Sonique (media player)
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| Sonique | |
 Sonique |
|
| Developer: | Lycos |
|---|---|
| Latest release: | 1.96 / March, 2002 |
| OS: | Windows |
| Use: | Audio player |
| License: | Proprietary |
| Website: | {{{website}}} |
Sonique is a discontinued Windows freeware audio player capable of handling MP3, Ogg Vorbis, Microsoft Windows Media, audio CDs, and more. It fuses a highly stylized aesthetic with a fluid, windowless interface and fully animated menu systems. Additional functionality includes a basic playlist editor, a variety of unique output visualization modes via plug-ins, and a robust control set featuring pitch, balance and amplification adjustment, as well as a 20-band equalizer with spline-based level adjustment. It supports many audio formats, including MP3, MP2, Ogg Vorbis, WAV, MOD, XM, IT, S3M, Audio CD and Windows Media Audio. Further audio and visual formats are playable through various plugins, for example AVI video files. Sonique can also be used to listen to audio streams.
Sonique's look and feel can be completely customized via skins.
At the time when Sonique was still under development, it was one of the most popular audio players, though had very stiff competition in Nullsoft's Winamp audio player. The major features that made Sonique famous were its audioEnlightenment mpeg decoding engine, its freeform skins, innovative audio visualizations, and a powerful equalizer. Drawbacks, however, included its chronic instability, unimpressive playlist functionality, and an awkward menu setup.
[edit] History
Sonique was originally developed by Media Science, but was later sold to Lycos for $38.8 million USD (as reported by The New York Times). When Lycos was acquired by Terra Networks, S.A. in October 2000, the original Sonique team was laid off and replaced with a smaller team based out of the Lycos corporate headquarters. Because of an internal shift in priorities, the updated version of Sonique was never completed. An alpha version of Sonique 2 was eventually released, however, development later appeared to have stopped.
As of September 30th, 2005, Lycos (now owned by Daum) has removed the Sonique website and appears to have ceased further development of the project. As of November 9th, 2006, the free download of freeware Sonique 1.96 was still available from http://teliadk.tucows.com/files4/sonique196.exe.
