Potamus is an extremely lightweight gtk-based audio player with a simple interface and an emphasis on high audio quality.

it was written as a reaction to players like rhythmbox that use a complex database to keep track of a music collection. potamus uses of the filesystem for sorting music, so it knows nothing about the files it's playing other than their names, and tries to make it as easy as possible to use your file manager to locate and play music.

it can decode flac, ogg vorbis, mpeg audio, and any format supported by the modplug or audiofile libraries. for mpeg audio playback (including mp3), it uses libmad's high-quality decoder to produce dithered 24-bit output. it can use oss or alsa (via libao) for direct output, or can work with jack, converting sample rates and formats where necessary. it supports 24-bit audio output and gapless playback. it can perform simple operations on channels (sum and difference, phase reversal, single channels).