From the famous tagline by Steve Jobs: ‘1,000 songs in your pocket’ was marketed for the iPod when it first launched.
It was revolutionary back then, but now we’re able to store as well as stream millions of songs on our phones and music player apps, whether from our Android devices or iPhone. Thanks to these music apps and streaming software, it has made us listen to more music than ever before.
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Why use a music player instead of Youtube?
Very often, Youtube may be the go-to spot for most internet users. But whenever we search for a song or playlist, it can’t cater to every music lover and especially audiophile, letting them play their own audio collections. Unlike music players, Youtube also doesn’t come with any equalizer settings.
Slick and user-friendly interface, audio quality options as well as several value-added features are some of the factors you may want to take into account when it comes to choosing a music player app that suits you best.
But with so many music player apps, choosing the right music player app that maximizes your music-listening experience may be a challenge in this digital age. That said, we have prepaid a list of the best free music players that will cater to every need.
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Table of Contents
- Price: Free | Premium from RM14.90
Spotify remains the prime choice of many when it comes to listening from a seamless music player, thanks to its deep library of music and also a wide selection of podcasts.
It is available in both free and premium packages where the latter brings viable features such as listening to ad-free music, access to equalizer settings, adding your own songs from your computer and 320Kbps streaming (high-quality MP3 standard).
With Spotify’s huge music catalogue, you can build your own playlists with any tracks. Its unique ‘Discover’ feature is also an excellent tool for you to find great songs that you may not have heard yet. What’s more, Spotify can suggest new songs for you based on your frequented songs, artists and even genre.
The ubiquitous nature of Spotify also allows you to play Lo-Fi playlists on a desktop computer at work via its Web Player/desktop app or binge to your favourite album on your phone. Very convenient, huh?
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- Price: Up to 90 days free trial | From RM6.90
For a streaming music app, Apple Music is relatively new among its popular competitors in the music-streaming industry. Still, it has already made an impact since it offers a huge music library of more than 70 million songs, iCloud music library and Live Radio Station.
What is Apple Music after all if it is without any exclusive features dedicated to Apple users? Apple users can use Siri to have Apple Music play specific songs or ask for recommendations. They can even sync music to the Apple Watch and keep listening without a phone on hand, making it an ideal companion for Apple users.
However, Apple doesn’t offer a free version of Apple Music. Nevertheless, you’re able to enjoy up to 90 days of free trial to decide if you still want to dig it.
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- Price: Free | Premium form RM14.90
Youtube Music is the successor to Google’s Play Music and will supersede the latter as it will stop its operation by December 2020.
With the most media content available on the internet, Youtube Music complements that with a wide range of viable features including offline playback for downloaded contents. You can also enjoy audio from video-exclusive options which will keep Youtube and music fans happy for a long time to come.
This is probably the most demanded feature on the mobile app - you can now finally listen to audio from videos only while using other apps or when your phone’s screen is switched off. The catch is that the features are only available for paid users.
Nonetheless, its audio quality falls short of peers which is only able to stream at 256kbps at its highest setting (free users get to stream at 128kbps). Even so, you may not notice the subtle difference if you just wanted to listen to music and not so much into its quality.
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- Price: Free
Musicolet is an ad-free offline music player dedicated to Android users. It features an easy-to-navigate interface and a decent equalizer which allows you to manage separate presets for your earphones or speakers.
The app supports a diverse range of music formats and includes a nice multi-queue manager for lining up multiple albums or playlists, makes listening to music as easy as possible.
Nevertheless, Musicolet doesn’t fetch lyrics automatically from the internet where you have to paste the lyrics in the tag editor manually.
Despite there aren’t any cutting edge features, it is more than enough for daily music streaming during your commute hours or powering your workout.
- Price: Free
To note, US’s iHeart Radio has a free music player app streaming service. However, the app isn’t available for Malaysians. Still, it’s perfect for podcasts/radio lovers who want personalized stations to listen to. iHeartRadio’s huge library of genres makes it one of the better choices when it comes to streaming podcasts due to its ad-free website that needs no registration for you to get started.
iHeartRadio’s free subscribers can select from more than 800 regional radio stations to listen from. They can also build a customized station by choosing their preferred genre. For those who have access to the music app, free subscribers can also build playlists according to their mood and fave artists. The catch is that they can’t choose to play a specific song. Instead, they can only choose to play their preferred station.
As mentioned before, iHeartRadio is most useful for only if you’re a fan of live radio custom stations or podcasts since the inability to play a specific song is inevitably a major turn-off.
- Price: Free | From RM14.90
This one’s for Karaoke-lovers. With a combination of easy-to-understand equalizers, a clean user interface and decent lyrics display, Deezer provides an intriguing alternative to its peers in the market.
Along with its library that has 56 million songs, Deezer does not only come with built-in lyrics display. It also raises its game by enabling the lyrics to be displayed on Chromecast-enabled devices, so now you can enjoy lyrics on your TV too. Lyrics are also highlighted to ensure it’s easy to follow along.
Unlike many music-streaming apps, Deezer also has a SongCatcher feature which helps you to identify songs playing in your surroundings. That’s very helpful at times.
Although Deezer may not have shiny features like its peers, it’s nevertheless a solid choice for if you’re in view of its ability to choose sound quality and has seamless EQ setting to tweak your listening preferences.
- Price: Free | Premium from RM11.99
Rocket Player is designed to please music enthusiasts who are seeking the best audio quality. The number of features, considering it’s a free music player, is unbelievably generous. Its list includes a decent library search tool, podcast support and most importantly, an excellent built-in equalizer.
The music listening experience is second to none thanks to its 5-band equalizer. Essentially, you’ll get to set an EQ for every song individually and also the option to include a crossfading for your preferred songs.
If you opt to display adverts, it will grant you additional access to more brilliant features such as expanded file format support, a 10-band equalizer and even a gapless playback. A downside to this platform is that it’s only accessible for Android device users.
- Price: Free | Premium from USD19.95 (RM81.50)
Elmedia should appeal to Mac users who are looking for a solid alternative to iTunes and play their own music as well as videos. It features a rich music library and also comes with a 10-band equalizer for micro-adjustments to enhance your music listening experience.
Its intuitive user interface made it easy to create playlists of your own without any hassle. In addition, the music library is not only confined to local media files. Instead, there’s a built-in browser to enable users to search and browse music videos from other sources such as Youtube.
If you want, it is also feasible for playing your own videos. It supports a wide range of video formats and allows adjustment settings. You can fine-tune on brightness, saturation, contrast, etc. to elevate your watching experience, which is very rare for a music & even video player to have.
- Price: Free
If enjoying music as effortless as possible is all you need, Dopamine Music Player is an ideal choice. It promotes simplicity in design and user interface, which enables users to manage their music library in an efficient way without any unnecessary, complicated functions.
With only a few clicks to install it, users can start to import their music immediately through its unfussy setup wizard. Not forgetting, you can also play lossless music (.flac files) on this player.
A downside to the player which may turn you off is that it lacks the ability to modify or update its metadata, ie: genre, name of artists, etc. That being said, you have to ensure the accuracy of those types of information before importing music tracks to escape from the hassle of redoing it again.
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