Real Player, Free Download!

About a decade ago, in those dark days when I had no Internet connection and all my software was coming from friends(on floppy disks, of course) and computer magazines shipping together with a CD, Winamp was the one and only media player to use. Oh, there also was that early version of Windows Media Player available in Windows 95, if I can call it "media player," since it was only the shadow of a media player's idea... Slowly, I began experimenting with a lot of new media players and CD grabbers, ripping those few audio CDs again and again and trying to enjoy the results as much as possible. Leaving behind my computer-related history, here's what I have for you today: real player, free download!

I know a lot of people who really have something against Real Player, but since I never used that one on a regular basis, at least as my secondary or tertiary player, I can't confirm or deny their claims. While I can't claim that Winamp is a bad player either, I found a lot of better ones to play with, especially foobar2000, Jet-Audio and, my latest discovery, the one-and-only Spider Player, which you can see pictured above.

I know some may say "What is this guy talking about? This Spider thing looks just like Winamp!" right after seeing the screenshot above, and I can't blame them for that, because same thing happened to me, when I saw this program for the first time. Even its licensing scheme is the same as Winamp's, with a Basic free version, and a paid one with a few extra features, but don't tell me this is no real player, because it's as real as it can get, and it's also a free download, since if you really need those extra features, you can get specialized programs for them...or simply buy Spider Player, only because they managed to make it so good!

While crossfading doesn't really sound like something to make you "trade your Winamp for a spider," the amazing sound quality of this player featuring internal 32-bit sound processing(it's enough to say that it can really blow my windows if volume is pushed too high, like no other player can!) and its native support for 5.1/7.1 Surround audio qualify it as a worthy Winamp replacement...and we're only getting started!

One of the great things about Spider is its Radio Directory, a manager of online radio stations with filtering and search capabilities. The best part about it is that you don't have to add your stations, since it automatically gets information about Shoutcast stations from the Web. Of course, if you want to add your own stations, nothing can stop you...

While the Favorites Manager is also a very powerful feature, I want to tell you a few words about the DSP Effects Manager, Spider Player's module allowing you to apply the high quality 32-bit DSP effects you need as you wish, while also offering support for Winamp DSP plugins. Awesome! The downside of this feature is that SPider Player only comes with the Winamp Plugin Wrapper, and no plugins of its own...

Skins are also supported, while recording from Internet radio stations or losless CD ripping are limited in the Basic version. Anyway, what I really like is the power of the Basic version as a player, and that's what really matters, after all! Real player, free download, remember? It's not "real grabber-player-audio CD burner, free download," so...

Just one last thing before I run on my couch to enjoy some more Spider Player-driven musical mayhem - the PRO version comes with losless encoding, unlimited recording from Internet radio stations, batch processing, the ability to rip all CD tracks at one and use command-line encoders with custom presets, as well as enjoy Spider Player PRO on your PC, USB drive or U3 device. As a final note, you should also keep in mind that the Basic version is available for USB drives!