Suggestion: MPlayer. Small; low key.
Although primarily a (very comprehensive) movie player, I use it for audio also. It's certainly got Play Lists; can't speak for iPod sync, but presume not impossible.
HERE is the portable version (USB stick, or self contained on PC). There's a link on there also to the integrated PC version if you prefer.
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- MPEG layer 1, 2, and 3 (MP3) audio
- AC3/A52 (Dolby Digital) audio (software or SP/DIF)
- AAC (MPEG-4 audio)
- WMA (DivX Audio) v1, v2
- WMA 9 (WMAv3), Voxware audio, ACELP.net etc (using x86 DLLs)
- RealAudio: COOK, SIPRO, ATRAC3 (using Real libraries)
- RealAudio: DNET and older codecs
- QuickTime: Qclp, Q-Design QDMC/QDM2, MACE 3/6 (using QT libraries), ALAC
- Ogg Vorbis audio
- VIVO audio (g723, Vivo Siren) (using x86 DLL)
- alaw/ulaw, (ms)gsm, pcm, *adpcm and other simple old audio formats
The
codec status page has the complete list and is updated daily.