The newest rage in 'net audio right now is the MPEG Audio Layer 3 stream technology (MPEG3 or even MP3 for short). This is the latest official MPEG standard to be released from the ISO/IEC standardization body (MPEG4 is in the works) and is by far the most powerful member of the family. MPEG3 utilizes a combination of extremely complex methods to attain high compression ratios while preserving CD-quality audio. While it might not sound overwhelmingly impressive at first glance, when you take into account that without compression it takes approximately 175 Kilobytes to store just one second of CD-quality stereo sound, the full benefits of MPEG3 and the older MPEG standards quickly become apparent. Audio files encoded with MPEG3 can have their original sound data compressed by a factor of 12 without noticeable degradation in sound quality. As with any 'lossy' compression scheme there is some degeneration in quality with MPEG3, but in this case the loss is unnoticeable to the human ears. Without getting too technological, the effects of MPEG3 are made possible by "perceptual coding" techniques that address the perception of sound waves by the human ear, so that even though some information has been lost through the compression process, you won't be able to notice it upon playback. The result is high-quality stereo audio that sounds as good on your computer as it would on your CD player, and all without the need for a 20 Gigabyte hard drive. There are at least twenty MPEG3 audio players currently available, and while some offer better performance (like AudioActive) or are less inexpensive (like the freeware WinPlay3), none of the players comes anywhere close to matching the multitude of features, ease of use, and overall functionality of WinAmp. A steal at only $10, this shareware app plays Layer 2 MPEG audio streams as well as the newer Layer 3. While less-intensive users might be able to get by with a basic MPEG3 player like WinPlay3, those audiophiles out there who need quite a bit more out of their players will appreciate the abundance of features in WinAmp that you won't find elsewhere. And believe me, even if you've never been that interested in music, once you experience the full range of capabilities offered by MPEG3 and WinAmp, you'll quickly find yourself becoming an initiate audiophile. WinAmp's exclusive audio features range from basic capabilities like fast forward and rewind functions, repeat and shuffle options, an intuitive interface, and Windows traybar support to more advanced features like an eight band graphical equalizer with preamp, user definable presets (with automatic memory options), a full-featured playlist editor, and built-in visualization tools. When using the visualization tools you have the option of 'watching' your music with either an oscilliscope (a device that displays your music in wave patterns similar to the oscillation of an electrical current) or the visually stimulating spectrum analyzer (displays your music in a graphical spectrum of colorized bands). The built-in visualization capabilities of WinAmp are impressive by themselves, but if you want to go a level beyond and watch your music really dance, WinAmp's support for plug-ins is the key to your dreams. Over twenty different visualization plug-ins are currently available; of these Krunoslav Pisacic's Cthugha for WinAmp, Henrik Drewelow's HD Analyzer, Ced's 3D Wavelet, and NullSoft's FullScreen Visualization are highly recommended downloads. The plug-ins are updated regularly, so be sure to check WinAmp's Plug-ins Page for the latest releases. Regardless of whether you decide to go with the built-in visualization tools or one of the many plug-ins, WinAmp offers some serious 'candy for the eyes' to go along with its excellent audio capabilities. The only real downside to WinAmp is that the client doesn't include any audio files of its own. This wouldn't be a big drawback except for the fact that MPEG3 files are still relatively difficult to find on the net. If you do have trouble finding sample MPEG3 files to try out, you'll definitely want to check out MPEG3.com's MPEG3 Site List, MP3.com, the Nordic Downloadable Music Site (NDMS), and my personal favorite, the Smashing Pumpkins Audio Archive. Someday soon we'll probably all be buying our CDs and sound files over the 'net and listening to them using MPEG3 and WinAmp -- the technology is that good. If you haven't tried out WinAmp yet, you really don't know what you're missing. This amazing technology is simply too wild to describe in words -- so wild in fact that you'll just have to try it out for yourself... Pros: Outstanding CD-quality audio, excellent compression with MPEG3, superb set of features, inexpensive Cons: Doesn't include any sample files, would be even better with browser plug-in capabilities For the latest information on WinAmp, check out: http://cws.internet.com/32audio.html#winamp