Audacious = Bodacious

I have this ongoing problem…   no.. not THAT one…   it’s an audio issue.   I have tried all sorts of players, each of them working and each with its own special features.  My overall favorite is VLC because it just works on XP and linux.

My problem is the playlist or song randomization feature.  Let’s say for sake of argument that I have ten gigs of music files.  Why then do I hear the same songs most of the time?  If I add another few folders, I might not hear them for years, or what seems like years.

The other day I opened up Synaptic (linux package manager) to see what else was available in linux players and downloaded a few more, including Audacious.  This tends to get mixed up in my head with Audacity, a different audio app, but maybe that’s just me.  In any case, it’s tiny, it has not hiccupped (yet), and it has an incredibly familiar interface (XMMS anyone?).  Mac version available.  Sorry, Windows users.

Best of all, I’m hearing songs I haven’t heard since I set this computer up.

I truly don’t ask a lot from a multimedia player.  Foremost is that it plays the files.  I turn all the hoo-ha visuals off (because I can enjoy music with my ears, not by watching some drug-addled depiction on my monitor).  I don’t use any of the plugins except for the compressor, to keep things relatively level in terms of volume.  I am truly not a demanding user, unless you consider my playlist problem demanding (my wife just refers to the whole issue as Unreasonable Expectations).

There are a ton of plugins for it but since I don’t use them, I’m not in a good position to recommend any.

AUDACIOUS

PRO:  just works, can adjust for best viewability, true random playlist, familiar interface

CON: wish I could dynamically adjust the size of the program on larger monitors

Nice job, Audacious team!