fre:ac vs Max
fre:ac
freac.orgMax
sbooth.orgSide by side
| Figure | fre:ac | Max |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Windows | Yes | — |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | — |
| Plans published | 1 | 1 |
| Spec score · Audio CD Ripping Software | 7.6 (#5) | 7.7 (#4) |
| Spec score · Audio Converter Software | 7.7 (#18) | 7.8 (#17) |
| Audio conversion | fre:ac converts between MP3, M4A/AAC, FLAC, WMA, Opus, Ogg Vorbis, Speex, Monkey’s Audio, WavPack, WAV and other formats. | Max can read and write over 20 audio formats at almost all sample rates and most sample sizes. |
| CD ripping | Its integrated CD ripper converts audio CDs to files in the formats supported for regular audio conversion. | For pristine discs, Max offers a high-speed ripper with no error correction; for damaged discs, it offers a comparison ripper or cdparanoia error correction. |
| Support | The maker directs users to its GitHub Discussions area for questions and ideas, and lists issue reporting by GitHub issue tracker or email. | The project points users to its forums for common questions and its GitHub issue tracker for bug reports. |
Plans
In their own words
fre:ac
fre:ac is a free audio converter and CD ripper for Linux, macOS, and Windows. It converts among formats including MP3, M4A/AAC, FLAC, WMA, Opus, Ogg Vorbis, Speex, Monkey’s Audio, WavPack, and WAV. Its CD ripper saves discs in supported formats and can query CDDB/GNUdb-compatible databases for artist and title details, then write those details to ID3v2 or other tags. It can convert whole music libraries while retaining folder and filename structure. The application supports Unicode tags and filenames, including Japanese, Cyrillic, Arabic, and Indian scripts. Its MP3, M4A/AAC, Opus, and Speex encoders use multicore CPUs. fre:ac can also run from a USB stick or external drive with its configuration files stored there. The maker lists Windows, macOS, Linux, FreeBSD, and Haiku as supported systems and says the interface is available in 43 languages. Gracenote CDDB support is unavailable because of licensing issues. The software does not collect personal information, though querying or submitting CD metadata can transfer data to a configurable online database. The maker offers Windows, macOS, and Linux packages.
Max
Max is free macOS software for creating audio files from CDs and converting existing audio. It reads and writes more than 20 formats at almost all sample rates and most sample sizes, including MP3, Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, AAC, Apple Lossless, WavPack, Speex, AIFF, and WAVE. For discs in good condition, its high-speed ripper omits error correction; damaged discs can use comparison ripping or cdparanoia correction. Cue sheets can divide one audio file into multiple tracks. Max retrieves CD information through MusicBrainz and writes metadata to supported output formats, while artist and album details transfer for many popular formats. Encoded files can be added to a selected iTunes playlist. Users control output locations and filenames, and advanced settings cover encoding threads, extraction correction, and encoder parameters. Released under the GNU General Public License, Max requires macOS 10.7 or later. The project directs questions to forums and bug reports to GitHub. Cloud conversion is not included.