I am not disappointed with VLC 1.0.4. The skin does not come with it so you have to add that as well. If you go to open it with out the skin you will be looking at nothing.I think VLC is One of the top applications period.

Linux users are not into high fidelity like a windows user.A coworker of mine has a twenty thousand dollar computer that he can't afford to insure for the full amount. He is a Media addict. I only have XP pro for a windows box but VLC has a better sound quality than media player easily on either system. This is just driving speakers that are built into a monitor.

I intuitively don't believe sound quality is a decoder/codec issue or drivers. From my own background I believe that the programs are mimicking hardware with software which is not the same as having a quality amplifier circuit. It's only worth having a certain quality level on a computer before going to a real home system with a power amp and so on.If something is built for a specific purpose it does a better job. I assume that there are amps that you can connect to a PC but have never looked.

You should probably try a few Media Players like Banshee to see which one is the best. Media Players have a lot of dependencies so if your Package Manager does not have it,it will be a HUGE pain to install it from RPMs. RPMs are in single files so you might need sixty of them or so.

I think the quality under xine might be better than xmms.It's sometimes a little difficult to distinguish crappy decoding from crappy encoding. A significant factor might be that xine uses the ALSA interface directly, instead of going through the OSS emulation interface.

I think gstreamer is bit more popular nowadays, or is becoming more popular at least (because of Ubuntu), than xine, don't you? And it's decoding seems excellent to me.

theKbStockpiler, I think VLC is the best video player for Linux out there. I'm yet to find any that has more features than that.

Absolutely! But, see how tastes differ! I have both VLC and the default WMP in Win.XP and somehow when i play the same movie (X-Men Part 2,for ex.) in both, i like the clarity and the purity of sound output from WMP! I really don't know why! If you have tried Winamp which comes with a TEN band graphic Equalizer (for free, though there is a pro version), you'll feel as if (the deaf) Beethoven is playing personally for you. I personally love to hear the pluck-less guitar player and singer MARK KNOPFLER of Dire Straights on Winamp!
regards,
vyver.