I don't know what everybody's saying it's unstable, I've been using it for months I don't think it crashed once (Maybe because I use Win2000 Pro vs. other's win9x). I did try Windows Media Player 7, and sure, THAT crashes a lot. But I give props to Real for a stable program. Beyond that, there are a lot of cool things that are unique to RJB2:

* The Web-connected Artist Guide is a an excellent feature. If you're continually connected to the Net (Ether, or DSL (?) or whatever), it will read the ID3 tags and finds info/biography/news about the artist. I can't describe how much useless but interesting knowledge I've gained about different musicians.

* It recognizes the MS Natural Keyboard Pro's multimedia keys (stop, next, play, prev, volume, mute etc). Very useful when you're playing Unreal Tournament full screen and RealJukebox starts playing, say Michael Bolton (who downloaded this?) just press next

* DownloadWatch monitors folders you've selected and automatically adds new files you recently download to your playlist.

* Like MusicMatch, you can sort your playlist by Genre or Artist/Album.

* Plugins: My favorite is Lake PLS Dolby Headphone plugin ($10 if you want to keep it beyond two weeks, well worth it). If you have decent headphones (I am one lucky bastard to get my hands on Sennheiser HD580 from ebay -- I'll write a review on it sometime), take my word it sounds like heaven and, well, Cleveland. I've tried 3D audio plugins of all sorts, but this one works wonders.

Note: My experience seems to tell me that the plugin is better for high bitrates MP3's and WMA's, it might actually distort (adds too much chorus effect) lower bitrates. That opinion just coming from my ears, too lazy and don't know how to actually do testing.

* Reads all sorts of filetypes: MP3 (CBR, VBR), RealAudio, RealAudio w/ ATRAC, EMMS, LiquidAudio, and who knows what else.

* Can get it to record directly to CD Recorder w/ Roxio plugin or to some portable MP3 Players (never tried any of these, so I can't say much).

* Crossfade plugin is cool, yo.

* Once again, real stable on WIn2000 Prof.

What I don't like about it:

* Sorting your playlist take quite a few seconds, and you can't do it while you're playing a song.

* While CD Ripping is decent, encoding isn't all that great. I prefer old-skool Fraunhofer encoder.
Note: I am starting to like Windows Media Encoder's WMA Encoder. We'll see what happens in the future.

* Visualization library not quite as extensive as Winamp's, but I don't really use em that much anyway.

I don't know about you, but I like this piece of software. Get it while it's free.

Recommended: Yes