Aqualung is an advanced music player originally targeted at the GNU/Linux operating system. It has many useful features built on a rock-solid backend supporting gapless playback that is a rarity not only among Linux players, but also Windows programs.

This Windows port is created by Aqualung lead developer Tom Szilagyi. Please direct your feedback (if any) to the Aqualung mailing list, clearly indicating in your mail that you are referring to the Windows version (and not the mainline Linux version). A good way of doing this is putting [WIN32] or something like that in the subject of your mail. Remember: you don´t want to write to Tom´s private address. Please don´t submit anything to the Aqualung bugtracker concerning this port either.

Note that this port requires that you have an NT-based Windows system (Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP or newer). This means that Windows 9x (Windows 95, Windows 98 or Windows ME) won´t work.

Important: When upgrading your Aqualung, make sure to uninstall the previous version before installing the current one. The Uninstall facility generated by the installer should make this very fast and easy.

Features:

• Audio CDs can be played back and ripped to the Music Store with on-the-fly conversion to WAV, FLAC, Ogg Vorbis or CBR/VBR MP3 (gapless via LAME). Seamless tagging of the created files is offered as part of the process.
• Internet radio stations streaming Ogg Vorbis or MP3 are supported.
• Almost all sample-based, uncompressed formats (e.g. WAV, AIFF, AU etc.) are supported. For the full list of these formats, visit the libsndfile homepage.
• Files encoded with FLAC (the Free Lossless Audio Codec) are supported.
• Ogg Vorbis and Ogg Speex audio files are supported.
• MPEG Audio files are supported. This includes MPEG 1-2-2.5, Layer I-II-III encoded audio, including the infamous MPEG-1 Layer III format also known as MP3. libMAD (which Aqualung uses) provides noticeably higher quality output than mpg123 (which XMMS relies upon). For tracks containing the appropriate LAME headers, the MPEG encoder delay and padding is eliminated by Aqualung, resulting in truly gapless playback. Aqualung also supports VBR (variable bitrate) and UBR (unspecified bitrate) MPEG files.
• MOD audio files (MOD, S3M, XM, IT, etc.) are supported via the libmodplug library. This provides higher quality than MikMod (used by XMMS as the default MOD decoder) and much higher quality than Winamp.
• Musepack (a.k.a. MPEG Plus) files are supported.
• Files encoded with Monkey´s Audio Codec are supported.
• WavPack files are supported.
• Numerous formats and codecs are supported via the FFmpeg project, including AC3, AAC, WMA, WavPack and the soundtrack of many video formats.
• Naturally, any of these files can be mono or stereo.
• OSS driver support
• ALSA driver support
• JACK Audio Server support
• Win32 Sound API (available only under native Win32 or Cygwin)
• Continuous, gap-free playback of consecutive tracks. Your ears get exactly what is in the files – no silence inserted in between.
• Ability to convert sample rates between the input file and the output device, from downsampling by a factor of 12 to upsampling by the same factor. The best converter provides a signal-to-noise ratio of 97dB with -3dB passband extending from DC to 96% of the theoretical best bandwidth for a given pair of input and output sample rates.
• LADSPA plugin support
• Playlist tabs allow you to have multiple playlists for your music at the same time, very similarly to multiple tabbed browsing in Firefox.
• Internally working volume and balance controls (not touching the soundcard mixer).
• Support for multiple skins; changing them is possible at any time.
• Support for random seeking during playback.
• Track repeat, List repeat and Shuffle mode (besides normal playback). In track repeat mode the looping range is adjustable.
• Ability to display and edit Ogg Xiph comments, ID3v1, ID3v2 and APE tags found in files that support them.
• All windows are sizable. You can stretch the main window horizontally for more accurate seeking.
• You can control any running instance of the program remotely from the command line (start, stop, pause etc.). Remote loading or enqueueing soundfiles as well as complete playlists is also supported.
• State persistence via XML config files. Aqualung will come up in the same state as it was when you closed it, including playback modes, volume and balance settings, currently processing LADSPA plugins, window sizes, positions and visibility, and other miscellaneous options.