You might think that there is little point downloading a music player for Android. After all, the phone comes loaded with a perfectly workable player, and it must all sound the same coming out the headphones, right?
Well, it depends. In the digital age music players cannot prosper by merely make your eardrums vibrate, they can also categorise your music, tune you into radio and move your music libraries across your devices. So now all you need to know is which one to download…
1) doubleTwist
doubleTwist aims to integrate music player, podcast manager and radio into a single app. The design is slick, coming complete with artwork and a recently updated design for Android 4.4. It also has an easy sync feature with iTunes and Windows Media Player, and allows you to stream music to your games console.
2) Equalizer
Most music players leave the equaliser (EQ) tucked away in some dismal settings menu, but this one makes it the prime feature. Aside from that it is business as usual, with the usual search, catalogue and playing features, and not many other extras.
3) Cubed
Cubed is another gimmicky player featured around the eponymous box that acts as an alternative way of navigating through your music collection. It isn’t rammed with as many features as the likes of doubleTwist, but it does link to the music streaming service Last.fm, which many will appreciate.
4) Shuttle
This app may not look all that fancy, but it functions well. A six band equaliser, artwork and sleep timer are all included as standard, as is Last.fm functionality. The premium edition comes with another intriguing feature: the ability to stream content to your TV through ChromeCast.
5) Amazon Music
Earlier this year Amazon announced it would be moving into the music streaming business, offered as part of its Prime service which aims to compete with Netflix. This accompanying app allows you to play local content, music bought through Amazon’s music store, and streamed content from Prime.
6) Poweramp
Poweramp’s 10-band equaliser is pretty extensive as far as smartphones go, and this attitude to minute customisation is reflected across the whole app. Numerous file formats are supported as standard, and a plugin is even available to display lyrics as the song plays.
7) Rocket
Another free music player, Rocket covers all the basics, with a clean minimalistic look and all the basic features. Users can sync their music collections to iTunes, assign equaliser presets, and create dynamic playlists based on a custom rules, among other things.
8) jetAudio
jetAudio is likely the most feature crammed app on this list, boasting a huge array of features covering every possibility. Every file format is supported, the equaliser goes up to 20 bands, and it links in to other services from YouTube, Last.fm and Facebook. The only downside is that you have to pay.
