AIMP

AIMP can play many file types, including MP3, Advanced Audio Coding (AAC), Dolby AC-3, Ogg Vorbis, Opus, Speex, Windows Media Audio, Apple Lossless, FLAC, WAV and Audio CDs.

AIMP can also play many other audio formats like Monkey's Audio (APE), Tom's lossless Audio Kompressor (TAK) and True Audio; DTS audio, MP1, MP2, Musepack, OptimFROG, WavPack, MIDI, Impulse Tracker, MO3, MOD, MultiTracker Module, S3M, and Fasttracker 2 Extended Module.

AIMP supports the DirectSound, ASIO and WASAPI audio interfaces, and it uses 32-bit audio processing for its 18-band equalizer and built-in sound effects (Reverb, Flanger, Chorus, Pitch, Tempo, Echo, Speed, Bass, Enhancer, Voice Remover).

Among other features AIMP provides ability to load the entire media file, which is currently being played back, into the RAM of the computer (currently the options allow for media files of a size of up to 250MB to be loaded into RAM automatically at the start of playback; the file is subsequently deleted from RAM again, once playback has finished).

The advantage of this is that seamless playback without any interruptions is almost guaranteed, even on slower, older machines, and even under heavy multi-tasking with demanding programs, which may read or write continuously to and from the drives of the computer, since the file resides entirely in RAM and can hence always be accessed by the program without delay.

Other common players such as Winamp can read the media files in chunks in time for playback on resource-limited platforms. The byte size of these chunks can be adjusted from a few kilobytes up to 16 megabytes. This piecemeal loading may generate interruptions during playback, including the clicking noises which may occur as a result of such interruption.

As with offline media stored on local HDDs or other media or devices, AIMP is also able to cache up to 60 seconds of internet radio streams into RAM, which ensures seamless internet radio playback even when the internet connection is slowing down suddenly due to other downloads running at the same time or if sudden heavy use by neighbours or flatmates occurs while you are listening to the web radio. One drawback of this function is that channel switching is slowed as the buffer is first filled up to at least 25% before the playback starts (i.e. with 60 seconds of cache selected, the music will take up to 15 seconds to start playing).

Other features

• LastFM scrobbler
• Bookmark and playback queue creation
• Multiple playlists, one per tab
• CUE sheet support
• Playing media files of up to 250 MB directly from RAM
• Internet radio stream capturing
• Multi-user mode support
• Multi-language interface
• Hotkeys (configurable local and global hotkeys)
• Playlist and tag editor
• Audio library file organizer and search
• Alarm clock / Auto shutdown
• Support for plug-ins and skins

• On September 6, 2007, Softpedia editor Ionut Ilascu gave AIMP Classic 2.02 Beta a rating of 4 out of 5 stars.[7]
• On November 6, 2009, CNET editors also gave AIMP2 a 4 out of 5 star rating.[8]
• On September 23, 2016, Techradar editor Cat Ellis ranked AIMP4 at the 2nd place of the best free music players of 2016.[9]

The developers of AIMP warn on their official website that there is an ongoing scam by the unknown fraudsters behind the website aimp2.us, which has no connection whatsoever to the AIMP development team, and call upon its users not to donate any money to this fake site.[10] AIMP is a freeware program and as such brought to the users free of charge.

• Comparison of audio player software

• Official website