I hadn't thought about using this to efficiently preview jingles for radio stations. Now I can see how it can be a benefit for that.
 
 
Do people producing jingles really want to preview the sound of the varying effect of making choices like:
 
- Allow Mid-Joint Stereo
- Allow Intensity Joint Stereo
- Allow Narrowing of Stereo Image
- Set all Decoding to 32 bit
- Encode Stereo as Dual Channel
- Variable Bit rate or Constant Bit rate
 
I haven't tried either of the Sonnox products but it was my impression that they were made to give people an opportunity to quickly preview the subtle effect of these choices.
 
I remember a while back when the Rolling Stones made a big deal about sending out their new single for radio play as a mp3 so everyone could get it "simultaneously". :-)
 
 
How about satellite radio content? They seem to use some aggressive and gnarly sounding codecs. Do they compress themselves? re-compress? Or expect to receive content in their flavor of choice?
 
 

Mike is it 
 
a mp3
 
or 
 
an mp3
 
??
 

Grammatically it is A MP3...

As AN is only used when the word begins with a Vowel
i.e..AN apple, AN excellent lesson, AN experiment
 
But the argument could be made that since phonetically it is pronounced "EM"
that AN MP3 would be acceptable.

Class dismissed  

Am mp3 is more betterer.

bapu
Am mp3 is more betterer.

AND GOODER MORE!!!

Guys,
 
There's a free way to do this as well for audio codecs, but requires two programs and a third download of the LAME encoder to cover all the bases.
 
dBpoweramp is an excellent coder/decoder with a feast of current codecs as addons from their site. Also comes with a great CD ripper and the mp3 tagger is quite good as well.
 
http://www.dbpoweramp.com/
 
They offer a freeware version that you can keep, but the mp3 encoder expires in a month without purchasing. This still leaves the other codecs. Integrates into the shell with an easy right click option on any audio file to open the conversion options.
 
LameXP is a front end for the LAME encoder which gives back the detailed mp3 management lost when poweramp mp3 codec expires.
 
http://sourceforge.net/projects/lamexp/
 
Then all needed is the most recent LAME encoder (lame_enc.dll). Needs to be dropped in the same folder with the LameXP executable.
 
http://lame.sourceforge.net/
 
Haven't worked that much with a Mac, but have never had to go outside this combination for my needs. Can't argue with the price.
 
John