Audiophiles Rejoice

xkcd - Audiophiles

Do you have a significant investment in audio equipment and want to get the most range from your music collection? Do you want the crisp highs and deep bass you’re used to from CD’s? Then stop listening to audio compressed in the outdated MP3 format! Anytime audio is compressed, even with 320kbps quality MP3s, some range is sacrificed to reduce the file size and sound artifacts can occur.

For true studio sound, lossless formats such as an uncompressed WAV (Waveform Audio File Format), or a compressed FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec), are the better option, even though they require more storage space. The smaller file size of the lossless FLAC is great for music collections, supports tagging for artist and album information, and is ideal for streaming audio because it is fast seeking. One note of caution if you’re straying away from your computer, while FLAC is a popular lossless audio format, not all devices, like car stereos, will support playback without modification.

Additionally, editing music in lossless formats, like with our WavePad Audio Editor Software, means you can exercise more control, on more sound data than with other formats. Starting with the highest quality possible source will result in the best final product. Use our other audio tools, like Switch Audio File Converter Software, to batch convert audio files between formats, for example if you don’t have room for your FLAC collection on your gym iPod.

Give your equipment and ears the quality they deserve!

Best File Compression Software: Express Zip

The Olympics haven't started yet, but NCH Software has already won a Gold this summer. TopTenReviews just named Express Zip File Compression Software the best file compression software. We were thrilled to not only win the Gold, but to have the reviewers notice the easy-to-use features we have been working so hard on. Saying Express Zip's "simple, intuitive interface takes much of the guesswork out of compressing files," they go on to conclude:

"At the end of the day, compressing and extracting files isn't something you want occupying large portions of your brainpower. Express Zip by NCH Software does its level best to eliminate this task from your daily routine as much as possible. It accomplishes it by reducing the number of minutes and seconds it takes to perform the job."
– TopTenReviews

You can read the complete review of Express Zip on the TopTenReviews website. Or, just install it on your PC or Mac today so it will be at the ready the next time you need a file compression tool.

UnZIP, UnRAR and More on a Mac or PC

Zip and Rar archive formats might be particularly popular for compressing files on Windows, but that doesn't mean that Mac users shouldn't also be able to open those files. Express Zip is an easy way to open and extract files from many different archive formats, and we recently released it for OS X for the first time. Mac computers are more common than ever, which has helped with file compatibility issues that have been one of the biggest challenges between Macs and PCs. Express Zip joins our range of file converters that all help you open or convert file formats that might otherwise leave you helpless, making sure you never have a file you cannot open whether you're on a Mac or a PC.

Convert and Compress Files

Whether you're on a Mac or a PC, these conversion applications cover nearly every file type you'll run into, making them the most complete and reliable software for converting and compressing files out there.

Switch Audio File Converter

For your music, presentations, or audio projects, Switch Audio Converter lets you put your music anywhere at any time. Convert music for your iPod, PSP or phone. Compress audio to save hard drive space. Create a ringtone on your phone by converting the format, or even extract audio from video files.

Prism Video File Converter

Your computer might only be able to open certain video file types. Use Prism Video Converter to ensure you'll always be able to watch your videos. With Prism you have complete control over video settings such as compression and encoder rates, resolution, frame rate, and size output. You can also batch convert thousands of files at once and preview videos before conversion.

Pixillion Image File Converter

Pixillion isn't just image conversion software, there are many additional settings to make adjustments to your images while converting including adding watermarks, adjust the image quality, size or resolution, or even crop and rotate photos.

Express Zip File Compression Software

Express Zip is currently the only application on this list that is only available for Windows, but it is an extremely valuable compression tool. Use Express Zip archiving software to create, manage, and extract zipped files and folders. Plus extract files from a variety of other archive formats including rar, cab, iso, tar, and 7z or convert those archives into zip files. You can also easily email zipped files from the program or simply compress files to save disk space.

Open, Convert and Manage Archived Files

Compressing and archiving files and folders is very useful thing to do when emailing and sharing information, or simply to save disk space. The zip format is one of the most widely used there are a large number of other archive file formats out there. Instead of getting a program for every archive file format out there Express Zip offers a more complete solution. With Express Zip not only can you create, edit and manage any zip file, you can also open, extract, or convert any of the following archive file types into a zip file, so files and data won't be out of reach, no matter if they are compressed as a rar, cab, tar, tgz, 7z, iso or img archive.

An Audio Swiss Army Knife

Once again I find myself taking inspiration from Twitter. Similar to the "Twitter Principle of Software," I recently saw another tweet that stood out to me as really great q target="_blank"uote. This time about our Switch audio converter software:

@MountainDan: Switch from NCH Software is an amazing audio swiss army knife for Mac

I really like this metaphor. A pocket knife is compact but doubly handy because, despite its size, it has a tool for everything. We pride ourselves in the number of audio file formats that Switch can handle. It really can fit the job and convert the file no matter what audio file format you find yourself coming across or in need of. And, like a Swiss Army knife, it is all neatly packaged together in a light-weight, less than 500k application download that installs fast and is easy to use.

In fact, I'd like to think that our whole range of file converters and software are like the various tools of a Swiss Army knife. Need to convert a video file? We have Prism video converter for that. Need to remove background noise from an audio recording? We have Wavepad Audio Editor for that. Need to record what you are seeing on your screen? We have Debut Video Capture Software for video screen recording to solve that one. We have so many simple software solutions it's like having a full tool belt at your disposal, and we hope you remember that and turn to NCH Software when you are looking for solutions, whatever the problem at hand might be.

New Express Zip File Compression Software

The .zip file format is one of the most widely used file compression formats when you have large files or groups of files that you want to send to others. Its cross-platform support makes it ideal for not only data compression but file sharing as well. With zipping files being such a common and useful a task, we are pleased to welcome Express Zip File Compression Software to our software library.

Express Zip is an archiving and file compression tool to create, manage, and extract zipped files and folders, for fast and efficient file zipping and unzipping. It's perfect for compressing files for email transmission, archiving data to save disk space on your hard drive, or increasing the amount of data you can burn to disc.

If you are looking for an easy solution for compressing files, be sure to give Express Zip a try. We hope you will find it useful as well as a great complement to some of our other software utilities including FileFort Backup Software, MEO File Encryption Software and Express Burn Disc Burning Software.

The Twitter Principle for Software

Not long ago I saw a tweet about our software that really hit on one of the standards we try to achieve with our software products. It was phrased in such a way that I really just loved and it has stuck with me:

@debreuil I'm still amazed WavePad is 500kb. The Twitter principle for software, if you can't say it in less than a meg...

Keeping our products small is very closely related to some of the usability issues we have talked about before, especially our goal to have customers actually using our software in three minutes or less. We strive for a fast download, simple program, and simple interface as much as possible. We want our software to be a quick, easy and intuitive solution, and the program’s file size plays a major part in reaching those goals.

We have set the bar high in this arena and there is always room for improvement. When preparing new releases of applications, programmers are warned if the file has grown by a significant amount, it's a flag that maybe a feature hasn't been streamlined as much as it could be. We are very cognizant that, in this internet age, people have been conditioned to expect results quickly, and by keeping the executable size of our programs we are catering to the user's desire to use a program as quickly as possible after downloading.

It is nice to see that someone has recognized some of this underling effort. With Twitter, it can sometimes be a challenge to condense what you want to say in the very limited space of 140 characters. You want to keep only the things that matter. We try to do that with our software too. We try to get to the heart of what people will want to do with the application and make sure we not only do that well but that it is as easy for the user to do it as possible. I think that focus is what makes the “Twitter principle for software” phrase fit us so well.