MPEGplus 1.79c | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| download | at 28.8 it takes | program runs under | author | updated |
 freeware, lossy audio encoder similar to mp3, just better  , mp+ files are playable by Winamp via mp+ Winamp plugin, for more players/plugins and batch encoders see authors download section comes with 4 default presets: thumb (very low bitrate), radio (mid range bitrate), standard (very high quality, default), xtreme (even higher quality, for extraordinary hearings only) and insane (for those who prefer full frequency response) I tested mp+ vs. mp3 (latest FHG as well as LAME) vs. ogg vs. aac vs. vqf vs. wma vs. ra(atrac), and for "near-CD-quality" mp+ is clearly my favourite, the -standard setting ends up at around 160 kbps usually, with a near-perfect quality usually - very clear treble and no audible pre-echoes nor weird flanging what should I say, I switched from mp3 to mp+ for encoding my own audio-CD's and stuff NEW: optimized the filterbank and debugged the coding of digital silence | ||||
Ogg Vorbis 1.0 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| download | at 28.8 it takes | program runs under | author | updated |
| freeware, lossy audio encoder similar to mp3, but better audio quality, open source, 100% patent- and royalty-free, for any private *and* commercial use the pack contains the drag'n'drop version of the encoder, a commandline encoder is available at the Vorbis site the encoders, decoders, plugins at vorbis.com are under the GPL (GNU Public License) and the libraries are under the business-friendly BSD license Winamp, Sonique, Windows MediaPlayer and almost every other player support OGG either natively or by a plugin, check the Vorbis download page OggVorbis plugins for Winamp by Peter Pawlovski: decoder / encoder, and he has a OggVorbis filter for Cool Edit too all Ogg Vorbis tools are available for Windows, Linux/BSD, Solaris, MacOS, BeOS ... and even OS/2 Maxx of kolabore wrote a nice Ogg Vorbis intro NEW: after years of betas and RC's the long awaited 1.0 release version - bye bye MP3 | ||||
Monkey’s Audio 3.80f | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| download | at 28.8 it takes | program runs under | author | updated |
| freeware, the #1 lossless(!) WAV packer, perfect for archiving samples and HD-recording sessions/projects (important: read last sentence in my description!) audio files packed with Monkey's Audio (.ape) can be played back by Winamp and Media Jukebox by plugins (included) supports 8, 16 and 24 bit WAV's, mono/stereo, every bitrate the compression is better than everything else I tested, incl. WinRAR (-mm), LPAC, RKAU, Sonarc, usually better than 50% you think it's slow as hell? wrong! it's fast as hell! (can process most albums in under 3 minutes on a 500 Celeron) Tagging support (ID3 tags used on MP3’s) external encoder support - you can use Monkey's Audio as a front-end for all of your encoding needs one negative note though: the previous version 2.71 encoded crap sometimes, I got a CRC error on depacking - although this didn't happen with the new version (tested the same WAV's), I'd recommended to use the included VERIFY function | ||||