is there a best music player on the computer?

I will add on to the praise of Jplay. Was using J River and decided to try Jplay on a trial basis - especially since it integrates nicely into J-River as a plugin. I did not need more than a few songs to realize that JPlay was the better player in my system. Difference was not subtle.

It's not cheap (99 Euros or about $137 at time of purchase with exchange rate) but considering what people pay for cables and other tweaks it's a no brainer if you really want to optimize your digital experience on the PC. Between J River and JPlay it will set you back just under $200.

Only potential downside is that the interface is very basic. Don't expect lots of extras. The programming time and effort clearly went into optimizing the sound rather than convenient features. Hopefully, we will get some of these in later updates (which are free for life).

ok, jPlay it is.
I'll buy a HP laptop with win7/64-bit, i5 2.4GHz processor, 80GB SSD, 750GB hard drive, and 6GB DDR3.

How best to optimize jPlay? Upgrade RAM to 16GB? Do I store CDs and hi-rez files on the HD or SSD?? Or is the SSD better served as the buffer? Which USB port: Super Speed 3.0? Ideas?

Sorry, just a newbie here looking for help or a good link!

Can J Play run under Microsoft HomeServer OS? If not, what recommendation for that OS? It is a dedicated music server so I don't imagine that something that runs in "hibernation mode" would be a problem. Please be gentle on the geek-talk. My IT consultant (read my son) is away at law school ;-)

Does Photoshop crop a photo better than Paint Shop Pro?
Does Nero burn a CD better than Burrrn?
I've used WMP, VLC, Foobar, MediaMonkey and others, and from my experience no media player sounds better (or worse) than any other media player. Better features...yes. Better sound....no.

Danoroo - I respectfully disagree. Have you tried Jplayer? I'd suggest those that are skeptical download the free trial software and judge based on your own ears. If you don't think it improves the sound in your system - don't buy the full program. No harm, no foul.

What is different about JPlay's design is that the program is designed to minimize your computer's hardware and software interruptions when using the music player.

The nice thing about evaluating music players is that all of us can do it via free trial software. Over the last few days I compared players from mediamonkey,JRiver and JPlay. I had no vested interest in the outcome and clearly preferred JPlay.