14 DAY TRIAL // It is human nature to want a different thing than what's available. I mean if there is summer there must be someone longing for those cool winter days. When winter comes, everyone complains about the freezing cold and wishes it were summer again. Well, the same happens with the digital files. As soon as the DVD format was available, everyone wanted to convert it to the customary AVI. The reasons were plausible and very adequate, as space on the disk drive was threatened by the DVD5 file.
In the audio world however, things have been settled for a while and seem to be developing a bit slower. Besides the development of devices able to render a much better quality, the audio formats have remained pretty much the same. APE, FLAC and WAV still rule the audio quality world and there is little room for a new format as human hearing is sensitive or un-sensitive to the various audio frequencies.
Nevertheless, converting from a lossy format to a lossless one has always been appealing. And there are many that believe that through conversion to a better format the quality of the file will increase. Actually, it will either remain the same or, if the encoder is of poor quality, it will sound worse than the original.
Cool MP3 WAV Converter. The name says it all. There is no ensconced option except for "tuning" MP3 output result. The application will convert to and from WAV and MP3 only in almost no time. The price of the utility is $9.90 and the 14 days trial period allows you full testing.
The interface is sleek and very catchy. There is a "speedometer" in the right hand side of the window that will actually show you the progress of the conversion. The main checkpoints are placed at 0 (zero), 50 and 100. The options available in the application are rounded on the sides of this progress clock. On the left, there are the Add, Options, Info, Delete and Update buttons. Options and Info are the most important as the first one allows you to define the output path for the result and make the necessary MP3 encoding settings and the latter is the "gate" to ID3 information editing for the file.
Options, as I said before, provides the means to define the path for saving the output result. This can be the same as the input file or a different one. Additional options let you enable prompting to overwrite the existent files, delete the originals after the conversion and be alerted by a sound when the operation completes. The second tab of this menu deals with MP3 encoding settings. The encoder used is Lame MP3. It offers bitrate setting, audio channel, VBR (variable bitrate enabling), set the maximum bitrate and the VBR quality (on a scale from zero to 9, zero being the highest quality).
There is no complicated task for the matter and a newbie could easily get along with it.
Editing the ID3 details of the files however is a bit tricky and you may encounter some difficulties on the way. At least at the first testing I did not manage to change a single detail as the application hit me with a couple of errors and at the next try it crashed. After reviving Cool MP3 WAV Converter everything seemed OK and there was no trouble.
The program comes strapped with an audio player that will run only the original files. There are all the basic functions an audio player needs in order to work at its minimum parameters: the control buttons (play, pause, next/previous track and stop).
At the end of the conversion, the folder containing the resulting files will pop up automatically.
The Good
The quality of the converted file is pretty much the same with the original. A trained ear will sense the difference, but for a home user the application works great. The sleek looks are definitely appealing as well as the quickness of the process.
The Bad
Despite its spaceship-console-looking interface, the software runs short on some features like the ability to convert to and into more than MP3 and WAV formats. Additionally, the files have to be deleted only by using the incorporated Delete button and not the keyboard.
The price is also a concern as no matter how appealing and measly $9.90 may seem there are softwares doing much more and for free.
The Truth
Very good for home use, advanced users with trained ears will know better. There aren't many features and options available, but the approach on the interface is quite non-conformist and good-looking. In contradiction with the price, the developer states that there will be free upgrades for life for the registered users.
All in all, you have 14 days to try it with no strings attached. Test it and then decide upon purchasing it or not.
Here are some snapshots of the application in action:
