The mpg123 distribution contains a real time MPEG 1.0/2.0/2.5 audio player/decoder for layers 1,2 and 3 (most commonly MPEG 1.0 layer 3 aka MP3), as well as re-usable decoding and output libraries. Among others, it works on GNU/Linux, MacOSX, the BSDs, Solaris, AIX, HPUX, SGI Irix, OS/2 and Cygwin or plain MS Windows (not all more exotic platforms tested regularily, but patches welcome). You may jump to the non-exhaustive list of features.
 It is free software licensed under LGPL 2.1 .
 Note that nowadays, the mpg123 decoder core can work with floating point or integer math and with some tuning between accuracy and performance at build-time, using assembly optimizations for several platforms, depending on your build configuration. There is detection and selection of assembly optimisations on x86, x86-64, and ARM at program runtime. It's fast, it's high-quality. Just use it;-)

 Oleksandr Nazaruk (email: mail@freehand.com.ua)