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All mp3PRO files can be played by older-style MP3 players, but will sound like regular MP3 recordings.
 technofile
Al Fasoldt's reviews and commentaries, continuously available online since 1983

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mp3PRO recording and playback built into free Audion Pro software for OS X


June 22, 2005


By Al Fasoldt
Copyright © 2005, Al Fasoldt
Copyright © 2005, The Post-Standard

   Apple's iTunes is great software, but it's missing an important feature for audiophiles. It can't encode or play the latest version of MP3.
   The improved MP3 method is mp3PRO, created by Thomson Multimedia. Thomson's engineers designed the "professional" version of MP3 four years ago in an effort to turn MP3 into a real challenger for CD audio. At its highest quality settings, mp3PRO comes as close as any compressed sound format can come to CD-quality sound.
   A bonus of mp3PRO is its amazing ability to extract quality from the opposite side of the equation. It can encode spoken audio at extraordinary compression rates without the dreadful swishing and barrel-thumping effects you get from MP3 in the same situation. Compatibility is excellent. All mp3PRO audio files can be played by older-style MP3 players and will sound like regular MP3 recordings.
   For some time, OS X users have been able to get mp3PRO capabilities in an iTunes competitor from Panic, a company that was courted by Steve Jobs before Apple introduced iTunes. Panic resisted the impulse to join with Apple and ended up creating the best sounding audio player for any computer platform.
   That player, Audion, eventually morphed into Audion Pro, a $30 program that can encode and play MP3 and mp3PRO audio files, play CDs, play (and record) audio streams, edit MP3 audio files and do a lot more. Audion Pro got rave reviews but wasn't able to compete with iTunes once Apple opened the iTunes Music Store. iTunes, after all, is free.
   But now Audion Pro is also free. Panic is giving it away. Audion Pro has "retired," according to Panic, and the company won't come out with new versions. All you do is download Audion Pro from the Panic Web site and click a link for the registration code that turns on all features.
   The download site is www.panic.com/audion/download.html. You'll see a notice, left over from earlier days, that says Audion is free for only 15 days. But below that text is another notice, in red, that explains that "Audion has been retired" and is being given away.
   Don't download the non-pro version. Choose the one "for paid users only." It's listed under "Extra downloads" and is called "Audion 3.0.2.dmg."
   After you download the DMG file, click the "Free of charge" link on the same page. It takes you to a registration page that explains how to activate your copy of Audion Pro.
   Audion Pro shines in two special ways.
   The first, of course, is its mp3PRO capabilities. The conversions I made from my digital test tapes to mp3PRO were spectacular, and the CDs I encoded sounded better than I had ever heard from an MP3-based player.
   The second big advantage Audion Pro has over iTunes is the chameleon nature of the software's main window. Audion Pro's appearance can be changed in an instant using what Panic calls "faces" -- the rest of the world calls them "skins" -- that you can download from Panic's Web site. I grabbed more than 100 the first hour I used the program.
   Audion Pro also has a good equalizer and can be used just to play CDs if you want. Note that iTunes probably will open each time you insert a CD, but you can simply close iTunes and get back to Audion Pro. Use the "CDs and DVDs" panel in System Preferences to change over to Audion Pro when you insert a CD if you want to stop using iTunes. (You can always change it back.)