@eliot

I completely agree. I want Ecoute to have a 'dumb remote' mode where all it does is control itunes. Suggested it to the Devs but they shot it down.

I really want to love Ecoute. However, I wish that it wouldn't try to be its own player. Directly controlling iTunes instead of using iTunes database would be far more useful to me. One big issue that shows up frequently is with VMware... if I'm doing some heavy crunching, iTunes never skips or stutters, but Ecoute will.

The newest version of Ecoute (November 26th, 2009) is 1.3.4. But, for some reason, the latest versions are all 1.2.6 in I Use This...
What's wrong with the updates of Ecoute in this website? (Just my curiosity.)

@ anamanaman:
Why don't you try Vox? It is able to play audio files from a folder. And not only QuickTime audio formats, but also FLAC, Monkey Audio and a few more. (But WMA is not supported.)
Version 0.2.6 is not fully compatible with Snow Leopard. It plays files, but all other features are not working (file conversion, equalizer, effects, etc.).
A beta version fully compatible with Snow Leopard will be released soon.
(And no... I'm not the developer of Vox. I'm just an ordinary user.)
Vox:
http://osx.iusethis.com/app/vox

When just playing a song, iTunes uses 4% of one core and about 400 megs of real memory.

When doing the same, Ecout uses about the same. (Also, it's hard to assign ratings in Ecoute.)

Maybe a player that ignores the iTunes library and just plays files off the Library tree would be significantly lightweight. The helper keeps track of what's played and updates the iTunes library if it can next time iTunes launches. Reading off the iTunes library means it hangs as much as iTunes on launch and coupled with the lack of improvement when actually playing songs, I just can't recommend this.

I want to like this application, but at least when it's reading from my 800 GB iTunes library it's as slow as iTunes, and as hangy.

App looks cool. I wish it could decouple from my itunes library though. I'd love a separate player that operates on a folder of MP3s I find somewhere to decide whether or not to add songs to my library.

An attractive application, absolutely, but not in my experience a lightweight one. Monitoring it's activity and comparing it with iTunes (even taking into account the extra memory usage of Agents I use with iTunes, like iScrobbler) revealed that any streamlining, if there was any, seemed pretty marginal.

I found the frame system within the app window counter productive (it redirects to full window album artwork when selecting and playing a new track).

I couldn't really easily add content to my Library in Ecoute either. All in all, I'd rather just stick with iTunes, thanks.

I personally think Ecoute is an amazing app, and perhaps under-priced at $10, it's quite a steal. The deal breaker for me is that I can't seem to find a way to use any basic equalizer settings with Ecoute's playback. And I have a particular EQ setting I always have on in iTunes. But besides that, it's an absolutely fantastic app and a very cool alternative to iTunes.

What Ecoute and the other companies making iTunes controller software have to realize, is "control" is of utmost importance. There is absolutely no reason that any clicks on the main widget should refocus the main window. I'm on space 1, the widget is in all spaces and the main window happens to be in space 5. I want to change a song. The program against my wishes changes my space.