hey guys,
Have u tried winamp's new version. It has quite a good features. When i compare it with the first version of Winamp (3.1) that i tried, the difference is clear.Some of the features are:
Remove silence from the starting and ending of a song.
Additional Codecs.
Better playback performance.
It can also sort your songs so that they can subdivided into various categories.
It can be minimized into the bottom right hand of the tray in Windows so that it doesn't take space in the task bar.

Hope all of you will enjoy this new version of Winamp. Do give it a try.
Regards

Yes, Winamp 5.0 onwards has been a real pleasure. I especially like the crossfade feature which is a lot better than Windows Media Player 9. THe crossfade actually does a pretty good job of adjusting beat and tempo between songs so as to make it sound like a smooth transition.

WHat I really like about Winamp 5x onwards, are the add-on features that can be downloaded and added (some of these are available for a cost , but much are free), like Visualizations, and sound enhancement features. Also, for developers, entire code, including the interface can be played around with to ive completely new and unique features. Winamp's what I use as my primary audio player.

I am using WinAmp 5.1 and it has all the features you mentioned, but of course, you were comparing it with 3.1 version, I never used any other versions of WinAmp. In fact, I never used WinAmp before I got this version, when I started using Windows - a year ago (Before I was using only Linux and AmigaOS), I used Quintessential Media Player, but I changed to WinAmp, due to it wasn't so stable on my system. Win Amp is not bad, but I would like it to have some more features, such as smart sorting, because I hate when it sorts 1,10,2,20,3,4,5 etc. and it could ask what to sort, by date, by artist, by album or even to have priorities, first by artist, then then by album date, then by track and song etc. Quintessential Player has this..

I haven't upgraded from 5.1 yet but probably will soon since it keeps popping up an annoying "OMGZ JOO NEED TO UPGRADEZ OR D00M WILL HAPPEN" every so often on starting winamp... I wish programs just told you once about new versions and that was it heh. I'll let you know if I notice any useful new features once I get 5.2

I dont get the point why you are using Winamp when you already have Windows Media Player. It has all the features (most of them, if not ALL) Winamp has. It has even more, like the one which give more info on the song you are listening to another one is that you can bu CDs and casstes of the songs you are listening, through Windows Media Player itself. I dont get the point why you are using Winamp. Its like having to copies of the same operating system.

One more thing, I feel is that Windows Media Player is more stable that Winamp, I have never ever got a single error from it through out my entier life, unlike the operating system which hangs about five to six times a day and show the blue scree of death (BSOD) about two times.

I personally really don't like WMP (Windows Media Player) and never will use it, I don't even have it installed, I think with special software I removed it from my windows installation. WMP is evil, it takes to much resources, and all I need is that a player would play music, for watching movies and stuff I have other tools. But this is just my opinion, the other factor that I hate windows media player is that it has the word windows in the name. Even though WinAmp has Win word in it, I ignore it, if the new releases of Quintessential Media Player appear and will be stable enough, I will move back to it, because it is free and better than WinAmp, takes almost no resources and looks like WinAmp, but I prefer it more, has lots of skins and plugins. Moreover, what I don't like about winamp is that the modern skins take lots of cpu, on my computer, don't know maybe it needs a better graphics card, but that annoys me, I don't really like the classic skins online.. Quintessential has hundreds of nice skins and you can install/preview/browse/sort them on your desktop through the preferences. :S

Does WMP have skins ? I never used it.. only at school and my friends where I got annoyed by it.

Have you got crazzy. Hello, I think Windows Media Player has the most number of skins when compared to other audio/video playes, I cant imagine you have never seen or installed anyone of them. Around 5 to 10 come along with Windows Media Player 9 or 10. I have Media Center Plus Installed, so I cant tell you the exact number, cause I have a billion more (just kiddin). The below tutorial shows you how to choose and view your skin for you Windows Media Player. Now dont quote my reply saying that you dont have Windows Media Player .

Anyway if you want to change your current Windows Media Player 10 skin, click on "View" in the menu bar and then click on "Skin Chooser",
choose your skin now,
after that click on apply skin,
next, you click on "View" again from your menu bar and now you will click on "Skin Mode", the short-cut key is Ctrl+2 for skin mode and Ctrl+1 for the normal or full screen mode

By the way, I wonder how you un-installed Windows Media Player, if you have really un-installed it completely then I think you must using some-other pluging to listen to music diretly from webpages (streaming). Is it that QuickTime Plugin?

I downloaded Winamp 5.21 less than a week ago because I don't like WMP full stop and Real kept crashing my computer, while I did know of Winamp formany years I liked Real.

It is my opinion that Winamp is much better than Windows Media Player because it looks better (I can't stand the look of WMP10) and performs better. Its advantages over Real Player are the same and Winamp doesn't freeze up like Real did.

Overall Winamp is a better media player than WMP and Real, but this is my personal opinion and will change from user to user.
These are the only 3 media players I have used, and while all are good Winamp is my favourite and in my opinion best.

sonoftheclayr, and what do you mean by that Winamp is the best, in your opinion? I think every one see that the software is user-friendly which I think Micro$oft is good at. Infact they are the best in user-frienldy issues. Secondly, how the program works, is it powerfull, robust, bug and error free. I think Windows Media Player is the best in the incase you take the these as the factors for which you decide your softwares.

As for people who hate Windows Media Player, there can be only one good reason for why they hate it. That is like what Quatrux said. It contains the most disgustfull word of all times, "Windows" .

Actually ganeshn I hate it because it's a bloated piece of crap comparativly to many other media players

I upgraded to the most recent winamp and it's nice, no big feature changes as far as what I actually use, but apparently it can handle some new types of files and whatnot. Doesn't affect me much but nice to keep it up to date.

Reasons I prefer winamp to WMP - WMP is bloaty, takes up too many resources and screen realestate, I love the tiny little winamp bar at the top of my screen, all the extra song info is useless since I want a media player to listen to my songs, not watch them... WMP makes me have more windows updates I need to get I have only looked at a handful of WMP skins but disliked them all...etc etc etc The fact that its a M$ product has no effect on my decision, but its not surprising

Winamp does everything I want expect sync with my mp3 player (although apparently it added synching abilities with the last update so I need to check into it), otherwise I would never have WMP even see my mp3 directory.

To be more on topic, if you have winamp 3.x whatever or earlier, update to 5.x its worth it. IF you have an earlier version of 5.x, it won't hurt but its not an update that will blow your mind or anything.