Hi there. I was trying to install vlc the otherday on my linux box, which uses libmad rather than amarok's mad. And the two conflict with eachother. I had a look on website and in the mad descriptions seems like libmad is newer and what is supported and it provides mad in it.

  Is it me being wrong? Or is there particular reason why amarok uses mad rather than libmad?

Amarok uses xine or helix. No mad.

Perhaps xine uses mad. This is no amarok problem.