Special Carnival update!

In honor of the general chaos and debauchery of Carnival, which is starting in Brazil today, I added three new pages to RRW.

The first features AudioCatalyst, a very popular CD ripper/MP3 encoder in the late nineties and early 2000s.

In a nostalgic twist, the second page is for the first MP3 encoder I used extensively: MP3 Compressor.

And the third page is for DropMP3. To the best of my knowledge, the only free implementation of LAME in the Mac OS Classic.

Talking about Mac OS Classic, I added several programs for this platform: Mac versions of SoundVQ, QDesign encoder and SoundAPP. The Mac edition of AudioCatalyst has also been uploaded. And of course, several new screenshots since command line was not even an option in Mac OS!

Finally, I added another version of LBpack and same for Blade. And Zachary sent an even older version of AT&T a2b music player, God only knows why...

Nero AAC encoder and Apollo

After many years, I added a new page to the AAC section: Nero AAC Encoder and Decoder. Go check out its history and download the three versions I managed to find (if you have other versions, please send them in!)

Also, I added a handful of Apollo versions to the respective page, courtesy of the always helpful Zachary Jelesoff.

foobar2000 again!

Celebrating the recent major release 1.5 of foobar2000 I uploaded the official versions that were still missing, from the 1.2, 1.3 and 1.4 series, as well as version 1.5 itself.

Next step: try to do the same to LAME, EAC and Apollo! Contributions of versions not yet available would be extremely welcome.

foobar2000 and HTTPS

This time around I uploaded dozens and dozens of foobar2000 versions, from the 0.9, 1.0, 1.1, and part of 1.2 series.

Hopefully soon I'll find time to upload stuff that was released in the 1.3 and 1.4 series, as well as the rest of 1.2 (but considering I took more than one year to come up with this update... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ )

Additionally, ReallyRareWares pages are now securely served through SSL/TLS thanks to a brand new cryptographic certificate, courtesy of the fine people at Let's Encrypt. You can rest calm in the knowledge that your downloads are not being tampered by evil hackers while in transit to your computer.

Site fixes and a few updates

This update focuses on fixing several parts of the website, namely:

• The screenshot thumbnails (they used to only get resized in Chrome, now they also work on Firefox, Edge, etc)
• Units are correctly named (kB instead of Kb)
• Consistency improvements all over the site
• Several small bugs and grammar errors

And these are the software updates:

• Several versions of l3enc that were missing. Have fun if you are still using Irix!
• A few more recent versions of foobar2000 (thanks to mezenga)
• CoolEdit version 1.5.2
• An even older version of DOSamp - 0.4

Finally another update

More than four months since the last update, here comes another one.

I would like to remind RRW visitors that I depend on your contributions to keep adding obscure software to this website - my personal collection of oddities is all but already featured in its entirety here.

So, if you have something you believe might be of interest to be preserved here, please don't hesitate to get in touch.

And these are the updates:

• Métis MP3 player (thanks to Zachary Jelesoff)
• Another MP3 to EXE converter (thanks to Zachary Jelesoff)
• WWV - Women, Whisky and VQF! (thanks to Zachary Jelesoff)
• Apollo plugins for several formats
• Another version of Yamaha SoundVQ Encoder (thanks to Sebastian Knop)

The first update in 2018

Time to get things rolling in this new year!

This time around I updated:

• RealJukebox music player/manager
• MpegDJ Encoder
• Ultimate [MP1/2/3] Encoder
• EncSpot Pro MP3 analyzer
• AT&T a2b music (thanks to Zachary Jelesoff)
• A few more WavPack versions (thanks to David Bryant)

Happy holidays!

This time around, just a simple update to wrap up 2017. Have some lovely holidays! See you all again in 2018!

These are the updates:

• Sonic Foundry SoftEncode AC3 encoder
• RKau lossless compressor
• Emagic Zap lossless compressor
• Iomega RecordIt MP2 recorder
• Several versions of Apollo (thanks to Thundik81)
• A few extra PlusV tools

File dates and MP3 encoders

I did some serious research these last few weeks, trying to obtain information as accurate as possible for the dates displayed for each file (that information will come handy for some site improvements I have been planning).

I researched release notes, readmes, zip file timestamps, and even PE timestamps, and hopefully the pages now portray as accurately as possible what was released when.

Also, I decided to upload/update several MP3 encoders this time around:

• Sound Limit MP3 encoder
• Audioactive Production Studio and Player
• YunaSoft MP3 Encoder (actually a FhG ACM codec frontend)
• Some Blade versions that I found lying around in my HDDs
• Also, an 8hz-mp3 version of the same origin
• Ditto for another SoloH version
• Several new versions of FhG MP3 Surround tools, and a Winamp plugin
• A new(er) version of SCMPX

If you have LAME versions not featured at the LAME page, please submit them!

GitHub and players

This is the first update where ReallyRareWares development and changes are being versioned at GitHub. This will not make much of a difference to visitors, but should help streamline site maintenance.

Of course, feel free to submit pull requests... ;-)

And these are the updates, this time around focused on players:

• iMPload complete MP3pro music player/ripper/manager
• Dice VQF player (thanks to Zachary Jelesoff)
• More versions of Apollo contributed by [JAZ]
• NAD MP3 player v1.0 (thanks to Zachary Jelesoff)
• Two AMP-based MP3 players for Win32 (thanks to Zachary Jelesoff)
• MP3 to EXE, which converts MP3 files into standalone players

I am interested in filling up the Apollo page with more versions. If you have them lying around, please get in touch! (check the About page)

More screenshots and nice updates

I added screenshots to most (all?) graphical programs in ReallyRareWares. Some are bland, some are amazing, several are just horrid. Have fun perusing them!

Besides the screenshots, these are the novelties:

• A page for FhG MP3 Sourround (thanks to Zachary Jelesoff)
• A page for FhG mp3HD hybrid compressor (thanks to Zachary Jelesoff)
• A page for the super obscure ALF2 CD codec (thanks to Zachary Jelesoff)
• Lots of old Foobar2000 versions (thanks to Thundik81)
• SoundApp player and converter for Mac OS Classic
• LTAC/LPAC lossless compressors

Screenshots!

This update includes something I have been meaning to add to RRW for years: screenshots!

Check the pages of your favorite graphical applications (I do not see much point in adding screenshots of command line applications), maybe there will be a screenshot there. I have not yet uploaded screenshots for all apps, those will probably come in the next update.

Besides the screenshots, this is what has been added/updated:

• A page for the MP3 PlusV encoder (thanks to Zachary Jelesoff)
• A page for the AMP MP3 decoder - famously used in early versions of Winamp (thanks to Martin Guy)
• Apollo MP3 player (thanks to [Jaz])
• Several VQF updates: NTT player and VQF SDK, Yamaha player and another version of the encoder
• Xing MP3 player

Enjoy!

First update in a loooong while

Here is the first real update since I decided to bring RRW back to life. This is what has been added/updated:

• A page for the CodingTechnologies MP3pro encoder
• A page for Xing MP3 encoder, including an old version and a more recent Helix version
• More recent versions of Gogo
• Emuzed MP4 encoder
• A reverse engineering document describing parts of the QDesign codec
• The rJPa MP1/2/3 decoder

Hope you enjoy the updates, and please keep those rare pieces of software coming!

Time to get things moving again

After more than ten years of inactivity, I believe it is about time to bring ReallyRareWares back.

I stupidly let my other domain - rjamorim.com - expire and then it got stolen by one of those jolly domain squatters. That made me lose interest in the project somewhat. But I never stopped receiving e-mails from people asking for software I used to host here, and that showed me there was still interest in old, weird or just interesting pieces of audio software.

These last few weeks I did a major cleanup. Replaced dead links with archive.org mirrors or deleted them altogether, fixed several spelling and grammar mistakes, fixed visuals on some pages.

Now in the next few weeks/months I'll go back to updating. I have a small backlog of stuff I received from friends and contacts at HA to upload, and also should create articles for tools that have come and gone during this time - for example, the FhG MP3 Surround and CodingTechnologies MP3pro encoders.

I would also like to count on you, friends and visitors, to send me software that you believe belongs here, or send corrections/additions to the articles. I'd like, for instance, to add the versions I missed of some of the tools available here (EAC, LAME, foobar2000...)

Thank you for your patience all those years!

Best regards;

            Roberto

An update, at last!

Lo and behold, here it is! Without further ado, I present you the Christmas (!) update to ReallyRareWares: A much improved Musepack section, reflecting the recent removal of the same section from RareWares. There are countless Musepack versions there, most of them kindly contributed by Guruboolez.

foobar2000 and a surprise

I was planning to only make an update near Christmas, but so many nice dudes submitted old versions of foobar2000 that I decided to make a quick update and add a foobar page to the site.

The collection is still far from complete, therefore, if you happen to have an old version of this player not yet featured, please send it to my e-mail address (available at the About page)

Also, I added a hidden surprise. Look around for it, and you will eventually find...

Until Christmas!

Updates

Here is another update for the faithful visitors of ReallyRareWares.

This is what has just been added:

• Countless versions of the NAD music player contributed by Mitiok
• Pretty much every former version of EAC, contributed by digitalx.org
• A clarification on Sonique2's story by a person that was there and saw what happened
• The now-dead Compaact! AAC and MP4 encoder by zPlane.development
• Several older versions of SoloH MPGenc contributed by Mitiok
• The famous K-Jöfol music player - first to play VQF and only one to play Astrid AAC

That's it for now. I plan to run another update by the end of the year, as a christmas gift for you people.

See you then!

A new update at last!

Hello. This update is mainly focused on players. These are the ones I am bringing today for your nostalgic pleasure:

• Musearc 4.4.97.3 beta
• NAD player 0.93
• Sonique 2 alpha - the infamous leaked version
• XAudio MP3 player 0.9a
• Yamp player 3.3

Also, I added the Macintosh versions of Daxwav - appropriately called Daxaif - and an older version of WinGOGO.

Enjoy!

Christmas gifts

Hello. I am here bringing you some Christmas gifts taken out from obscure and forgotten places in the web.

For starters, an unexpected development: Mr. Volodymyr Poltavets actually took his time to adapt Split2000 to modern Linux versions. You can find his diff files and precompiled binaries at the Split2000 page.

Just for sake of completeness, I added several TrueSpeech players for different platforms: Win16, Mac68K and MacPPC.

Mr. Zack Jelesoff pointed me out to updates on the Mio encoder (Daru) and Winamp plugin, so they have been updated at the Mio page.

I also added browser plugins for Echospeech playback, for Win32 and Win16.

Finally, I added a page for rare or deprecated CoolEdit/Audition import/ export filters.

New additions

Today I added to the lame page several very old versions, courtesy of 384kbps. Included are some versions that seem to only work in OS/2.

I am also opening an exception and adding an audio editor to the collection: CoolEdit 1.3.1, a Win16 version of the famous editor dating from 1993!

Last but not least, I added some interesting programs submitted by the always helpful Marco Pontello. They are VocPack - an extremely old lossless compressor - and wav2mp, an MP1/MP2 encoder.

Impressive response!

It has been a few hours since I wrote my request for Mafuka, and it's already been taken care of! Very big thanks to Elohe from Spain for providing this hard-to-find encoder.

I am also taking the opportunity to upload Plugger 0.3, kindly provided by 384kbps, and mppenc 1.7.9c, the last version developed by Andree Buschmann.

Another update, and a request

First, I would like to assure visitors that I haven't forgotten about RRW. You don't need to worry when 4 months pass by without updates. By its nature, RRW will be updated very seldomly from now on, since I already uploaded pretty much my entire collection of rarities and you don't find rare audio-related programs everyday.

Today, I uploaded several new versions of l3enc, including a version even older than 1.0 (0.99a!). According to l3enc's history.txt, this is the second version released to the public - the first was 0.99, that I could not find anywhere.

Last, I would like to ask visitors to check if they have the very infamous Mafuka encoder and decoder lying somewhere. I would love to feature it here, and extensive web searches resulted in no leads. If you have it, please drop me an e-mail.

Some updates

I added a few goodies today:

• Nullsoft DOSamp MP3 player
• Split2000 lossless codec
• FhG's layer 3 FAQ and test bitstreams
• Some old versions of Blade
• Shine fixed point MP3 encoder
• A mirror of Thor's page at DalnetVQF

Talk about weird

Coming from the premier resource of oddities and weirdness (to western eyes anyway) - Japan - is the very rare and virtually unknown Mio format. A page about it has been just added to the Weird Formats section.

Players and WavPack

In this update, I added old versions of the popular WavPack lossless audio encoder, and a Players section featuring several old audio players.

Finally an update!

I finally ceased slacking and updated several parts of the site:

• FhG MP3enc MP3 encoder
• EchoSpeech voice codec
• Voyce Tech SpchComp
• Arminio Grgic's very strange WavSquiq
• MPEGplus SV5 apps, including a very rare decoding library

Hopefully the updates will be more frequent now.

First ever MP3 encoder:

I just added to the MP3 section a real rarity: l3enc 1.00 for DOS.

This was the first publicly available MP3 (back then called MPEG layer 3) software encoder, released on June 1994. And it still works, creating perfectly compliant (at least on my limited tests) MP3 streams!

Site Launch:

Hello, and welcome to ReallyRareWares, a site for researchers (or nostalgic people like me) that miss the old days of multimedia encoding.

Here you'll find reviews and history of old software (encoders and decoders), deceased codecs (VQF, ePAC), oddities (AUPECg2, Astrid AAC), and so on, as well as downloads.

Also, I count on your help to make this collection more complete. If you have some very rare and old audio encoder or decoder which isn't featured here, please drop me a mail. Information on historical facts and corrections to the articles featured here are also very welcome.

Enjoy!

Roberto Amorim.