Lossless Audio
Lossless Audio (La) is a lossless audio compressor developed 2002 to 2004 by Michael Bevin, for the Windows and Linux/x86 platforms.
La is available as closed-source freeware with a graphical front-end and plugins for Winamp/XMMS and foobar2000; its foobar2000 plugin truncates the end of files and should be avoided.
La was - and might still be - the highest compressing lossless encoder, possibly rivaled only by OptimFrog at its highest (and apparently even slower) setting. Both encoding and decoding are CPU-intensive. It is limited to 16 bit input. With the software being closed-source and no format specification available, it is not known whether this is a limitation to the format or to the encoder.
Addtional Reading
- Official website
- Lossless Codec Comparison originally by Rjamorim, with links to comparisons.
- HA forum thread describing how to decode LA files with foobar2000 using la.exe instead of the buggy plugin
| Audio codecs: type/usage | for end-users to encode | on physical media etc. | legacy formats |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lossless | (Uncompr. LPCM) • ALAC • FLAC • Monkey's Audio • MPEG-4 ALS • OptimFROG • TAK • TTA • WavPack | MLP/Dolby TrueHD | La • LPAC/LTAC • RealAudio Lossless • RK Audio • Shorten • WMA Lossless • (others) |
| Lossy | (ADPCM formats) • AAC • AC-3 • MP2 • MP3 • Musepack • Opus • Vorbis | AC-3 • DTS • (Bluetooth codecs) | ATRAC • QDesign • Real Audio • RK Audio (lossy modes) • Speex • VQF • WMA |
| Hybrid lossless&lossy | OptimFROG DualStream • WavPack | DTS-HD MA • MPEG-4 SLS | ATRAC Advanced Lossless • mp3HD |