Tuesday, January 26, 2010
In spite of its name, Audio Converter also offers tools for ripping and burning CDs, as well as those for extracting sound from video files. The program's clear-cut interface features large icons for performing all major actions, though you'll have to dig around a bit to toggle among the output formats, which include MP3, WMA, WAV, OGG, and AIFF. After you choose your desired codec, you can set bit rate or audio quality and even apply normalization, useful when working with files from different sources. We were glad Audio Converter can connect to the online CDDB to retrieve album information and automatically name folders and files according to song title, artist, and so on. In our tests, the program ripped and encoded CDs at the speed of about 1MB per second. If you notice major slowdown in your PC work when encoding, uncheck the high-process priority option in General settings. The CD-burning utility worked fine in our tests, though note you'll have to check a box during the install if you want this functionality. Users who need to handle a variety of routine audio tasks should give this program a try. |