cd

Leaked from today's 404 episode:

- Former 404 guest and Internet Archivist releases Web's largest collection of historical software.

- Judge holds himself in contempt for cell phone going off in court.

- NY Philharmonic phone disruption: A cell-phone etiquette reminder.

- Here's a 90-year-old granny freaking out over Oculus Rift.… Read more

I get asked this question a lot: "Does anyone still make great-sounding affordable CD players?" Sure, most of the major brands do, but only NAD currently offers a large slate of players starting with the $300 C 516BEE, and it's a honey.

Before we go any further I want to first clarify why I'm reviewing a CD player in 2013. Despite the naysayers the CD isn't "dead," far from it. Music lovers are still buying hundreds of millions of CDs every year. Download sales just barely surpassed sales of physical music (CDs, LPs, … Read more

Most car stereos that I've ever fiddled with have offered some sort of equalizer setting that lets the driver customize the sound to their liking, but fitting more than the basic treble, bass, and --occassionally-- midrange controls onto the cramped display of a single DIN receiver is a tricky endeavor. Alpine wants to make it easier for users of its new CDE-147BT receiver to access advanced graphic EQ controls by offloading the audio tuning interface to an Alpine TuneIt app for Android and iOS devices.

The app lets users create a profile for their vehicle and any other Alpine … Read more

Unlike zipping files, creating compressed ISO archives isn't as easy as a simple right click. Free ISO Creator is a solid tool to help you turn multiple files into a writable ISO image file. The program does exactly what it says it will. However, it's not the easiest or most customizable creation software you'll ever use.

The program gains major points just for being free. There aren't many similar programs that can say the same. However, there are a good deal of things missing that might be available in a paid program. Free ISO Creator is … Read more

Though CD-burning software is built into just about every music player, most don't offer enough features. 3Nity Music CD Burner bucks the trend, giving you much more information about the CD you're working on. Though it's advertised as a CD burner, its biggest perk is the ability to delete written CDs.

In order to burn a CD, you will have to have a CD-RW drive on your computer. That's a given on most setups, though. You can preview any track and arrange your list of tracks however you want. There's no shuffle option on 3Nity … Read more

Working with large files with multiple users can be difficult without dedicated cloud space for storage. YouSendIt Express for Mac allows you to upload files without a Web browser and add additional security.

Available as freeware, YouSendIt Express for Mac is free to operate, although it does require that you provide an e-mail address to log in. Once signed in, you have the option of upgrading to a paid account, which allows for larger file transfers and more messaging capability at about $15 per month. The program's native installer is well designed and sets the program up quickly. Since … Read more

FreeRIP extracts and converts your audio tracks, as well as detecting CD and song info and making all of that info editable right from the interface. It's easy to start right up with FreeRIP, which supports the most common audio formats--MP3, FLAC, Ogg Vorbis, WMA, and WAV. It can also convert files between any of those formats, play your audio files, and edit tags. With the release of version 4.0, the app now adds burning audio CDs to the mix of features that free users can access.

FreeRIP's bare-bones interface is set up for easy access and … Read more

For those who need custom disc labels, native programs may not have enough options. Fortunately, there are plenty of other programs to chose from. While functional, CD/DVD Disc Label Maker for Mac's price tag may not be justifiable for all but the heaviest users.

The free trial version of CD/DVD Disc Label Maker for Mac adds a mark to every disc printed while the full, unrestricted version requires a $29.99 payment. The program is nearly 100MB and has no native installer. While the program loaded quickly, the user is immediately prompted to enter, register, and pay … Read more

There are many programs, both free and paid, that can be used to manage files for CDs, DVDs, and data discs. Express Burn for Mac, while functional, may not justify the price required for the full version.

Express Burn for Mac is available as a free trial version with an upgrade for $69.95. The limitations on the trial version aren't apparent from either the program itself or the developer's Web site. The download was fairly quick, but the installation required careful attention to avoid downloading additional, nonadvertised programs set to be downloaded by default. These included a … Read more