Strawberry Music Player, for Windows

[Captain Holly]

I thought I would post this here, I found something I had no idea existed. I listen to music a lot when I am online, often from my own MP3 collection. In Windows I was using the free version of Media Monkey for several years, but I guess the Monkey ate too many bananas or something because lately I had problems with really bad distorted audio, just terrible sound quality. Over the last ten days or so I tried to fix it, checked for updates, removed and re-downloaded the player, checked all the settings, made sure WIndows volume mixer levels were ok, even tried different headphones, nothing helped. I tried other players too, none of them worked very well, nearly all had bad problems with wavering volume levels, even the new version of Windows Media Player sounded bad.

When I was using Linux Mint I used the Strawberry Music Player, it was one of the main things I liked about Mint. Strawberry works great, it manages my library and handles file tags perfectly but the main thing is it has a really clean sound. It wil get loud too if needed but it does not distort at all. The problems I had with Media Monkey had me considering changing my Windows laptop back to Linux, just so I could use Strawberry again. Anyway, last night I thought I would check if there is a Windows version of Strawberry, and was very glad to find that there is. I had no idea it even was available. I downloaded it and it works great, just like the one in Mint. I think one of the benefits of Strawberry is it does not use the industry standard half-octave equalizer found in a lot of music players, its equalizer has better settings for higher frequencies which really brightens the sound.

So I wanted to put this here, in case anyone else might need a good audio player. Here is the download link if anyone is interested.

Strawberry Music Player

C.H.

 

[Bot]

Hi C.H.,

Thanks for sharing your experience with the Strawberry Music Player. It's indeed a great tool for managing music libraries and provides excellent sound quality. Your post will definitely help others who are looking for a reliable music player. Enjoy your music!

 

[rashmi]

This, Strawberry Music Player, seems to be the official site. The site lists Windows 10 or higher, 64-bit. It says, "Access to macOS and Windows releases are currently restricted to sponsors, a 5 USD monthly sponsorship is required." Their GitHub page shows they released the latest version in Jan 2024. The Softonic link you provided downloads an x86 version from 2022.

 

[Captain Holly]

The download link at the Strawberry site did not work for me when I tried it. That was when I Googled up other download sites that had it. The one at Majorgeeks didn't work either. I did see after I got Strawberry installed that there is an update to the newest version in the settings/about drop-down. I did not have to pay anything or become a sponsor either.


C.H.

This, Strawberry Music Player, seems to be the official site. The site lists Windows 10 or higher, 64-bit. It says, "Access to macOS and Windows releases are currently restricted to sponsors, a 5 USD monthly sponsorship is required." Their GitHub page shows they released the latest version in Jan 2024. The Softonic link you provided downloads an x86 version from 2022.

 

[lokamoka820]

Thanks for posting, I always listen to radio stations when I'm online, I will give it a try.

 

[Captain Holly]

I spoke too soon. I tried to open Strawberry tonight from the shortcut I put on my desktop, it would not start or open. I did get it to start from its location in the C drive folder but it said there was an update to Version 1.0.23 available, but in order to update it you have to log in to Strawberry Music Player. There is no way to set up an account on the web site so I can't update the player. I did set up an account on the Strawberry Forum but found that will not allow me to update the player either. This must have something to do with the requirement to support Strawberry. The player still works, still sounds just as good when I run it from the C drive but I don't think it is smart to run any software that cannot be updated. I tried finding another download for V. 23, also tried to find a way to set up an account with Strawberry, no luck with either one. I guess this is what I get for trying to use Linux software on my Windows laptop. Sorry for putting inaccurate/incomplete info here.

C.H.

 

[lokamoka820]

So I will stay with foobar2000 for my radio stations.

 

[Captain Holly]

I thought I would update here. I have been trying different solutions to this music problem and I believe I found a solution. I tested Media Monkey with listening on my wired Sony earbuds, the sound really improved. Just to be sure I tried again with my OneOdio A70 bluetooth headphones and the bad sound quality came right back. I also tried the headphones with a wired connection, and still had bad sound. So I thought there must be some problem between the Monkey and my headphones. As a test, I paired the same headphones with my phone and music from Pandora and VLC sounded fine so I figured the headphones must be ok but just won't work now with the Monkey for some reason, even though they had worked fine for about two years prior. I have no explanation for that.

So I said goodbye to the Monkey and downloaded the MusicBee app from the Windows store. I had tried the web version before but that one is incomplete, some of the functions don't work. The Windows app works fine. I was reluctant to try MusicBee because I had used it in the past and had bad problems with wavering volume levels. But today after adding my music library to MusicBee I sorted the library by Album Artist, clicked on "All Artists" at the top of the list, then went to Tools in the settings at the top left corner of the app, clicked on "Analyze Volume" and let the app normalize the volume for the entire library. When it was done I tried several songs and albums, listening again with my earbuds, the sound was perfect, no uneven audio levels, no distortion, just a good quality sound, which is all I was looking for. Then I paired my headphones with my laptop again and they sound great with MusicBee too. I have been listening today for a solid hour and had no trouble with MusicBee at all. I have owned those old Sony earbuds a long time, used them with my Ipod a long time ago, but now I much prefer over ear headphones. Headphones sound a lot better to me and earbuds hurt my ears so I don't use them much.

I have been trying solve this music problem for a long time now. I sure hope this is a permanent solution, and maybe this long post might help someone else with similar trouble. Music means a lot to me and is one of the primary reasons I use my laptop.

@lokamoka820, in case you need it, MusicBee also has radio stations you can listen to. Lots of them and they are all free. The radios are listed under the "Music" tab at the top of the app. Then you can sort by music genre. There are stations from all over the world.

C.H.

 

[lokamoka820]

@lokamoka820, in case you need it, MusicBee also has radio stations you can listen to. Lots of them and they are all free. The radios are listed under the "Music" tab at the top of the app. Then you can sort by music genre. There are stations from all over the world.

Thanks for the recommendation, I use MusicBee for music management and foobar2000 for radio stations because it is lighter on resources, another good software I like is AIMP, it has a lot of features, but in radio stations it is weaker than MusicBee and foobar2000, but it is an excellent player.

 

[Jonny Quest]

@Captain Holly I'm changing my vote from Thank you to 100, for this reason (from your link). The image of 461 Ocean Blvd. which IMO, is a must have in anyone's collection, is posted on their webpage.