Product Reviews

Being the first combined MP3 player and encoder for the Mac would have been an achievement in itself, but SoundJam MP offers a lot more besides.

It can be used to play CD, AIFF, WAV and QuickTime audio files, and can convert all of these to MP3. It has fully customisable playlists which let you organise your music; it supports skins, so you can radically change its appearance; and it's compatible with audio and visual plug-ins for various effects. It's also the first Mac software to support MP3 streaming, whereby MP3s can be played live over the Internet without being downloaded first.

One of SoundJam's best features is its interface. The default appearance of the player borrows heavily from the brushed metal look of Apple's much-derided QuickTime 4 Player, but works much better in SoundJam. The controls are easy to use, and the purpose of each button is fairly obvious, although Tool Tips or better labelling would have been a good idea for some of the more obscure buttons.

SoundJam ships with a number of additional skins - a common feature in Windows MP3 players - which completely rearrange the appearance of the player and graphic equalizer module. These are mostly gimmicky (names include 'Wonder Jelly' and 'Mango Ginger'), and none of them makes SoundJam easier or more enjoyable to use.

The 10-band graphic equalizer features a number of presets optimised for certain kinds of music, but also allows for very fine user adjustment of sound quality. Songs to be played are listed in the Playlist window, which has a very Finder-like appearance. Song details are listed in columns which can be sorted and rearranged by song title, artist, album title, and so on. When you insert an audio CD into your CD drive, a window similar to the Playlist appears, allowing you to listen to the CD while making use of SoundJam's additional features, such as skins and the graphic equalizer.

Clicking on the Get Names Online button starts up your Internet connection and searches for your CD in CDDB, the biggest online CD database displaying track, artist and album info in the CD window.

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The information is stored in CD Remote Programs, so it can subsequently be accessed by Apple CD Audio Player if required, although it's unlikely you'll want to use it once you've tried SoundJam. We tested this feature extensively and were impressed by CDDB's recognition of some very obscure CDs, although it did get one CD wrong. This needn't be too much of a problem as all the ID tags can be edited manually, and you can even edit multiple files simultaneously if, for example, you have a number of tracks by the same artist.

The Converter window is used to list all the CD tracks or other audio files you want to convert to MP3. It's also possible to convert to AIFF if required, and SoundJam's plug-in architecture means other file formats may be supported in the future. All you have to do is click Start on Converting, sit back, and wait. The Converter shows you how far into the track you are, how much time is remaining, and the average speed of the conversion relative to standard playback. The default converter settings are fine for the majority of MP3s but additional options are available, such as for altering the bit rate and sample rate.

The quality of the encoded MP3s was very impressive - possibly not as good as from some dedicated encoders like AudioCatalyst (Reviews, Vol 15 No 15, p37), but to our relatively untrained ears they sounded as close to CD quality as you can get from an MP3. Furthermore, the full version of SoundJam comes with a plug-in called Realizer from Arboretum, which further enhances sound quality during playback by boosting frequencies and synthesising harmonics missed out of the MP3 encoding process. The effect was more impressive through a good set of speakers than through headphones, but gave a significant improvement in all cases.

One final feature which sets SoundJam apart from its competitors is its support for streaming MP3s. Many MP3 Web sites, such as Live365.com and MP3.com, offer live MP3s as well as those that need to be downloaded. With SoundJam installed, all you have to do is click on a link in your Web browser to launch the program and start playing the stream. We had varying success with some streams over a 56K modem, but those specified as 56K or smaller worked fine, and sounded considerably more impressive than other streaming audio technologies such as RealAudio.

SoundJam is a versatile, easy-to-use tool, which also has the advantage of being very useful. You can play MP3s over the Internet, or save your CDs in a small amount of space on your hard disk. Even as a replacement for the Apple CD Audio Player, it justifies its price. Download the demo from Casady & Greene's Web site, and try not to love it.