Hi!

I am planning to release soon the 4.507 final version for the OptimFROG DualStream
(see http://LosslessAudioCompression.com/DualStream.php for details).

Please report to me if you found any problems with it like crashes, strange behavior, player plug-ins problems (but not issues regarding subjective quality), so I can incorporate them in this release.

Thanks,
Florin Ghido

OptimFROG DualStream input plug-in for foobar2000 v0.7 is available for download at http://LosslessAudioCompression.com/DualStream.php.
I expect to finish very soon the final 4.507 release for DualStream...

OptimFROG DualStream is in the same category with WavPack hybrid. Here it is a fragment from the DualStream page regarding comparison with WavPack hybrid:

Advantages of OptimFROG DualStream compared to WavPack hybrid:
- distortions up to 15 times lower during sharp transients
- slightly lower distortions during quasi-stationary areas
- true separate quantization levels for each channel
- quality mode maintains constant quality thorough the whole file
- no overshots or postecho
- advanced noise shaping option, improving transparency
- up to 3% better lossless compression for OFS+OFC over WV+WVC
- fast seek, supported by the compressed file format
- error resilience, supported by the compressed file format
- exact bitrate control when using average bitrate

Disadvantages of OptimFROG DualStream compared to WavPack hybrid:
- decompression is 30% slower - 23.7x compared with 31.4x
(all tests ran on my Athlon XP 1800+)
- compression is twice slower - 12.8x compared with 26.9x

Very nice !

You should definitely make a linux version..

PS: Can't test it today at work.. sorry