It has a few more features, sure, but it broke one feature that is the bane of my existence. 7-8 different "support" employees were utterly lost about it. Akai support is grossly incompetent (& I have PAGES of proof), but I digress.
2.0 onward BROKE the MPC plugin's ability to route MIDI, MTC, & MMC where you might actually need it. It ambiguously only goes out to "DAW." Set it to anything else, and it reverts to "<none> when you return to that screen. Support couldn't even tell me, after repeated attempts, what I need to set my DAW (ANY DAW, I was willing to change) inputs to, in order to RECIEVE said signal. The obsolete, non-working instructions are STILL in the menu of 2.6 to this day! Pages & pages of utter incompetence in my email. The best I got is "This is how it works now." How, Sway? HOW TF DOES IT WORK, THEN?
I had to use the JACK Audio software to run between both MPC & my DAW(s) to achieve a basic advertised & paid for function that I would still have if I hadn't paid for the upgrade. JACK is a mind f*ck. Its instructions are obsolete as well, but at least it's free. Their free support beats Akai's hands down. So does Cakewalk's. And Harrison Mixbus'.
Sorry for the rant bro. Just be aware. I painted myself into a corner with 2.0 and couldn't really go back. The new features are superb, and the above is the only deal breaker I'm aware of.
Akai could heal my pain if they implemented REAL sidechaining, not that cheater plugin BS, and PDC. As it stands we can't even do proper parallel drum compression without serious phasing. Those two issues are with both versions. If they aren't a problem for you, 2.0 on is the t*ts. If you need MPC to run as a plugin in a real DAW, stay with 1.9.6.1.
Again, sorry to get in my feelings. I was told a fix was in the pipeline more than a year ago, don't hold your breath.