Ack! Don't play mods with Winamp. The replay routine is completely inaccurate.

I *think* XMPlay supports W9x and can definitely play module subsongs, give that a try.

That looks like what I need. Many thanks for the suggestion!

you *can* play multi subsongs with winamp, but you must do so by sliding the "Seeking Bar" which kinda hassle.
Dedicated MOD player are better for that purpose.

Winamp can play all subsongs (still unplayed orders) if the option "continue play after loop" is active. That option has been there for many versions (I have mikamp 2.2.11). This is not that useful for listening because slow and fast sections that don't necessarily flow together will just cut without a fade.

Winamp often gets criticism for its quality. I found it not that bad. Perhaps the noise level is mysteriously higher on some samples, and its only choice of ramping is a bit too aggressive. XMPlay with sensitive ramping has the best sound quality, exceeding modplug and dumb, which often click where bass does not. I use an input plugin in Foobar 0.8.3 built around BASS (no it doesn't support subsongs). Surprisingly, XMPlay does still run on Windows 98.

Yeah, I wanted to say that I went ahead and tried XMPlay and it actually works on Win98 and WinME. It's a pretty rocking player, thanks for letting me know about it.

Any recommendations for skins? Right now I've got the Winamp 2 skin, but I'm open to suggestions as regards usability.

I use WAModern Good Ol' Winamp. (Modern skin with green/purple colors instead of silver/blue). I chose this skin because it is mostly rectangular and easy on the eyes with healthy amount of 3D shading. I hate clicking through to the window behind it by accident, which happens on skins with a creative shape.

The superiority of BASS' ramping comes through on Unreal tracks "Dusk Horizon" (starts with a fading bass rumble) and "Isotoxin" (cuts into samples with offset all the time), and also Jeroen Tel "Stranglehold" (sine waves modulated by some waveform). Winamp's "micro" ramping still sounds like rounded steps and not very micro in comparison. BASS still let's through the drum roll in "Vortex Rikers". There might also be something wrong with basic linear interpolation. For some reason SkyTown "All Hallows Sunset" has a lot of 8-bit hiss in Winamp.

XMplay only falls behind other players in one area - Cubic interpolation, which I find a nice compromise between aliasing and smooth treble - with samples of quality found in Unreal/DeusEx. With XMplay, one must choose between Linear and Sinc (not a very sharp sinc, which is good).

I'm not ripping on Winamp for its sound quality, I'm ripping on it for its terrible playback accuracy. Module formats are extremely complex and real care must be taken to implement them properly. Under Winamp you'll be hearing wrong pitches, wrong volumes, effects, slides, etc. In some cases the whole module will break down because it relies on a trick/undocumented feature in whatever tracker was used to make it that the player just plain doesn't support. (Worst offenders for extensively using difficult-to-implement tracker tricks are: Amiga Protracker mods, Fasttracker XMs, S3Ms, and ITs. I.e. 98% of the modules out there.)

Currently the two *genuinely* accurate replay routines in widespread use are: BASS and libopenmpt (NOT libmodplug), which is from OpenMPT and found mostly in different plugins for different players (including XMPlay.) If your player isn't using one of those there's a good chance it's not playing the module right.