Justin Frankel, Winamp's developer, never had an idea that a program that he started as a hobby would make him a millionaire. In May 1999, Justin sold his company, Nullsoft Inc. to AOL as a part of a US $400 Million deal. You would ask, wasn't that a little excessive? Well! It was, and it wasn't! AOL didn't only get Winamp; it also got the support of the huge community behind Winamp. Thousands of people who develop plugins, skins and many other freebies for Winamp were the primary reason why Winamp was way ahead, and will probably remain ahead in the Audio player wars...

We're not fogey old nostalgic hippies when we say that Winamp 2.x is better than Winamp 3.0. It's slow, bloated, and buggy as of now. Maybe it will take several version changes for the new Winamp to catch up, but until then we're going to stick to the classic version. Don't worry you won't miss out on anything, all the plugins mentioned here will work with the classic version.

Plug in, chill out

Winamp.com's plug-ins section hosts more than 2,000 Winamp plugins, and around 25,000 skins! From audio enhancement tools to cool graphical visualizations, a wide array of winamp plug-ins can enhance your listening experience quite a lot. There's something for everyone; audiophiles, show freaks, party people, power users, all can find something that fits their bill. Here, we've put together a collection of some of our favorite plugins in each category, Visualization plugins, Audio Processing Plugins, and General Purpose Plugins, which enhance Winamp's overall Usability. Go Ahead! Check them out...

Milkdrop

There's only one word to describe Milkdrop. Trippy. It's quite simply the most amazing visualisation plugin ever, and it uses 3D acceleration and iterative image-based rendering techniques to create some jaw dropping visuals. Dizzying fractals that dance and move to the music, and move to the beat. A dizzying array of configurable patterns make this one of the best visualisation plugins ever.
Size: 284 KB

Geiss 4

One of the oldest Full screen visualization plug-ins, Geiss has its own cult following. Now in v.4, it has advanced a lot in the way it uses hardware acceleration, handles higher resolutions etc., but the visualizations remain the same, trippy, colorful and quick. This plug-in will work perfectly even on a slow 300 MHz machine. Put this on while listening to that hardcore dance music, and watch the beats play games with your mind.
Size: 151 KB

X-Plugin

Any audiophile would dream of buying, but never be able to afford what this plug-in provides you for free. Speakers, Woofers, Tweets and what not, this one is the king of all virtual speaker visualization plug-in. Rendered in high quality Direct-X animation, a horde of speaker boxes wrap all around your Winamp, giving you that fake feeling of satisfaction you can't get unless you spend "full-peti-rupaiyya".
Size: 933 KB

Men In Black II - Dancing Worm

We don't know about you, but we're pretty sick of those
dancing around on your screen tapping away to the rhythm of "We're going to Ibiza". We want more, we want aliens, we want Men In Black II. Here's our favorite gooey alien worm, put it on and play that slithery Nine Inch Nails sound, watch it swing and slip. 3D acceleration required.
Size: 2402 KB

ONE
Advanced Visualization Studio is Nullsoft's own visualization plugin for Winamp, and bundles with any new Winamp distribution, you can make your own visualization schemes, or download what other people made. This Is the slickest AVS pack of all, showcasing how well AVS deals with AVI animations and bitmaps inserted into graphics. One word for "ONE" ...Smooth!
Size: 789 KB

Enhancer v0.17

Many have promised but all have failed, except Enhancer. Over the years, we've seen a multitude of DSP plugins offering to make dull music sound good, and actually add something to sound other than pure noise. Enhancer offers quite a few advanced audio enhancement tools including solid Low frequency harmonics, clear and crisp treble and a precise volume stabilizer that prevents sound from distorting. Best of all, unlike its costly cousins, this one is free.
Size: 104 KB

Adapt-X plugin v3.5

Adapt-X lets Winamp play music using the DSP plugin architechure, instead of some propreitary amateurish crap. It's a truly powerful plugin that can let you play music with professional quality effects that Directx 8.0 provides: Chorus, Compression, Distortion, Echo, Environmental Reverberation, Flange, Gargle, Parametric Equalizer and Waves(tm) Reverberation. If you install the MS plus! pack for Windows XP, you can even use the Speaker Correction Wrapper. Adapt-X has an SDK for developers, so you're sure to have more improvements and enhancements coming your way.
Size:695 KB

MuchFX 2

Description is simple, "Winamp DSP Plug-in chainer". This simple plug-in does what every audiophile wants, allows them to chain multiple DSP plugins together and use all the features great features of all the plug-ins to make their audio sound "phat" & "groovy".
Size: 83 KB

Dee
Quite Similar to Enhancer both in terms of looks and functionality, this plug-in offers precise control over audio frequencies. All DFX Fans would find it easier to shift over to this plug-in. It offers all the features of DFX, and is free!
Size: 172 KB

iZotope Ozone Free

We didn't know what "warmth" meant, we didn't know why audiophiles appreciate "tube amps" so much, until we got to hear Ozone. Ozone is a "digital audio re-mastering" plug-in, that includes an Analog modeled EQ, tube compressors and amplifiers, room simulators and more. Perfect for house music, excellent for soft, warm music. Chain this one up with Enhancer and watch your aural field expand beyond your imagination.
Size: 1310 KB

Reproduction Control 1.28

Not only does this plug-in allow you to auto-read MP3s from freshly inserted CD-ROMs, it allows for universal keyboard shortcuts to control winamp, completely rid your taskbar of a winamp icon, and instead have a thin border on one corner of your screen to access winamp, virtually making a running winamp untraceable to the prying eyes of a stranger.
Size: 365 KB

Album List
Have tones of music on hard drive? Use CD-ROMs with folders for albums as your music playback medium? This plug-in makes it a whole lot easier to manage full albums, or sorted music. All you get to see is a simple playlist manager like window with all the album names in it. Click and play.
Size: 127 KB

Winamp Toolbar Deskband

Want to hide away that big winamp window and control all of winamp's functions using a simple taskbar utility? This is the tool for you. This bar fits perfectly in the place of your Quick Launch bar, or along with it and allows you to control the most frequently accessed winamp features. Requires Windows 2000/XP.
Size: 79 KB