Once Upon A Time...

...there used to be another review of CoolPlayer here.

It's gone.

Why? Because the version of CoolPlayer I originally wrote the review about no longer exists. I was going to amend the original review to reflect what has happened but then I decided it would probably be better to replace the review completely rather than do that since so much has changed. But let me start at the beginning...

I’m something of a minimalist. I like small dedicated applications that do their designated function very well. I truly dislike the bloated Swiss Army Knife approach to media players popularized by applications like Windows Media Player, the Real Media stuff and MusicMatch Jukebox because they are invariably slow, buggy and bloated. Monolithic applications that try to do everything for me will never see disk space on my system. I've watched MP3 players like Winamp and Sonique try to become one-size-fits-all solutions for multimedia (never mind audio) and in the process almost completely lose sight of their main purpose for existence, namely playing MP3 files. They have become ridiculously inflated with browsers and plugins in attempts to leapfrog each other in “features”. It seems that this race for features had become an end in itself and that a mandate for “kewlness” has replaced the one for audio quality. Then of course there are the bugs inherent in making things more complex…

Not for me.

Several years ago, in my quest for a minimalist player with great sound quality, I discovered CoolPlayer. It didn't support plugins or visuals, play AVIs or even other music file formats. However it did produce better MP3 audio quality than any other solution available at that time, consumed VERY few system resources and was blindingly fast. To add to its winsome charm, it didn't clutter the Registry with arcane and myriad entries or use that blight known as adware - good old fashioned and simple .INI files were used for its configuration. CoolPlayer’s native appearance was anything but pretty but it could be dressed up with various freeform skins. Installing it involved copying the executable to a folder and to get it to play MP3s and support playlists you right clicked on the player, chose Options and clicked on the “Register Filetypes” button. To add an icon to the desktop you chose the “Add Icon to StartMenu and Desktop” button, again in the same location. The interface was the familiar VCR button motif so common among players then and now.
I was very happy with it, as were many others.


Then things changed

The author got involved in writing a shareware application to download Usenet binaries (CoolPlayer was freeware) and the player languished. Also by that time, the MAD plugin for Winamp had become available. MAD, an Open Source project, is arguably the best decoding engine available for MP3s today, surpassing all other competitors including the Fraunhofer decoder that Winamp now uses. It uses an advanced dithering algorithm to bring out more of the details and subtleties of the sound encoded in a given MP3. Winamp + MAD became an unbeatable combination for MP3 audio quality and CoolPlayer simply couldn't keep up. There had been talk of replacing the Xaudio engine at the heart of the program with MAD but nothing came of it. Finally, in an effort to have development continue even though he no longer had the cycles to devote to it, the author made Coolplayer Open Source.

And nothing happened.

I kept visiting the project location at SourceForge.net but it remained quiet. The bright spark in the darkness of bloatware that had been CoolPlayer flickered and died down to embers. It began to look as if even those would inevitably be extinguished.


Rebirth

Then after what seemed an eternity, something finally DID happen.

The embers began to glow. A spark and then a flicker of flame appeared. That flame grew brighter and stronger and became a blaze. From the ashes of its former incarnation, a new and stronger CoolPlayer arose like the Phoenix of legend.

In the space of two weeks, three builds rapidly appeared, one after the other. This new CoolPlayer had the same user interface as the one of old but beneath its breast beat a new and more powerful heart: the MAD decoder engine.

Audio excellence was now assured. Several more builds followed and the Phoenix grew stronger still. At this point in time the feature set is as follows:

• MAD decoder engine (new to CoolPlayer)
• OGG Vorbis support (new to CoolPlayer)
• Cooler Wave Mapper Output (new to CoolPlayer)
• DirectSound Output (new to CoolPlayer)
• Fast MP3 to wav converter
• support for Winamp input plugins (new to CoolPlayer and the plugins are only loaded when in use to conserve resources)
• Gapless playback (this is only available in Winamp via a plugin)
• Internet streaming (new to CoolPlayer)
• 8-band equalizer (a much revised one which works flawlessly with MAD, unlike the one in Winamp)
• Small executable programmed in blazing fast 'C' (STILL tiny at 344K in size)
• Freeform skin support
• Simple user interface
• Advanced Playlist editor
• ID3 Multitagger
• File Renamer

As before, you get all the essentials for playing MP3s but also included is support for the Open Source music format likely to be MP3s successor - OGG Vorbis. And the player is still fast. How fast? Load a couple hundred (or even a couple thousand) MP3s into Winamp's playlist and see how long it takes. Actually, go grab a Coke while they load. Then see how fast the same operation takes in CoolPlayer. Small, tight code always beats bloat when it comes to raw speed.


So how does the new bird fare against other birds of prey?

In my original review, I did a comparison of the various decoders available at that time and I'm going to update those tests here. However, the game has changed a bit since then. I'm no longer using the Fraunhofer encoder to produce test MP3s because it has clearly been surpassed across the board for audio fidelity by another Open Source project, namely the LAME encoder. The versions of the players tested have also changed – time has marched on. As of this writing I'm testing Winamp 2.80, Winamp 2.80 with the 0.14b release of the MAD plugin, Sonique 1.96 with its custom Audio Enlightenment decoding engine and CoolPlayer 2.03 with MAD 0.14b built in. All tests were run using Wave Mapper output since DirectSound output even under Windows XP produces noticeably lesser sound quality in terms of detail. Test bitrates ranged from 160bit up through 192bit since anything above that is for all practical purposes essentially CD quality. On the musical menu was a mix of jazz, reggae, blues, soul, rock and techno and all playback was performed flat because coloring the sound with equalization of any kind could easily conceal flaws in the sound produced. The sound card used was a Turtle Beach Santa Cruz and the speaker system was the Monsoon MH-505, both of which I've reviewed elsewhere here on Epinions.

Here are my impressions of what I heard:

Winamp 2.80 with FhG decoder (the current Winamp standard)

• highs were slightly muted with less separation and definition and a slightly lower roll-off point than both CoolPlayer and Winamp with MAD 0.14b
• the bass was less punchy than both CoolPlayer and Winamp + MAD 0.14b. Nine Inch Nails’ “Into The Void” had punch but wasn't as deep
• the midrange wasn’t quite as detailed - instruments tended to blend more with each other where they would remain distinct with either of the MAD implementations

Winamp 2.80 with MAD 0.14b

• highs were definitely improved over the stock FhG decoder - as an example, Santana's solo on "Europa (Earth's Cry Heaven's Smile) had more piercing clarity
• the bass was deeper and tighter than with the FhG decoder - Nine Inch Nails’ “Into The Void” now had PUNCH to it
• the midrange was significantly clearer with instruments now standing out where they blended before. Acoustic guitar notes on Toni Braxton's "Spanish Guitar" had proper decay

Sonique

• closer to the Winamp MAD plugin than the FhG decoder but still slightly lacking in definition at the high end
• definitely superior to the stock FhG decoder included with Winamp because it brings out more of the depth of the mid-bass in tracks like Sade's "Somebody Already Broke My Heart"

CoolPlayer

• overall the sound was very similar to Winamp + MAD as would be expected but there was a slight but noticeable increase in definition and clarity across the entire frequency range. I attribute this to the superiority of the Cooler Wave Mapper that this player uses over Winamp's stock Wave Output Plugin.


No, it's not perfect

Version 2.03 is remarkably stable and full featured but I have encountered one annoying bug. When you switch the equalizer on or off, the MP3 currently being played skips once. That being said, I'm sure that this will be fixed in a future release - one thing that can be said for Open Source is that when a project is organized properly and interest in it is high, bugs do NOT last long. The other issue I have is with the MAD implementation – the controls for it are not as full-featured as the Winamp plugin. Things like the ability to alter the threading priority, mono / left / right / stereo settings and clipping attenuation would be quite useful. Again, perhaps these will find their way into a future release. The home page for the product is currently a single line of text at the top of a page with a link to the SourceForge.net location where you can download the program - this too is currently undergoing revision and I'm quite sure a more detailed site will appear soon enough. Here's the link to the site:

http://coolplayer.sourceforge.net/


So, what does it all add up to?

One thing I have always and will always maintain is that browsers, audio / visual multimedia file type support, search engines and the like don’t belong in a MP3 player. The purpose of a MP3 player is to produce the best possible sound from a MP3 and one shouldn't require an Athlon XP 2100+ and 512Mb RAM to run it on. CoolPlayer has arisen from its ashes, produces better sound than its predecessor and has once more reclaimed its lost crown as the best sounding MP3 player available. It also achieves this in a startlingly small package with minimal system overhead.

Those of us who prefer our MP3 players to be lean and mean while still producing the best possible quality sound can once more rejoice - CoolPlayer has returned!


Recommended: Yes