[BC] "Media Player" Sound Quality ?

[Ray Thomson]

Bob Dylan's recent comments regarding modern music sound  brought to  mind the different sonic qualities of the various "media players" out there. Here's Bob at his Best ? :

http://www.guardian.co.uk/frontpage/story/0,,1857099,00.html

The WindowsMediaPlayer seems to be the defacto standard for playing the various MP3 products now being distributed ala the internet ? 
With that in mind, I thought I'd share a bit of info that the Microsoft engineers did when creating Windows XP :

As Microsoft engineers have been known to hide little tidbits known as "Easter Eggs" in their software, I happened upon the inclusion of their WindowsMediaPlayer v6.4 hidden in XP . WHY they did this remains a mystery to me, but I still feel that it is the best sounding player to date (yet to try v10). Perhaps "growing up with vinyl " has had an everlasting effect...

For those  interested in giving it a listen on an XP machine :

Start/Run/mplayer2.exe   will take you to it

FWIW : I've found it useful in taking the "edge" off of those in-your-face-abrasive sounding spots.
That still leaves the unanswered question as to why they included it in their new product. Isn't newer always better???

Justa thought,

Ray Thomson
KDKB KUPD KDUS
Phx, AZ