WMA better than AAC?

Which is better quality format, according to your experience?

  • AAC

  • mp3

  • wma

  • ogg

  • real

  • other

Results are only viewable after voting.
Personally, I never adopted either.

I rip mp3s using better Rippers than iTunes, which reads song-lengths peculiarly on Copy-protected CDs.

I will say that the worst, absolute WORST format is .ra. I can't stand it. And the DRM is very poor (albeit very old).

I'll stick to my mp3s for a while to come, methinks, or until Apple brings the iTunes Music Store to Australia.

As for LAME encoding taking longer than AAC, that's because it converts them to WAV files and then encodes the WAVs.

And I'm a big fan of VBR, but I don't know if iTunes supports it for ripping AACs.

As I said, due to Copy-protection, iTunes really is a very poor CD-ripping utility, so without iTunes, no AAC for me.

WMAs are horrible. They always sound so digitised for me. But then, I can't get anything coming out of WMP to sound good, with the graphic equaliser settings PERFECT and all...

Who knows.
 
Recently, I had the onerous task of re-ripping my entire music collection .. all 10gig of it!

The reason: quite a few of the .mp3 files had become corrupted and wouldn't copy of my computer.

Anyway, the upshot is, I've found that the .aac encoding has brought out some of the subtleties of some songs that just weren't there before.

I don't think I altered the default iTunes encoding options.

But I'm always going to be bias because I really like iTunes...
 
RacerX said:
It was well publicized before the final release of Windows XP that the bundled Windows Media Player would both encode and play MP3 files worse than previous versions to make customers want to use WMA instead.

Given that, no one requires empirical proof that WMA are better than MP3 in Windows Media Player on Windows XP... it is that way by design.
Click to expand...

Untrue. MP3s playback at full quality in Windows XP just as they did with previous versions. Playback ability is included out of the box. Encoding is not included (as with previous versions).

Before XP, Windows Media Player didn't support encoding to MP3, only WMA. XP's media player (like previous versions) doesn't include an MP3 encoder by default. If you want to encode to MP3, you must purchase an encoder plugin from one of a number of third-party vendors (just as with DVD codecs). The encode quality is not restricted.

Beta versions of XP included a limited MP3 encoder which was used simply to test the plug-in framework. It was never intended to be part of the final product, and was not shipped as part of the final product.
 
Hmmm, the best encoding is no encoding: live music. the best compression is no compression: live music. If you are going to rip, mix, burn, you are going to loose quality. Compared with the pure original directly shunted into your ear, every type of digital or analog format loses bigtime. The averagely employed encoding, compressing, decompressing and playing probably deform the sound so much that arguing about which format is better is quite pointless.
Typically you will listen to WMA, AAC or MP3 through earbuds from a portable player. I arrogantly presume, unsupported by scientific proof, that you CANNOT hear any difference between them in that case. Play them through a high-quality soundcard, hifi stereo tower and good boxes and you might arguably hear a difference, but for average use ... *shrug*
I doubt people can hear the difference between a "high quality" MP3 and a CD, so why bother? The whole issue is more "political" than musical anyway.
 
Cat said:
I doubt people can hear the difference between a "high quality" MP3 and a CD, so why bother? The whole issue is more "political" than musical anyway.
Click to expand...


Actually, I can hear the difference between the highest quality MP3 I can make on my computer and the original AIFF file on the CD. I can't tell the difference through my Boston Acoustics cheapo computer speakers, but I can tell the difference using my Beyer Dynamic DT320 headphones. The difference is like night and day, but I cannot unfortunately, take them with me wherever I go as they are big, bulky headphones that cost $150 ten years ago. The difference I hear is a combination of resolution and dynamic range. Something seems to be missing in the MP3, and the highs and lows are no longer there, the volume difference is compressed closer together.

I have above average hearing for my age. I learned of my exceptional hearing ability after takeing a manidory employment physical examination. The doctor made a point of telling me to take cotton with me when I go out to movie theaters because he was concerned I might experience some discomfort from the loud sounds. He said that movie theaters take into account of the age group of teh people attending movie theaters, and their average hearing loss due to occupational experience, home life, etc... Movie theaters supposedly increase the sound levels 20 to 30dB to account for hearing loss in the average population.
 
chemistry_geek: Heh... sounds like a vicious cycle! You go to the movies and they play them loud. You lose a little hearing because of that. So do others. So they jack the volume up more to take into account the age and hearing of the patrons. You lose more hearing...

...you get the idea.

I, on the other hand, have slightly sub-par hearing due to some childhood complications and a set of weak eardrums I inherited from my father (if you've never burst an eardrum, I highly recommend you keep the good track record. Ouch.). Despite my hearing loss, I can tell the difference between CD/High quality audio and anything under 192kbps and under. I don't know where this 128kbps default came from -- I think they sound like crap. It sounds like the cymbals are coated in a thin film of water and there's a constant "wavering" of the sound through the entire song. 160 is better, 192 is my minimum.

I'll have to say that AAC-encoded files sound MUCH better than MP3 files at the same bitrate, especially 128kbps AAC files. I was a bit disappointed when Apple announced that their iTMS was to use 128k AAC files, since I was so disappointed with 128k MP3 files. After hearing a few, though, I must say I am impressed. AAC is a DAMN good format, and if you have access to high-quality encoding gear like the folks at Apple, hell, some of their AACs at 128k sound almost as good as my 192k MP3s!

I guess, to stop rambling, I'll say that I love AAC. It's a great leap forward in music compression. I tend to associate WMA with the quality of MP3 -- the WMA files I have listened to didn't sound any better than my MP3s, but I'd gladly put an AAC file up against any lossy format.
 
What I haven't thought before... There's always progress, isn't there, and some day Apple will switch from AAC to, say, AAC-2 or something, for the songs on iTMS. Also, as broadband gets adopted more and more, iPods have larger harddrives just as Macs, we could also live with songs encoded at higher bitrates. It's a pity that the songs you have bought at 128 kbps AAC won't be 'upgraded'. If you'll want them at the new quality, you'd have to buy them again. Sure, this is not 'near future', but in computing, things happen faster than in the music industry. So while it'll take a decade or two to replace the Audio CD with a DVD-Audio (or something different altogether), it'll quite surely not take five years until AAC is considered almost "too 20th century".
 
Only chemistrygeek has even mentioned AIFF format...

I was reading the other day of a DJ who now only takes his PowerBook and a dummy mixing deck...

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.02/play.html

He says that he uses uncompressed AIFF files - am I right in therefore thinking that if I rip all my CDs @:

48 kHz
16 bit
Stereo

that I will preserve as much of the original quality as on a CD?

I want to run my iPod / Mac through my home system, but using MP3 I lose absolutely all detail - my system is TOO revealing...

Does anyone have any experience with AIFF format please?

thanks

ed

:D
 
Actually, the other problem is that there is no digital output on the iPod, as it the sound really needs to be put through a DAC (Digital to Analogue Convertor) first...

I thought I might try overcoming that part of the challenge with the Roku Soundbridge... (http://www.rokulabs.com/products/soundbridge/index.php)

First I have to establish which form of ripping CDs is least lossy - I've got 27GB to re-rip and I won't want to do it again after this! ;-)
 
If you can't go AIFF, applewhore, I'd suggest AAC @ 256. I have not found someone - as of yet - who really could find a quality loss at this setting. There might be a slight _difference_ in the sound if you compare CD and AAC one to one, but nothing like wavering or washing the sound.
 
Cat said:
Hmmm, the best encoding is no encoding: live music. the best compression is no compression: live music. If you are going to rip, mix, burn, you are going to loose quality. Compared with the pure original directly shunted into your ear, every type of digital or analog format loses bigtime. The averagely employed encoding, compressing, decompressing and playing probably deform the sound so much that arguing about which format is better is quite pointless.
Click to expand...
Live is allways better.
this applies to any sport match for example.
The live match is much more entertaining.... but when watching at home, i guess it does matter if ur watchin it on VHS of DVD...

Same applies with photos.. etc...

the point here is which audio format is better. for now i vote 192 kbps AAC. its very good quality!!!

id also like to refer ITMS songs; at 128 kbps AAC an average song is around 3-5 mb which is perfect for listening on the iPod. Why ? because it waste less battery power. I think its a fact most iPod owners should be aware of!!! Nevertheless i still use 192 kbps!!!
 
fryke - thanks for your reply...

I CAN go AIFF - I just want to make sure that's the best way forward...

Have you (anyone else) done a head to head with AIFF and AAC at the highest possible settings?

I'm not worried about using up HD space at all - I just want the music to be as undiluted as possible... I want to play it through a Mark Levinson system, and much like the difference in chemistry geek's headphones, the difference between MP3s, and even lazily recorded CDs is astonishing...

thanks...

:)
 
I'd be a little worried about disk reads.

If I'm doing something disk-intensive like opening / editing large files in Photoshop, iTunes skips all over the place.

Now if you're going to use AIFF, that's a lot more bits for iTunes to shift around...
 
good point, octane, but I'm thinking of using my current G4 PowerMac to run my house in terms of security (you wouldn't want to trust THAT to Windows, would you?!), controlling lights, A/C and stuff using X10 etc., pump music around via iTunes...

and then get a G5 for the real stuff...

;-)
 
applewhore said:
good point, octane, but I'm thinking of using my current G4 PowerMac to run my house in terms of security (you wouldn't want to trust THAT to Windows, would you?!), controlling lights, A/C and stuff using X10 etc., pump music around via iTunes...

and then get a G5 for the real stuff...

;-)
Click to expand...

You've been reading the Mac Dev Center home automation article, haven't you? :)

No, I wouldn't trust Windows to sit the right way on the toilet... :confused:
 
You'd think it would take more processor power to import AIFF's than something smaller because there's more data, but it takes a whole lot less power (as in it takes much less time) to bring in AIFF's because that's basically what's on your CD. When you import MP3's, AAC's, etc., your computer has to compress them, which takes brain power. Importing AIFF's is simply a data dump to your hard drive.

I believe CD's are encoded at 44.1 Hz and 16 bits, so that (or 48) would be a good setting to use if you bring in AIFF's.
 
arden - i think octane was talking about actually using itunes to play AIFFs while working on the computer (?) - hence my comment about actually using a separate Mac for house control and another for work...

...but I might have misunderstood him!
 
applewhore said:
arden - i think octane was talking about actually using itunes to play AIFFs while working on the computer (?) - hence my comment about actually using a separate Mac for house control and another for work...

...but I might have misunderstood him!
Click to expand...

No, you didn't misunderstand me, that's exactly what I meant.

With Adobe Photoshop and iTunes both making regular trips to the disk, iTunes gets a belly full while I get an ear full .. or not, as the case may be :eek:

Imagine that, an AppleScript-driven home automation system.

Quick! Someone write one huge AppleScript to manage my life... :p
 
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