MP3 players decode MP3 files and play them back as WAV files. I judge MP3 players on the quality of the output (not all MP3 players decode MP3 the same way) and functionality. If you know of any good players not posted here, please email me.

WinAmp - freeware

WinAmp is arguably the most popular MP3 player. It has a great interface and is loaded with features. Get it from www.winamp.com.

Download it and follow the simple instructions to install. Check the FAQ to find out how to improve the audio quality.

CoolPLayer - freeware

I really like this. It is small and optimized. I would use it over WinAmp right now, except it does not display the difference between stereo files and joint stereo files (Not necessary, but I like to know). I hope they add that feature soon. Also, (last time I checked) turning on the EQ distorts the sound. It's better to leave the EQ off. Hopefully it's just a minor bug that will be fixed soon. www.daansystems.com/coolplayer

Sonique - freeware

Another popular player. I like WinAmp's interface more, but the visiualization effects Sonique offers is awesome to watch. Get it at www.sonique.com.

I don't reccomend Sonique unless you have at least a Pentium II or equivalent. It will probably run on slower machines, but you can't really take advantage of the visualization plug-ins unless you have a faster machine.

FreeAmp - open source freeware

I recently tried this. I like the playlist editor. Seems to me that this is not optimized at all. It takes about 5-10 seconds to load on my PIII 500. It is still under development, so I'm gonna stick with WinAmp and Sonique for now. I only post it here because it's freeware and open source, so there's gonna be a lot of improvement. www.freeamp.org

K-Jöfol - freeware

I also really like this. It looks sweet! The decoding (output) quality is very good. It supposedly supports Sonique visualization plugins. When I get some more time I'm gonna try messing with that aspect. If it works, bye bye Sonique! It doesn't have any easy way to edit ID3 tags or even view the information so I still need to keep WinAmp on my system. Also, from what I've read it seems that K-jofol isn't updated as often as people would like and the versions so far are pretty buggy. It does seem to suffer from stability problems. www.kojofol.org