[LAU] Suggestions for minimal audio player?

Hello, all, I'm taking a course in Audio Production, that requires editing a number of audio files into a single piece. Think podcast or radio news segment. I need to efficiently listen to the individual files, and stop them to make notes and capture the location by time, for later reference when creating the final piece. So far, I'm just using the audio player that comes up automatically when I double-click on a .wav file in the files window. I think this is totem, based on running ps -aux. I'm dissatisfied with this because I have to carefully click a smallish button to stop and start the audio, and the time display disappears if the focus is off the window. (there's also an awful, loud burst of static at the end of each file, that isn't there when I load it into Audacity. Getting rid of this would be a bonus.) I guess I could load each file into Audacity for this initial review, but this seems like overkill and I'm not sure how small I could shrink the display down. Can anyone suggest a minimal audio player, that I could keep on top of the document that I'm taking notes on, and could be easily controlled and display the current location in the audio file? Is there any audio player used for transcription that would fit these specifications? Anyone use anything for tasks such as this that they'd recommend? All I think I need are basic transport controls (fast forward and back, jump forward or back X seconds, stop and play, wind to beginning or end) and the time display. An added bonus would be if I could load a whole playlist, or a directory of audio files, all in at once, and then go through them individually, one after the other. Thanks for your ideas and advice. -Kevin