata" capability on the PC version of VLC. I don't run into that issue since I use my phone as the source of truth for my music collection for the most part, and just use VLC on the PC as a way to receive the stream from my phone.

freedomben 3y ago

> I remember there was a Gnome option, wonder if it is alive. Can't remember the name though. Are you talking about Rhythmbox? If so, yes it is still alive! And pretty good. Not as great as things used to be back in the glory days of Amarok, but still pretty good. The important thing is that it hasn't regressed. It is mostly bug free, and still has that really badass power-user shell/scripting API that you can use. It has a lot of features now that cater to self-hosters but still enable social (such as Scrobbling). I use it quite a bit to play FLACs I bought/buy on Bandcamp. Strawberry is another one that some people really love, but felt a little heavy to me. I think Navidrome is my future honestly. I have it set up but most of my music collection is disorganized so I usually return to youtube music. If more bands would sell their stuff on Bandcamp or anywhere DRM-free (besides Amazon, who I used to buy music from until one day they decided to make it really difficult to download. Now I don't trust them), I suspect I'd be all self-hosted before long.