fourrobert13
Headphoneus Supremus
I'll second foobar2000 and the free encoder pack. Simple and easy to use.
According to http://www.factmag.com/2018/01/05/what-is-opus-audio/, SoundCloud is going Opus. Hopefully, a sign of better things to come for this codec.
Found the article link over at hydro. The discussion was was on the fence about the bit rate they were using. The consensus was they should use 96 instead of 64. Either way, it's a step in the right direction for more Opus support.Interesting 64kbit is the number being pointed out; wonder if the Soundclouders were eyeing that hydro thread…
There's never a clear answer on that one. Apparently it's "pretty much" transparent at 128 and is transparent from 160 -192 kbps with the exception of some killer samples, according to this page: https://wiki.hydrogenaud.io/index.php?title=OpusWhere is the threshold of transparency for Opus? I've done a lot of testing of Fraunhofer MP3, LAME MP3 and AAC, and I've found their Frau is just short of transparent at 320, LAME is transparent at 320, and AAC is transparent at 256.
I am too, but I don't feel that there's a reason to go above 192 on opus in my opinion. I haven't seen any tests for 224 or 256 for it though. I think it's commonly agreed upon that those bitrates are way too high.I haven't found anyone who can detect AAC over 256 in a blind test. I'm most interested in the upper limit, not the lower, because that tells you where the line is for practical reasons.
There's never a clear answer on that one. Apparently it's "pretty much" transparent at 128 and is transparent from 160 -192 kbps with the exception of some killer samples, according to this page: https://wiki.hydrogenaud.io/index.php?title=Opus
Since even before the release of 1.3 (and after it) I've observed a few people claiming here and there that there's potential transparency as low as 80-96, some just going with 128.
I can't attest to how scientific or thorough their methods were to reach that conclusion, but I've seen these claims a few times across some message boards.
I personally I do 192 for the peace of mind, my phone is 256 gb and my music accounts for a little over 110 gb so the worry of the file size isn't as important as the quality to me.
For 99.9% of music 192 AAC is fine. I happened to find one song that was a real codec buster. That one requires 256 AAC.
Since even before the release of 1.3 (and after it) I've observed a few people claiming here and there that there's potential transparency as low as 80-96, some just going with 128.
I can't attest to how scientific or thorough their methods were to reach that conclusion, but I've seen these claims a few times across some message boards.