AudioTester

Audio files are found under an abundance of formats because of the encoders used to preserve quality. However, continuous sharing, downloading and editing can lead to corruption and data loss, with negative impact on the product itself. If you consider audio files on your computer are flawed, AudioTester might provide some insight as to why.

A neat advantage is that you don't need to install the application on your computer for proper functionality, because you can run it right after the download process is finished. This also means you can keep it on a removable storage device, with target computer registries being unaffected.

The interface is plain simple, with most of the space representing your workspace and displaying a few hints about how to get started. File support leaves more to be desired, with not a lot of file types you can test. Sure, MP3, Ogg Vorbis, FLAC and WavPack are commonly used, but for what can be achieved, this only counts against the app's favor.

Dragging files or folders over the main window is literally all it takes. The process is started automatically, with files displayed either in the pass or failed category. You can't directly save the log, but the text can be highlighted and copied to a text editor.

In terms of speed, files are handled pretty fast, especially because the application puts pressure on all of your CPU's cores. However, unless you're really passionate about sound the result doesn't feel rewarding at all. If a file fails to pass the test, you only get to find out that it did, with incredibly little explanation why, like lost sync, bad starting sync or unrecognized format.

Bottom line is that AudioTester comes with good intentions, but the amount and quality of provided feedback only make it achieve the rank of Captain Obvious. There's no info given on what exactly the audio file is tested for and if something wrong does happen to be detected, you have to figure out where and what needs to be done using other tools.