Raven,
That’s an interesting question to me, as I find myself using WavePad as a player for my Mandarin language learning files. That’s because I tend to tweak them each time I listen to them and because it’s so easy to set a loop or to jump around in the file. WavePad is a fabulous editor that can also convert, record, rip, and yes, play. On the other hand, WavePad isn’t intended to be a player, and it doesn’t have all the features that a player has, such as an equalizer to name one of many. Also, it takes much longer to load a file completely to memory for editing than to just playback. In short, it has a different purpose, for which it has a different design. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t use it as you wish. For speech files, you don’t need an equalizer, etc., but for music, you might want it. And perhaps WavePad will someday be morphed into a full-fledged WavePlayer.
Cheers!