Best Audio Codec???

[Xethos]

What has the best sound quality @ 128 or 160?

[TelemachusMH]

For lower bitrates like what you are suggesting, I think Vorbis (not ogg) has the best quality, but if you get into higher bitrates ac3 is much better.

TelemachusMH

[BoNz1]

Hmm, well I would say that mpeg4-aac is better for everything else in your poll except 2ch audio using bitrates <128 which is where I would say ogg would win. If you are just comparing mp3 and ac3, well they offer more or less the same compression, actually ac3 might be slightly inferior. But of course for multichannel ac3 will be better since technically you could encode multichannel mp3 since it is in the spec but I don't think there is any encoders/decoder that support it. AAC though is much better for multichannel than ac3, although ogg might have something to say about that if it had proper channel coupling. Mp3 is old technology obviously there is much better technology right now, but as far as compatibility it is the best, obviously. As far as WMA goes, well I don't ever even use it and last time I did it wasn't any good. I probably should try it since WM9 series came out, but honestly I don't think it is better than AAC or ogg. As far as bitrates >160 or so mpc is by far the best. I encode all my cds to it, there is nothing better other than looseless. Unfortunately, you can't use it with video, at least not yet maybe once SV8 comes out this will be made possible. :)
EDIT: I think it is important to say though that there is no best audio codec, different codecs do different things and thus are better at certain things. :)

[tiki4]

Yes! Where the hell is Musepack in that poll? It is by far the best compression method for bitrates around 160 kBit/s. I'm waiting for Matroska, as the guys want to support .mpc as well. Musepack for video, that's the deal!

tiki4

[ChristianHJW]

I wont vote before MPC is in the list also :p

[BlackSun]

I vote for MPC too

[iago]

MusePack, absolutely! ;)

[Justinus]

@Xethos
You better simplify this poll a bit more. "Best Audio Codec" is a bit confusing because each codec has its own use. For instance, which fruit is the best (banana, apple, orange, pineapple, mango, etc.)? I'm sure that the answer of this poll would be the way of "Which codec do you prefer to use the most at the present?"

Right now I prefer to use OGG, because I'm doing OGM, but I've never tried to use MPC before (I've planned to try later). So, I won't vote until I know myself which one is the BEST? :)

[Xethos]

i said, in my next post, what i'm using it for!

[ChristianHJW]

/me slaps Xethos with a large trout ....

Add MPC ( musepack ) to your poll !! I want to vote !!:p

[Justinus]

Originally posted by BlackSun
I vote for MPC too @BlackSun
Can't you do anything? I thought you're a moderator!! :D And you may add some other formats as well even though they're not that famous.

[Slogra]

So... how much better is Musepack than ogg/aac/ac3 at 160-192kbps? I'm already using it to backup my cds, 'cause it's way better than mp3 and i like the tagging system and it's able to play tracks without gaps. But have a hard time to actually hear the difference compared to the other new formats :eek: .

[Justinus]

I don't personally know. However, I read several articles on several web sites and they said similar things like that the MPC format is the best format for encoding around 140kbps - 180kbps, which is a range for many people using to encode their songs for the music collection. MPC is tuned up for this range of bitrate unlike OGG that is tuned up for low bitrate only. On the other hand, MPC suffers from being used to encode at lower bitrates. I couldn't find any reference discussing about encoding MPC with higher bit compared with other format (AAC or AC3) though.

[tiki4]

@Justinus:

I think most people have problems to distinguish between different compression codecs at 160 kBit or above. Even the 'lame --alt-preset standard' is already very high quality audio. Actually I never tried to do a listening test myself and I don't think my equipment (both hardware and ears) is good enough to really hear the difference. It even may be necessary to have very hard to compress audio snippets to really test modern codecs against each other. However, what I do, I trust the guys over at hydrogenaudio.org. The founder of HA (Dibrom) was one of the guys tuning the 'alt. presets' of LAME. Very often I cannot fully follow the discussion there about the pro's and con's of different codecs but in most cases Musepack is mentioned as the best. I also use it for CD backups (it's also much faster than LAME with alt. presets).

tiki4