Competitors like Foobar and WinAmp may be your go-to audio players, but this latest version of AIMP offers many more features, if you can forsake its Russian origins.

As you will see in the screen grabs, installation was smooth, with pauses to choose the no-install version and to select the file formats associated with AIMP.

[I chose (pointlessly) to install the older 5.03 version after noticing version 5.10 would not load older plug-ins. Pointless, because my Win 11 machine had no previous installation of AIMP, but this allowed me to install version 5.10 and see if the interface behaved differently. The installation of 5.10 offered to update 5.03 (and to make a back-up of this older version) but did not offer to install on a USB key this time (as a portable version) while in this upgrade mode. The upgraded version's skin changed to the Standard interface style, rather than the Modern style, which was easily changed to Modern. NOTE: - The AIMP website contains many other, colourful, re-styled skins, contributed by users.]

Figure 1: versions

Figure 2: Installation screens

Explaining AIMP visually, via screen grabs, is probably better (by way of introduction). I was impressed by its versatility, as it was able to play audio tracks from video recordings, from radio stations, from podcasts, from playlists, and from a USB key that I simply plugged in. [Although it had been earlier set to watch the F: drive, should I later plug in a flash drive.] Discovery of more features is an ongoing adventure, as I click on various small icons, scattered around the graphic interface.

Figure 3: Choose all audio file associations, or individually

Figure 4: 3 Layout, 2 themes, colours

Figure 5: Modern layout playing a track from a flash drive

System requirements:

Platform: Windows Vista and above, also Linux and Android

Version: 5.10.2417

Size: 17.8 MB, 32bit 14.8 MB and 64 Portable version 17.2 MB

Licence: FREE for home use

Rating:

Download Site here.