I am by no means new to Winamp, i used it way back when it was shareware. But when iTunes came to Windows way back in 2003, I switched, because at that time, Winamp did not offer a library management system like iTunes did. I have used iTunes happily for quite a while, until apple started messing around. Now, I am back to winamp, and i like the new winamp.

The fall of iTunes

iTunes was great, for many years. Lately, however, it seems Apple has lost focus with it, and burdened it with things no one will use. I am talking about the iPod Touch/iPhone features. I dont have either device, and find the features and tools implemented for them are process intensive and cannot be disabled. When I launch iTunes now, the following process are started under its tree:

• disnoted.exe
• apple mobile device helper (2 of these)
• iPod helper
• LastFM

. The only one i ever use of those sub-processes is LastFM, and I put that one there. All these processes can use up to 90% of my ram, and 60% of my CPU. I have better things to do with those resources (eg play games), and think that any self respecting music player should not use that much.

Enter winamp

Winamp was an old favorite of mine, it was always on the edge, and pioneered many things (playlists). Fed up with iTunes, it immediately came to mind. I had not looked at it since 5.0 came out, and a number of things have changed. First, the new libary manager works exactly like iTunes does, and that made me quite happy. There are still also elements of the classic winamp that bring back fond memories of RedHat 7.1, windows 98, and some less fond memories of those times, but i wont go into those. After downloading and installing Winamp, i went through all the settings to make it work with my other applications.

Configuration and extras

Keyboard

As some of you may know, and many may not, i have a Logitec G15 keyboard. This keyboard has a display on it, as well as several media buttons. This display worked with Winamp out of the box, but the media buttons are disabled by default in winamp. After finding the hotkey preference pane in winamp, i turned on the hotkey service, and found they worked again. This made me quite happy.

AMIP

AMIP is one of my favorite little tools. It allows you to take your now playing information (eg. Song Name, artist, length, etc), and send it to many applications. I use this to write a config file for tremulous. I chose AMIP a long time ago, as it was the only program that worked with iTunes, and it works with winamp as well. I just had to point the configuration tool to the winamp plugin directory, install the plugin, and configure its settings.

Soundcard

My computer has 5 soundcards, 3 internal, 2 external. My 2 external ones are a pair of Logitech Headphones and a large radio tuner device. Luckily, just configuring the output of iTunes to WAV worked well enough, and the quality is as good as it ever was (there is a limit on how good fiber optic audio is, although i havn’t reached it)

Media

Importing my media was the easy part. I just pointed winamp to my iTunes directory, and let it do its work. I will still likely have to remove several duplicates (ie aac, mp3, etc), but that is fairly easy.

Comparison

iTunes>Winamp

iTunes is better than winamp in a few areas. First, the group songs by album feature is quite nice, and winamp does not seem to have one, although there likely is a plugin for this feature. The iTunes interface is a bit less cluttered, although, less featured. Finally, tools like Show Duplicates are useful, and really should be in Winamp. Also, the capping of various re-encoding in all but pro versions of winamp is quite irritating, as iTunes does not cap anything and is completely free.

Winamp>iTunes

Winamp is all around faster. It loads faster, changes panes faster, and is lighter on the system. Earlier today, with the same other apps running, iTunes (and its sub-processes) used 64% of my CPU. Winamp uses just over 1%. Winamp is MUCH more configurable than iTunes, and the various plugins, themes, and other little hacks are quite nice. Also, the storage of song information in IDv* flags is much better than that of a database file (which itunes uses), and much more widely supported.

Overall

Overall, Winamp is better than iTunes, and i am happily switched. There are a few things i will still have to get used to, but overall, the experience is pleasant. For anyone who is considering a switch, i encourage you to do so. Untill apple gets its head out of its ass and realizes that very few people have iPhones or iPod touches, and respectively disables the aspects of its program that pertain to those till they are required, i will not use itunes unless i absolutely have to.