converting mp3pro to mp3

[sine-nomine]

I was just wondering if anyone knows of any Mac (or even Windows) software that can convert mp3Pro to regular old mp3 without having much of a loss in sound quality. The situation is that I have 3000 or so old mp3pro files on an old Windows box that I would like to convert to regular old mp3 so I can play them on my Macintosh at a tolerable sound quality.

I've heard suggestions that I use Audacity and convert first to WAV, then export to mp3; however since Audacity doesn't support mp3pro, it seems kind of pointless since it'll just treat the source file as an mp3 at half the bitrate, which is an effect I can get right now in iTunes with no extra effort at all.

Plus, having the intermediate step of the WAV file is tricky since I have extremely limited hard drive space (though I think it will be enough to hold the larger mp3 files after conversion - definitely at least 2000 or so), and I'm looking to batch convert these without having to sit there all day and manage them one by one. Buying a new hard drive is also not an option given my budget is at the ramen level thanks to Christmas shopping.

So what I'm looking for is something that knows what an mp3pro is and can convert it into an mp3 with minimal hassle and as little loss in sound quality as possible. If anyone can help me out, you've got my eternal thanks. ~)

 

[Makosuke]

How about Audion?

http://www.panic.com/audion/download.html

...it's ancient, but I just checked and it appears to run ok even on Leopard on an Intel machine. There's a free serial number on the download page since it's a dead app, and it should support full-quality MP3pro, which you can then transcode into a different MP3 flavor (or full-quality AIFF which you could then use iTunes or whatever to encode to AAC).

Set the encoding specs you want in the prefs, add the songs you want to do to a playlist, and use the "Encode playlist" menu item to transcode the works.

Hope that works for you.