My library's grown over the years - currently over 12,000 tracks - and foobar2000 handled the growth well. However, it's not the most flashy player out there, nor is it the most user-friendly. While I don't own an Apple device or use the iTunes store, I have been curious how iTunes would compete. After all, it's one of the most popular media players out there, has a slick interface and an impressive set of features.
I also wanted to hit up a fling I once had with MediaMonkey. A closed-source, proprietary program (features may be unlocked by purchasing a "Gold" license), MediaMonkey claims to handle libraries with 50,000+ tracks with ease. There's a long list of features, most notably the ability to write Virtual Basic scripts to do pretty much anything. Our initial relationship didn't last long because of an awkward interface and the retardation of the features in the free version.
So, let's start the battle!
First, the playing field:
- Lenovo S10-2 netbook with Intel Atom N270, 1GB RAM, Windows XP Pro, 5400RPM SATAII hard drive, 1024x600 resolution
- 78.4GB music library with 12,204 tracks, 98.8% mp3, 49.4% mp3 CBR, average bitrate 207kbps
And a note:
This review is based upon my needs as an amateur audiophile. I am not a DJ nor a producer, nor do I have $500 headphones and a $15,000 set of surround sound speakers. I'm more involved in my music than most laypeople, but I am not a professional who works with music. I'm kind of in the middle. However, I think this is the best position to be in to make these reviews as broadly applicable as possible.
If you want full reviews on each programs, look elsewhere. I don't care about video output or synchronization with external devices or network sharing. I'm comparing the integrity of the music players themselves and little more.
iTunes
While I was already running, I examined the Jobs juggernaut first because it's always the 800-pound gorilla in the room. Or should I say 5-billion-pound - that's how many songs were sold through iTunes in 2009.
After starting the program up, iTunes took about 9 minutes to import the songs in my library, neglecting to import some of my files (my few Musepack and WMA files, as I elected not to automatically convert the latter). The final song count was under 12,000 tracks. After importing the files, iTunes tried to automatically search for artwork and gapless playback information. While I could cancel the artwork search, even after restarting the program it insisted on scanning all the files for gapless playback, which took substantially longer than the initial import.
For my netbook, using iTunes was a drag, man. Rarely (of course in the moment I took the screenshot below) did memory usage drop below 150MB, even when I disabled the iTunes store and Ping. Multitasking on the Lenovo was not a pleasant experience with iTunes in the background and even the program itself lagged, stuttered and froze. Double-clicking a track to play it frequently meant waiting up to seven seconds for the new song to start playing.
For a power user like myself, I didn't like the lack of customization available as the other two programs have. I suppose that would be offset if I were working on a better laptop, with Apple peripherals, and used the iTunes store... but you know what? I don't.
Most importantly I have never liked how iTunes operates its library. Even if you enable iTunes to organize your music's filenames by tags, you can't change how it does that. Being able to organize one's music is crucial for a library of any decent size at all - ever erase a whole set of tags by accident? That's the easiest way by far to restore the tag information back.
iTunes is really the stereotypical Apple product: flashy, very useful if you've cash to blow (read: trendy), and only marginally useful otherwise. In fact, the only way it breaks the Apple mode is in its gross consumption of computer resources. No matter how you talk about this product, you'd be hard-pressed to use the word "economical."
MediaMonkey
Much how iTunes is the typical Apple product, MediaMonkey is the typical Windows product. It's powerful and shows a lot of information at once, but it's not well organized, its performance is spotty and it tries to look good - and fails.
As I mentioned before, MediaMonkey is full-featured, but some of the most important features are disabled in the free version, such as unlimited MP3 encoding, CD ripping speed and most importantly, file monitoring. Each time you add files to your music folder, you must update MM manually. What a pain.
When you start up MediaMonkey, the first thing you notice is the interface - and it's horrible. All forms of music cataloging and organization are set up in folder trees must have been ripped straight out of Windows Explorer. While it allows for a lot of options in a smaller area, it's not intuitive, nor pleasant to look at. I guess that runs in line with the theme. The menu bar at top is cluttered with buttons and menu options.
The layout of the music player at the bottom of the screen takes up valuable real estate on the netbook's limited monitor, and there's absolutely no way to go about modifying it. It's either there completely, or it isn't. And don't get my started on the theme, either. It doesn't look any better turned off:
Performance wasn't much of a mitigating factor. On initial run of the program, I added my music folder and then waited twenty minutes for MediaMonkey to add all the files. Remember the free version requires you rescan each folder manually for updates. Not a pleasant thought, eh? Also, I noticed when restarting the program with a genre in the main view of about 1,300 songs, there was significant hard drive activity while MediaMonkey added the songs to the list in the view. This poor performance by SQLite was disheartening.
Aside from file reading issues, performance was passable. Tracks changed much faster than iTunes and my computer didn't lag nearly as badly. Resource consumption was rather low:
MediaMonkey sports and impressive set of features for power users - especially the Visual Basic scripting available - but requires an appropriate power user system to experience it well. However, even a fast computer won't compensate for an ugly interface that allows for little useful customization.
foobar2000
What's great about foobar2000 is also its worst feature: it is a minimal program allows (really, requires) for intense and complex customization. It's a closed-source but completely free program with a dedicated user base and some really useful components available. It's not flashy, but it's clean and boy is it lean:
At idle, even when scrolling through my full library, memory stays around 50MB. The reason it rivals MediaMonkey's usage right here is I enable dithering on playback for better quality in my low quality files. That also drives the CPU usage up slightly.
The layout of foobar2000 as you see in the screenshot above is the result of hours of trial and error to see what I like. What's great about this layout is I am able to use the limited, landscape dimensions of my monitor most efficiently. However, if I ever want to use the same program on another computer (such as give it to a friend) I have to make sure I export the layout correctly, as well as install the same components. On the flipside, I could always make it a portable installation if I wanted to.
It's not flashy, but it's clear and easy to understand, even for iTunes users. As a result, I never have lag issues. And the features are all available - from podcast downloading to secure CD ripping, device synchronization and automatic folder monitoring. The most clunky part is the use of playlists. When I look through the music library with the Facets component I use (the panes on the bottom left), they actually update a playlist in real-time and the tracks shown above are those in the playlist. It's less complicated and much quicker than my words communicate - the view changes instantly - but it can get a little confusing sometimes.
Foobar2000 requires a power user to start, but it's a very rewarding application. It lacks a form of Auto-DJ, does not integrate video playback, has more complex solutions for remote access or control and by default does not allow for in-line editing of tag data. These drawbacks are not crucial, as foobar2000 does its main job very well: play and organize music efficiently without hogging valuable resources.
Conclusion
I know that this compare and contrast came out a little one-sided and that's mostly due to the fact that I've spent enough time battling foobar2000 to learn how to use it well. I haven't spent nearly as much time with the other programs, but they didn't need it. Both of them, iTunes especially, bill themselves as all-in-one plug and play solutions which don't require the same diligence that foobar2000 does.
The thing is, I really wanted to drop foobar2000 for a change of pace, but after reviewing these other options, I'll stick where I am. iTunes is practically unusable for me due to the intense lag I experienced and MediaMonkey's layout and lack of features really frustrated me. Why pay $20 for automatic folder monitoring when I was getting that for free with foobar2000?
As I said before, foobar2000 was the most favorable for me because it fit my requirements and I'm sure for others with different priorities. If I had a more powerful computer, iTunes or MediaMonkey might fit my bill better. I'd especially want iTunes if I had Apple hardware of any kind. And MediaMonkey may be more palatable if I had a larger resolution and faster hard drives to work with, along with the willingness to shell out the cash for a Gold license.
Each has a niche to fill, with some overlap of course. By the way, if you think foobar2000 is the right one for you, let me know and in the future I may post my files with the layout and components I use.
And that's you you do not make software reviews on a toaster.
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