Although streaming services are becoming one of the most popular ways to play music, they are not suitable for everyone. If you have a collection of your favorite tracks on your hard drive, you need a decent music player.
If you’re still using Windows Media Player or Winamp, you’re missing out on the many features offered by more advanced programs. They make it easy to group tracks, search for them, and play them back. So here’s our guide to the best players for Windows computers. Blow the dust off the songs piled up on your hard drive!
Plexamp
The Plex toolkit has long been able to stream a collection of tracks to mobile apps and through a desktop browser, but it recently added new software Plexamp to its roster.
With an obvious reference to Winamp in its name, Plexamp focuses on making access to tracks as easy as possible, visualizing playlists and albums through attractive artwork and lots of nice features.
The program still has minor bugs, and you’ll need a Plex Media Server to access the songs, but if you value simplicity above all else, it’s worth seeing how the app uses search terms and auto-discovery tools instead of the standard track grid.
MusicBee
MusicBee includes just about every feature you need, from volume normalization and CD ripping to Last.fm scrubbing and a built-in equalizer so you can customize your sound.
The program will quickly do the job of scanning files stored on your computer, can import tracks from iTunes if necessary, and provides many ways to process files. If you find the default interface a little overwhelming, use the smart theater mode, a useful alternative layout.
Kodi
Kodi is another one of those applications that you’ve probably heard of (or even used) but never considered as a music player. The program is closely related to video rather than audio, but it has very cool music management features and works on almost every mobile and computer platform.
If you trust Kodi with your collection, you’ll find that you can handle most popular formats as well as browse songs by album, artist, genre, and recently played tracks. Kodi allows you to create your own smart playlists based on custom criteria, just like iTunes does.