Pine Player 4+

Wow...I just went through several of the popular recommended audio players, but I'm stopping here. Here's why.

The EQ presets and adjustments all seem to give a sense of dynamic presence that is completely lacking in all the other players I've tried. On other players, some of the EQ presets are so difficult to listen to, you wonder why they are even included. In Pine Player, every EQ preset provides a noticeable adjustment to the music's presence without ruining the underlying original sound.

I had to drop one star because the music has sporadic dropouts that I am going to have to spend time trying to reconfigure settings to see if that problem can be overcome.

Can't complain about this player. It's free and it's compatible with everything I throw at it. I have FLAC of all bitrates, DSD/DSF files, SACD ISO files. Perfect to play music on my work laptop without having to manage a library.
I only have issues with 2 things. Audio processing/EQ is not great. It can easily saturate and mess up the audio quality and you will only noticed sometimes in the middle of a song. Sometimes I though I had a bad rip. The 6db on DSD for instance is something you don't want.
Also, the option of being able to delete the actual file on the disk from the right click menu is always disturbing me. I am scared of actually deleting a file instead of just removing it from the playlist.
But frankly it is only a tiny UX issue. It's free, and can't complain. It's more easy to use than the big players like JRiver that have way too many knobs when you just want to play a track on your disk with a USB DAC.

I like this app generally. It is small, light, and easy to use. But there is one glaring omission: It doesn't work with Mac's native media keys. (and MacOS now has a persistent "what's playing" feature, that does not detect this app). This omission makes this app all but unusable when you using it in the background. You have to use your mouse to control your music either by bringing the app to for foreground or using the space hogging media controls it places in your status bar. This issue is made worse by the fact of how long it has been around and how recently it has been updated.

I love the A/B loop buttons on the player. I couldn't find an app with the loop on the UI. (Like with Elmedia or VLC, you have to access it through a combintion of keys or by navigating menus).

If the creators added the media key feature (and expecially it they added the ability to add you tube videos and listen to the audio) this would be my go-to music app. Alas, though, until then, it will stay uninstalled.