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... and since "ask slashdot" seems to prefer "how do I get a girlfriend" type questions, I'll post it here.

What's the best non-DRM, free or cheap music player for a mac mini?

The sound hardware isn't exactly great (though better than the average corporate desktop PC). Whamb sounds pretty horrible when playing CDs on it.

Every time I insert a CD, OSX brings up a license agreement for some useless POS called "i-Tunes" (I don't have an Ipod or a Shuffle, I don't want to buy music on-line, and I already own hundreds of CDs that I bought directly from musicians).

I don't want to enter into a legal arrangement with Apple just so I can play a frickin' CD. Even if I did, there is a firewall between me and the Internet that I do not wish to puncture.

If you would like to do me the kindness of replying, please keep in mind that I do not want or need iTunes (and you are unlikely to convince me that I do) and I prefer to operate within the law.

IMHO, Another good one is Mplayer for OSX. Here is what mplayer is (from this website):

This is not a typical ask.slashdot.org question that can be found by clicking on the 1st 10 links by copying and pasting the question in google.

I've tried mplayer and EVERYTHING else. I think mplayer was just too buggy. Don't remember what the showstopper was.

Currently, I use Whamb. Very nice program but does not play many music formats.

I also use MacAmpLite. Plays everything. Crashes occasionally. It does not play songs gapless. The playlist sucks balls unless you like lisening to live performances in random order.

I've tried EVERYTHING available for OS X.

VLC would be nice if it worked while I used my computer for something besides playing music. I guess there are threaded callback functions for reading/decoding data that timeout and I get spammed with error message diaglog boxes and skips.

I've mailed the author of PureAudio asking if he wanted help getting the player up to speed in terms of a plugin API or something. No answer.

The same with Whamb. No answer.

I can code, I don't have the time or really the desire to start something from scratch. I've never developed a GUI for OS X and I'd like to have the experience, but I don't want to do it by myself.

There are tons of MacOS Ogg Vorbis players, here are some:

Sourceforge Quicktime Components
Play Ogg Vorbis file on QuickTime (including QT-based players, like iTunes). Note that this is still under development and may have bugs.
http://qtcomponents.sourceforge.net/

A Better QuickTime Ogg Vorbis Plugin
Try this one if the Sourceforge one above dosen't work for your configuration.
http://www.macosxhints.com/article .php?story=20021 103065300430

MacAMP
Like WinAMP or XMMS.
http://www.macamp.com/

Whamb
Whamb player, haven't tried it.
http://www.whamb.com/

More Ogg Vorbis Software for MacOS X
Here's a list from the Vorbis folks.
http://www.vorbis.com/software.psp/

I realize most people (with the Slashdot crowd exception) don't know much about Ogg Vorbis and don't have any problem with MP3. But the battle's just begining.

Microsoft wants to push its DRM with the WMA format, iTunes and iPod use other methods of DRM through the devices and software with the MP3 format. But both WMA and MP3 suffer from a major problem in that neither compression codec is free or open.

MP3 players/burners (hardware or software) must collect some money with which to pay royalties for use of (de)compression codecs. WMA is the same way if anyone besides Microsoft provides the software to (de)compress the format. Enter Ogg.

Ogg Vorbis was developed in the open source community and is free of royalties and most restrictions (no more than any other open source software). Some tests have shown that Ogg Vorbis does a better job of retaining sound quality at high compression ratios. And finally, the best reason to switch: There are Ogg Vorbis player for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X that don't suffer from any restrictions. (In linux, XMMS no longer plays MP3s due to licensing restrictions.)

For the curious, a couple places to start looking for players and more information about Ogg Vorbis are:

• Ogg homepage at Xiph.org
• www.whamb.com - Ogg Vorbis player for Mac OS X
• www.zinf.org - decent Ogg/Mp3 player for Windows/Linux

...then upgrade to WHAMB!, which not only has uncrippled streaming, but also has a much better quality MP3 decoder.

Oh, and encode your MP3s with LAME, which is much better than even the AAC encoder in iTunes (yes, at the same average bitrates).

Yes, iTunes + plug-in will play them. Today, I put on my iBook a little app (freeware, used to be shareware, but not open source ... at least, I don't *see* a link to source ;)) called Whamb.

Which has zero zilch nada to do with all the *other* things iTunes can do wrt streaming etc, just a note if that's the reason you're bringing up Ye Olde Medyia Player, and since it's the reason I'm bringing up mine ...

timothy

Hey, Whamb can share songs using Rendezvous and they've not been brought down by Apple yet ;)

As a bonus it "only" uses 7-10% CPU on my iBook as opppsed to iTunes' 20-30%.