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This isnt like a technicaly awesome well grounded opinion here, and you probably can find inaccuracies in my opinion but here goes anyway.
> Ive been trialing jriver for a month and have to say for my tastes its too bloated.
If you mean that JRiver is very customizable, yes it is.
> I want something simple sleek and at the same time light on the system resources and simple to configure.
I've compared JRiver's resource use to that of Foobar several time in the past and found no systematic difference between them for memory or CPU use. CPU use stays at or below 1% on the PCs I've run JRiver on (from 2006 era PCs to Sandy Bridge based PCs.
My experience is that JRiver is much easier to configure than Foobar. You do need to surf the menus and dialogs but that is a skill that you need for PC software of all kinds.
> Every time I loaded jriver up it was slow on boot up,
When you first install JRiver, it tries to scan your hard drives looking for music, image and video files to add to its library. It counts down from 30 and then starts the scan. It will do that every time you start the program until you import some files or rip some CDs so that the library is not empty. You can click on a button in the bottom left area of the window to cancel the scan and then import some files manually or a rip a few CDs. Then JRiver will not do that scan. JRiver starts very quickly for me and is ready to use. (< 1 sec.)
> I had ugly screen for links to amazon and stuff, yuck and then it has this overcrowded menu with all this playlist **** with genre and ratings and blah blah etc
Sounds as if you are talking about the free Media Jukebox version that featured the Amazon music store. It is several years old and four major revisions out of date by now. In the current version of JRiver MC, there is a single row of words representing links to things like Amazon, AMG, Google. It is hard to believe that the presence of four words in the upper right side of the window would spoil anyone's use of the program.
The left side of the screen has a list of views you can use to browse your library. Pick one view and then click on the small arrows at the right edge of the pane containing the tree. The pane goes away and you have more room for displaying the information you need for browsing.
> . I have to click audio, then files, then wave folder, Then album then play. Too much drilling down and for some reason it never resumed where i left off last time.
There is a simple option to start in the last location. You could choose that behavior in less time than it took you to write your post.
> It was just not easily viewable with the left side going to far to the right past the edge I dunno, it seemed like a chore every time.
Like many Windows programs, you can place the mouse pointer over the vertical edge of the pane that contains the tree of views and slide the edge left or right. Once you get the division as you want it, it will stay there.
> It was so easy to get lost in menus and options and stuff anyway maybe thats just me.
> Also I didnt really have the desire to want to learn all the nuances of this programme. I dont know how to explain that but yeah it just turned me off
Many programs like JRiver are written to serve thousands of people with different needs and preferences. Your odds of getting the behavior you want are better if you figure out what you want and then look for ways to configure the software.
> Conclusion IMO Just get Foobar2000 and save your money. Maybe make a donation of a couple of bucks.
It Foobar fits your needs, then use it.
The same author wrote a much simpler player program called "Boom". If you just want to open a file and play it or play all the files in a folder, it is all you need.
Bill
