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SOFTWARE REVIEWED: Real Audio Player 5
RELEASED BY: Nico Mak Computing
PRICE: $29
REVIEWED BY: G-String
REVIEW: -
This is a pice of software that lets you hear songs like they sound on the CD. No midi-sound-a-likes. This is the genuine aarticle. That's why it's called REAL Audio. The files are found all over the Internet. You have to search for what you want. The advantage of this is that (and I loved this!) you can get rare b-sides, bootlegs, demos, and jam sessions from your favourite bands. I thought I was a big Bush fan in the UK until I went to a site that had about twenty songs written by Bush that I hadn't heard of. Now of course, it's a different story, but back to the Real Audio Player.
I first saw this and thought, "Oh God! This is brilliant." Quite right I was too. Then I thought, "I bet the files are huge though." Quite wrong. Machinehead, a live version by Bush, which is over 5 minutes long is only 556KB. That's less than a MB per song. The downside of this is that the quality can vary depending on where you get them and who it is of. The Bush site I visited was someone's personal homepage. The quality was outstanding. I copied them onto a tape and it sounded like I'd taped it from a CD. That was for most of them. The Bush cover of Neil Diamond's Revolution Blues was of crap audio. Too much screaming. The files are all of the same format, (.ra or .ram) and are free. Well the ones I found were.
Also, the company have regular live concerts over the net. Their site is http://www.real.com and is a great site. The company really give you good value for money. The newer versions of The RA Player have the ability to play back videos as well. So you can seea live concert. Brilliant! You can upgrade, and everytime you go on the net, it searches itself for an upgrade if it is available. Well Smart!
SCORE:
90%
MINIMUM HARDWARE REQUIRED:
CPU: 486 DX2
RAM: 16MB
?MB HD Space
Windows 98\95\NT
Sound Card
LINKS: http://www.winzip.com [email protected]
