I just gave AIMP 2 a go at work today. I've been pleasantly surprised by it. The main setup options are perhaps a bit too simple (not customizable enough, although there are skins) and there's no ReplayGain support (Closest thing is an auto-attenuator in the DSP manager, which is okay but can cause odd audio distortion occasionally as it adjusts), but other than that it's quite the enjoyable player.
The sound quality is also excellent, IMO. From what I can tell, it's using some driver called vaclcskd.sys (I know this because if you run the Breakaway DSP (Winamp plugin usually) and AIMP 2 at the same, you'll get a blue screen of death with this driver as the culprit. Fun times.) instead of DirectSound. I think this vaclcskd.sys driver is some kind of proprietary kernel driver.
Either way, I'm not sure if the driver is doing some kind of transform on the audio, but I think it sounds different from foobar2000 in a good way (I wish I had ReplayGain available so I could level match, etc.). It almost seems like the AIMP 2 output driver has a better hold on the processing. The audio just "feels" tighter, more accurate. It's like an instantly recognizable PRaT improvement more than anything else to me. Could be all placebo, but I don't think so.
The audio library/playlist setup is decent enough. Playlists sit on the top of the playlist window as tabs. The audio library is a separate window from the main app and works well enough. AIMP 2 reads tags blazingly fast.
AIMP 2 supports Winamp DSP plugins and some general Winamp plugins, so all is not lost if you switch from Winamp. Output plugins aren't supported AFAIK.
Additionally, the built-in equalizer is full of features (you probably don't need
), and should satisfy most basic tinkering desires (iZotope Ozone or a similar DSP should take care of the rest). The tempo adjuster can be fun for those who are bored. 
I haven't touched this yet, but as well as I can see, AIMP 2 also supports online radio station recording and audio conversion to FLAC/MP3/OGG/MusePack/FAAC/WMA/WAV with what looks like CD ripping capabilities (EAC is still going to be better, but hey).
I'll be playing around more with AIMP 2 over the weekend at home. I'm hoping a few others will as well. It's a great little player so far, and I'm hoping I can flesh out a few more nice tweaks and tricks to really make it a contender for music playback on a regular basis.
The sound quality is also excellent, IMO. From what I can tell, it's using some driver called vaclcskd.sys (I know this because if you run the Breakaway DSP (Winamp plugin usually) and AIMP 2 at the same, you'll get a blue screen of death with this driver as the culprit. Fun times.) instead of DirectSound. I think this vaclcskd.sys driver is some kind of proprietary kernel driver.
Either way, I'm not sure if the driver is doing some kind of transform on the audio, but I think it sounds different from foobar2000 in a good way (I wish I had ReplayGain available so I could level match, etc.). It almost seems like the AIMP 2 output driver has a better hold on the processing. The audio just "feels" tighter, more accurate. It's like an instantly recognizable PRaT improvement more than anything else to me. Could be all placebo, but I don't think so.
The audio library/playlist setup is decent enough. Playlists sit on the top of the playlist window as tabs. The audio library is a separate window from the main app and works well enough. AIMP 2 reads tags blazingly fast.
AIMP 2 supports Winamp DSP plugins and some general Winamp plugins, so all is not lost if you switch from Winamp. Output plugins aren't supported AFAIK.
Additionally, the built-in equalizer is full of features (you probably don't need
), and should satisfy most basic tinkering desires (iZotope Ozone or a similar DSP should take care of the rest). The tempo adjuster can be fun for those who are bored. I haven't touched this yet, but as well as I can see, AIMP 2 also supports online radio station recording and audio conversion to FLAC/MP3/OGG/MusePack/FAAC/WMA/WAV with what looks like CD ripping capabilities (EAC is still going to be better, but hey).
I'll be playing around more with AIMP 2 over the weekend at home. I'm hoping a few others will as well. It's a great little player so far, and I'm hoping I can flesh out a few more nice tweaks and tricks to really make it a contender for music playback on a regular basis.
