Foobar plays most formats, and as the review says, there are loads of add-on components so it can handle ape, dts etc etc.

So as a player, it plays. But then so do many other players like winamp or vlc.

The killer part of Foobar200 for me is that it can bulk convert between formats. Basically, anything it can play, it can convert. I use it to transcode all my sould cloips to mp3 320k, and that makes them most likely to play on mac linux or handhelds.

It'll quietly get on with working its way through a long long list, you just set it up, set it going by right clicking a selction of files, and leave it alone to get on with it. It'll report back errors at the end, not that there are many.

I have just transcoded a LARGE bunch of flacs and m4a's to mp3 with only a couple of errors due to flac corruption: the originals wouldn't properly play anyway, I later found out.

I use VLC as my default player because it handles pretty much all formats. It won't play encrypted stuff - I hate encrypted movies and music and won't have anything to do with those ...

VLC will also convert between formats. I use it occasionally to convert (for example) tdswav to mp3.

If I have a lot of files to convert, I use foobar2000 (afterdawn folks, give it a plug!) because it understands many formats natively, but is also has add-on components covering dts, ape, etc - and the real reason I use it is because it will batch convert as many files as you want it to.

I also use Audacity if I have a file which is a whole CD. It can detect silence, split tracks, export each part to mp3 ... It's also pretty hot at editing or merging tracks.

COmbine that with CDEX or EAC for ripping, and I reckon we have a bunch of tools that will do pretty much everything you might want. And all free.