Best Encoded Audio?
Mar 4, 2007 at 11:08 AM Post #16 of 50
1. MP3 (encoded with LAME 3.97)
2. Because it is a lossy format with great sound quality to file size ratio.
 
Mar 4, 2007 at 11:22 AM Post #17 of 50
Apple's AAC encoder, 192kbps/VBR

I personally think AAC's the wave of the future, considering it's theoretically the true successor to MP3 (designed by a lot of the same people... just later.)

The LAME MP3 encoder is pretty nice, but it's still limited by the technical limitations of MP3. The newer codecs like WMA 10/OGG/AAC all got an advantage on it. I'd probably go with OGG if the iPod/iTunes natively supported it. I don't really like depending on Rockbox.
 
Mar 4, 2007 at 11:28 AM Post #18 of 50
Quote:

Originally Posted by ObiHuang /img/forum/go_quote.gif
Apple's AAC encoder, 192kbps/VBR

I personally think AAC's the wave of the future, considering it's theoretically the true successor to MP3 (designed by a lot of the same people... just later.)

The LAME MP3 encoder is pretty nice, but it's still limited by the technical limitations of MP3. The newer codecs like WMA 10/OGG/AAC all got an advantage on it. I'd probably go with OGG if the iPod/iTunes natively supported it. I don't really like depending on Rockbox.


What, exactly, are the technical limits of MP3?
 
Mar 4, 2007 at 11:41 AM Post #19 of 50
1.) On my iPod shuffle I've been using 160kbps AAC (iTunes encoder set to VBR but it's not very variable
tongue.gif
).

2a.) I think it sounds very good considering the small size. I used to do everything in 320kbps CBR LAME but I realised that I was wasting space and battery life.

2a.) For a portable device I don't personally think that lossless or even high bitrate lossy (above ~200kbps or -V1/-V0) is as important as space saving and battery life. I will sometimes use LAME 3.97 VBR Standard (-V2 --vbr-new I think is what it corresponds to). It's probably the most common and it sounds great also.
 
Mar 4, 2007 at 12:00 PM Post #20 of 50
320 kbs, lame 3.98, EAC..
I use this because it sounds good, and I do not really care if my Ipod have 4500 or 6000 songs on it...I never listen to all of them in a row anyway, that would take more than 13 days straigth..
I get more than 13 hours on my Ipod, like this..
I also change songs once in a while..
 
Mar 4, 2007 at 12:39 PM Post #21 of 50
1. I am a FLAC guy too, and any player that supports FLAC usualy supports ogg as well. Ogg vorbis is better than mp3 except for classical music, anyway my preference is still mp3 192 VBR or more (320 vbr is better indeed). lame encoded.

2. compatibility reasons + I listen to classical music also
 
Mar 4, 2007 at 10:37 PM Post #23 of 50
As most others have said, LAME -V2 is the way to go. If space is an issue you could probably go down to -V5 and still obtain practical (meaning being unable to detect any difference 99% of the time) transparency to the source.
 
Mar 4, 2007 at 11:00 PM Post #24 of 50
1. Flac
2. It's "free" and works very well with Exact Audio Copy. But the megabytes per file is consuming my hard drive.
 
Mar 5, 2007 at 12:01 AM Post #25 of 50
the main point of this question is "what is the best encoded audio for YOU."

encode in FLAC, 320 LAME CBR, -v0, -v2, -v5, etc... and see where you cant tell the difference anymore. that should be the "best" one. i for one probably can't tell between a -v0 and a -v2, but i encode -v0 anyways for my computer setup cuz the space isnt too much of a factor with big hd's, on a portable however, you might want to save some space
 
Mar 5, 2007 at 12:39 AM Post #26 of 50
Quote:

Originally Posted by uraflit /img/forum/go_quote.gif
the main point of this question is "what is the best encoded audio for YOU."


Actually Its helping in ascertaining what encoded format a number of knowlegable audiophiles prefer. Encoding music to lossy format is a very hard decision for someone who is passionate about sound quality (like me). I know I dont want to lose any quality in my music...even if it is invisible to my ears, (my $400 headphones feel it dammit! :p)

I both value and am greatly thankful for all of your input regarding my query.
 
Mar 5, 2007 at 6:54 AM Post #28 of 50
Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr_Junesequa /img/forum/go_quote.gif
Actually Its helping in ascertaining what encoded format a number of knowlegable audiophiles prefer. Encoding music to lossy format is a very hard decision for someone who is passionate about sound quality (like me). I know I dont want to lose any quality in my music...even if it is invisible to my ears, (my $400 headphones feel it dammit! :p)

I both value and am greatly thankful for all of your input regarding my query.



I absolutely agree with you. I enjoy listening to music, and it sounds best and gives the best emotional reward when I can hear every bit of it. You know, that's why we buy high end equipment in the first place, and that's why early CD players tried oversampling, and that's why the best CD players today upsample and interpolate to SACD sampling rates (eg check out the latest EMM Labs CD player), and so on. I find it hard to listen to mp3 or any lossy encoding, even at 320kbps. I once made a direct comparison of music encoded at various lossy rates with the same music played from WAV files on a Kenwood HD30GA9. With simple classical piano music, and most definitely with vocals, I could hear the differences very clearly.

The difference in storage space needed for WAV files over 320 vbr encoded files is minimal - as I recall, varying between 10 and 50%. That means there's really very little impact on the number of files you are able to listen to during travel if you have a 60GB hard drive.

So, I recommend using lossless WAV files. And to be completely honest, I still prefer vintage pcdps to any DAP I've heard for SQ.

IMHO, of course.
 
Mar 5, 2007 at 9:26 AM Post #30 of 50
I didn't find anything but a testing of various sound files by someone that reveal how 3.98 does better on problematic sounds, but overall is not as good as 3.97 for music encoding.
That's not to say 3.98 is no good, but it's still in beta and not ready for public release. Once it is, I'm sure many will adopt it.
 
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