Hey guys I love the forum this place rocks. I have a question though on what you guys recommend for an mp3 player for my computer. I have a huge collection of mp3s that I have ripped from my CD collection and I seem to always listen to the same songs. So I was wondering what is a good player that will "load" all the mp3s into its database and then randomly play a file so I can hear some new stuff? Thanks!

foobar2000. It has an area on this site and indicate where it can be downloaded from. It is a great product. Try it.

One of the most popular (especially around here) is Foobar2000 if you're on an MS Windows system. The focus behind FB2K's design is pure audio playback, giving you access to an extremely wide variety of formats with minimal memory and CPU consumption. FB2K, however, doesn't do skinning or visualizations. Try WinAMP for that.

From what I've seen lately, Mac users tend to use iTunes because of its library management. I think I've seen people say that Ogg (Vorbis) support is lacking, but I admittedly don't pay much attention since it doesn't affect me.

I haven't looked at Linux lately, so the only media player I can mention for it is XMMS. I'm not saying it's good or bad. That's just the only one I can name, so it has no competition that I can mention.

These are, of course, just the tip of the tip of the iceberg. A quick Google also brought up MusicMatch Jukebox, Sonique, dbPowerAMP Audio Player, Real Jukebox... There's bound to be thousands of programs. The "best" depends solely on what your needs are.

My personal suggestion: Foobar2000

Sometimes too many options are a problem. If you just want to play your music, use Winamp.

If you're up to a bit of a learning curve, Foobar can do nearly everything, and most of it well. It's what I use, along with most everyone else around here. But I still keep winamp around in the wings...