QuickTime 6.5 AAC sounds terrible

[adoniscik]

Using a DV-originated WAV, I created four files:

AAC: Quicktime 6.5, 128 kbps, "Best" encoding quality
AAC: Nero 6, Streaming::Medium (Resulting bit rate: 86 kbps)
OGG: oggdropXPd 1.7.7, Quality=4 (Resulting bit rate:: 115 kbps)
MP3 LAME 3.92, High (Resulting bit rate: 144 kbps)

In all cases, the sampling rate was 48 KHz. I listened to all files using their respective decoders in WinAmp. In particular, the AAC decoder was AudioCoding's MP4 2.0 (just released). Why did the QuickTime file not sound as crisp as the competition? I really do not think it is a matter of bit rate; Nero beat QuickTime with 40 kbps less!

[bond]

1) on hydrogenaudio they have a nice rule which says that any statements about quality of audio codecs are not valid till someone shows the results of a double blind listening test...

that way rjamorim conducted a aac listening test and apples codec came out best (with all codecs at 128kbps):
http://www.rjamorim.com/test/aac128test/results.html
also one comparing apple to mp3 and vorbis:
http://www.rjamorim.com/test/128extension/results.html

2) if you use winamp5, make sure that you disable its in built mp4/aac decoder cause it is buggy atm!

3) it can of course also be that you had the bad luck to find a "problem sample", which quicktime doesnt like