Audacious

I like it, looks fresh and clean. Great work!

Personally I like the old one better.

The proposed icon does not resemble an 'a' as the old one did. What does it try to illustrate? It looks like something else, not much like a letter at all (only a bit like Latin small Eth though) and with much reduced recognition value.

In effect it does not resemble an 'a' as closely as the old one did, and this is precisely one of its strenghts in terms of distinctivity and 'recognition value'. Of course it's a symbol, not an illustration. The Nike 'Swoosh' doesn't try to illustrate or closely resemble anything and this doesn't negatively affects its value :)

Don't say "the Nike Swoosh doesn't try to illustrate [...] anything". Graphics like that are a common way to illustrate motion/movement and speed, and this particular registered trademark has been really successful even. Btw, Wikipedia adds the following: "While most people would regard the symbol as a check mark, the Nike swoosh was inspired by the Greek goddess Nike, the winged goddess of victory. The swoosh evokes her flight."

When you want to create/establish a new icon, one of the questions that is raised is whether you want to express anything? It cannot be only technical reasons, such as colours and thickness of lines, when it has become a hardly readable 'a' that users likely won't even recognize as such.

You criticized about what it 'resembles' and what it 'looks like' and I replied to that. Obviously, resembling something and evoking something are two completely different matters, as I already tried to make clear.

I can understand your confusion about that and I don't want to be rude, but I really don't have time to turn this feature request ticket in a first-year communication design school lesson for a single student (nor, worse, to start a flame with you). So I will not reply further and you are free to have the last word.

In addition, if you think that the current symbol better represents the core values of the Audacious project and works fine on a technical level, I suggest to just change the status of this request to Rejected. I think it would be a missed opportunity for Audacious but I am perfectly fine with that. I'll keep on using the Audacious player with a not-so-audacious icon :)