Equalizer in Linux players

Today I want to write about equalizers in Linux players (duh!).

What about them? Well, there is a LOT of (audio)players for Linux and most of them do not have an equalizer. That is quite strange, since this is a must-have feature in an audio player, don’t you think? I do. I have tried a lot of players and here is a very short list:

• Rhythmbox (no eq)
• Listen (no eq)
• BMPx (no eq that is VERY strange, since BMP has one)
• Banshee (no eq)
• Muine (no eq)
• Quod Libet (no eq)
• XMMS (has an eq, but ugly and discontinued… and no library)
• BMP (eq present, but no library)
• Zinf (god, no!)
• Exaile (this was mentioned by Igor, but still no eq, I found an open ticket, saying that this feature is in the developement)

Well, I think this is quite a complete list of popular players. Did you notice that one great player is not on the list? Yeah, that’s right! Amarok’s not there. Why? Because it is the only player with ALL the features I need (music library, dynamic playlists, last.fm and an EQUALIZER!). I don’t know about you, but I like my music playback to be juicy and rich. If I listen to power metal I want it to be POWER metal. Well, as I said, Amarok is the best (except that it ruins my GTK style and adds QT to the system, which I usually don’t have, but I can live with that).

To say the truth I am disappointed in Linux audio players. I know that Rhythmbox development team is talking about implementing an eq, but I want it now.

By the way, on the second place for me is Listen player, which is quite nice and I prefer Amarok over it only because of the eq. If in the future Listen will feature an eq I will switch back to using it.