VLC

VLC is an open-source media player with versions for Windows, Mac, and various Linux distributions, and it is the only player that could play back all seven of the sample audio files (see fig. 4.1 on p. ). It is a relatively small program and requires little CPU power, unlike some of the large, feature-rich media players. Although it is not nearly as popular as the four players just covered, I include it to show that there are alternatives to the proprietary players, which often include features that are not needed for simply playback of audio content.

Audio formats supported: WAV, FLAC, MP3, RealAudio (using the Cook codec), Windows Media Audio, AAC, Vorbis.

URL for download: http://www.videolan.org/vlc