Equalizer dysfunctional with AAC (5.23)
 

Is it just me, or is it supposed to be that way?
I've tried both HE-AAC and LC-AAC.
Is there a need to go Pro?

There is no need to go pro. The money would go to Fraunhoffer for using a MP3 encoder and to sonic for using their ripping/burning engine.

EDIT: Oh yeah. I am probably to blame for the changed EQ. There was an internal EQ in the in_mp3.dll (which handles MP3 AND AAC) and I have bugged one developer to turn off this internal one and to use the better global one (which works for wave, vorbis,...) and for 5.23 he turned it off by default. The global EQ is from 4Front Technologies and it is cosidered to be rather good (compared to the crappy former global one and to the rather bad internal one).

But your ears are right. It is another EQ active now. That means for you either to finetune your EQ presets again to your personal listening preferences or to turn on the (technically inferior) internal EQ again.

Just go in the preferences to the in_mp3 input plugin
--> "configure" --> "Decoder" tab --> tick on the "Fast Layer 3 EQ" --> You are done.

The disadvantage of the latter solution would be that you will use another EQ for MP3/AAC files than with other files (wave, vorbis, flac...). Your presets would be tuned only for one of them. This was the reason for bugging Benski to turn this off in the first place.