Aside from some very small bug fixes, the main point of this release is that the core codec is now contained in a .dll, which can be used using the included API. The source code to the plugins and command-line program is also included to serve as examples for using the codec, and also in the hope that some help can be obtained in maintaining the plugins and in creating new ones.

Note that as the .dll is something Windows-specific this is just a Windows update. As with all minor version changes, this version is forwards and backwards compatible with all 0.4x versions.

This release is the first Linux build of the recently released version 0.4, complete with an Xmms plugin. It is identical to the Windows version, except that it is a bit slower, and the new Windows frontend is not included. However, when/if Mono progresses far enough with its Windows.Forms work, I hope to create a port of the frontend for Linux.

This release features no major changes to the beta version released a couple of weeks ago, just some small changes to the frontend, and the foobar2000 plugin has been updated to work with foobar2000 v0.6. To re-iterate the main changes since version 0.3:

• New multi-encoder Windows frontend! - requires the Microsoft .Net framework redistributable.
• New Windows installer using NSIS.
• New foobar2000 plugin.
• Program now has two modes - a 'high' mode which is the same speed as previous versions, and a 'default' mode, which is almost 2x as fast.
• The compression has been slightly improved.

Finally here it is - a new release! It took a bit longer than anticipated, mainly because I've been spending more time with other things (such as this distraction). Features of this release include the following:

• New multi-encoder Windows frontend! - requires the Microsoft .Net framework redistributable.
• New Windows installer using NSIS.
• New foobar2000 plugin.
• Program now has two modes - a 'high' mode which is the same speed as previous versions, and a 'default' mode, which is almost 2x as fast.
• The compression has been slightly improved.

Note that this release is currently only beta - I plan to release a final version within the next couple of weeks (assuming no major problems are found) and then a Linux version shortly thereafter.

I've updated the comparison to include the new version of Optimfrog, and also added Windows Media and Rkau. The new Optimfrog has better compression than previous versions, and actually beats La in one of my eight test samples (the only compressor to do so)! It still averages close to 1% worse than La however :).

I'm currently working on a new version of La, with a new compression mode which is twice as fast, yet has only around 0.1% worse compression (and improving). I've still got a few ideas I want to try out before releasing, so it'll probably be a month or two before I release anything new.

I've released a version 0.3d for Linux, which is identical to 0.3c, except that the xmms plugin is relinked so that it should work with more systems. If the plugin in 0.3c works for you, you've no need to get this version.

Also removed the poll, as the choices were a getting a bit out of date. A short summary of the results is that people mainly just care about compression + speed, and of the two find compression more important (despite La being so slow :) ). A few also voted for a Linux version which now exists and a few wanted a Winamp 3.x plugin but seeing as the 2.x plugin works with 3.x I'm in no hurry to implement that.

So the conclusion is that as soon as I iron out the issues with the 0.3x versions, I'll have another go at improving the compression / speed some more.

Click here to download.

This version fixes a major bug in previous 0.3x versions which could potentially cause some files to contain errors! Also minor improvements to plugins for windows and linux, and console input/output. The file format remains unchanged.

Click here to download.

Features an xmms plugin. As the first release, I expect there could be problems running it on some systems. Please let me know whether or not it works on yours!

The linux version is about 15% slower than the windows version and also bigger, but should otherwise be identical to the respective windows version.

Click here to download.

This version features improved overall compression (around 0.3% better than the previous version) and a few bug fixes, in particular to the Winamp plugin and the handling of complex .wav headers.

Click here to download.

The main new feature is a Winamp 2.x plugin! Modest compression improvements and bug fixes also have been made. This version will not play files compressed with the prototype, however I plan to make all versions in the future backwards compatible with at least the two or three versions previous.

Wim Speekenbrink has added a La frontend to his collection of frontends which he makes for various audio codecs.

It can be found at http://home.wanadoo.nl/~w.speek/la.htm. It should work fine with the current prototype and all future versions of La.

Click here to download. Note, that this version is only intended for the purposes of comparison and testing. It lacks many important features (i.e. seeking, tagging, plugins for winamp and other players etc). More importantly, the format is not yet set, which means future versions of the program are not guaranteed to decompress files compressed with this prototype version.

Within the next month or two I plan to make a release for which later versions will be guaranteed backwards compatible, and complete the most important lacking features. Until then, I wouldn't recommend using this to compress your music library - there are however a number of great compressors listed in the comparison section which will do the job.