What bitrate do you use?, MP3,AAC,Vorbis,MPC. Options

[kornchild2002]

it's amazing how a thread could start off asking what each user's preferred format/bitrate is and somehow manage to turn into a heated debate between those loyal to a dated format and those who prefer to use a newer, more efficient one... and yes, I am referring to MP3 and AAC, in that order.

It was never a debate regarding mp3 vs. AAC. This thread turned sour whenever Daemon7 started to spread false information (and bad logic) regarding mpeg-4 AAC audio. My replies were not to say that mp3 sucks as a modern format, it was just to disprove Daemon7's statements.

Funny that after all of that, he decided to pick out my open-source WMA statement instead of actually examining my statements regarding AAC adoption and AAC hardware that is out there. They also managed to completely ignore my iTunes Store sales numbers which are a lot newer than the 3 year old ones (which they never linked to). Oh well, I guess that is why they haven't really come back.

This happens a lot at hydrogenaudio where someone will ask a simple question and another person will stir things up. The end result will be a few pages of debate going back and forth between both sides (or, in this case, one person and a slew of others).

[Examiner]

- Flac for archiving

- Otherwise Lame V0 or Nero AAC Q0,60 (Q1.0 for Classic -my mobile player lacks flac support)

[bug80]

- FLAC for archiving.
- MP3 V4 for my portable player (transparent in most cases)

[extrabigmehdi]

This question is a bit hard to answer, because currently I use FLAC and convert to whatever is my mood when transferring to my mp3 player. If I don't have a lossless version, I try to have at least mp3 vbr with profile v2 or if cbr at 160kps (or I delete from my hard drive). i avoid "modern codecs", unless I transfer to my ipod, that supports aac.

[GeneV]

- For archiving I use Flac -8 (could be 5, too; but my machine is fast enough to have a few more bytes saved)
- For use on mobile players I encode to mp3 with ABR 160..192 and switch -q0. I found this to deliver the optimum quality with a reasonable size.
(See also this post: Posting in forum about Lame.)
Peace Gene

[Acid Pants]

FLAC for archive here too.

For modern codecs I chose 256 kbps, only cos I occasionally get stuff from iTunes, so I use that sometimes as well I guess!

But I encode to mp3 (with Lame v0) for my iPod archive. I can honestly say I'm too lazy to explore AAC any further, and as I prefer to use Linux, mp3 is just easier.

This post has been edited by Acid Pants: Oct 19 2009, 21:58

[randal1013]

wavpack for archive/PC library.

nero aac ~125kbps for the ipod.

[A_Day_Without_Me]

I rip to flac and listen to my flac's on the computer but I encode to LAME mp3 v0 for my Creative ZEN and other portables.

[davidos]

320 kpbs CBR mps. Cos I'm insane. :-)

All listening is on a HTPC over a reasonable amp and speakers, so storage not too much of an issue and may as well get the near-CD quality.

Meanwhile, working on sorting out how to play and tag flac on windows media centre. Once I sort that out will prob switch to flac V5 or something for the rolling ripping programme (this seems to be one of those background tasks that's never complete). Meanwhile, of course, there are still many 128kbps MP3s in the collection from my younger days when it all needed to be ripped quickly prior to emigration and being without CDs for a few months...

[davidos]

320 kpbs CBR mps. Cos I'm insane. :-)

All listening is on a HTPC over a reasonable amp and speakers, so storage not too much of an issue and may as well get the near-CD quality.

Meanwhile, working on sorting out how to play and tag flac on windows media centre. Once I sort that out will prob switch to flac V5 or something for the rolling ripping programme (this seems to be one of those background tasks that's never complete). Meanwhile, of course, there are still many 128kbps MP3s in the collection from my younger days when it all needed to be ripped quickly prior to emigration and being without CDs for a few months...

OK... so after posting that, I had a bash at ABX-ing (in foobar) original CD against -V0, -V2 and -V4. 11/13 with -V4, but without even getting past the first one, I knew I was guessing for -V2 and (obviously) -V0!

So... time to actually think about the encoding strategy. In my defence... I only discover HA about a fortnight ago, signed up 2 days ago, and began to actually think about these issues - up to now it's just been getting stuff working that has preoccupied me (media center incl HDTV recording, ripping vinyl, cover art and so on - all in a situation where the family expect it to just work!)

[gameplaya15143]

FLAC for new CD Rips since I don't have the space concerns any more that I had a couple years back.

When I do use MP3, it's V9 (@32khz ~ 75-96kbps for my little cheapie portable, or V7 for MP3 CDs for my car) using lame 3.93.1 -k --nspsytune

I can't group the "modern" codecs under the same answer:
-For videos, and the music on my laptop I use vorbis q0 (no lowpass).. so ~64-70kbps. I also use it for multichannel ~260kbps.
-I don't use AAC at all, but for stereo I would be using something around 115kbps if I had the need to use it.

So in the poll, I picked the two lowest bitrate options.

[Cokemonkey11]

I tend to want all my music to be the same bitrate, can't really come up with a good excuse why, just makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside.

It's called OCD, and we all do it a little

LAME v0 here.

Ogg on occasion to play around with it.

[NeoRenegade]

V2 for most material, V6 for some for which quality isn’t as important.

I wish the big players would support Vorbis – I love the concept and am really happy with its performance around 128kbps… I just don’t have any use for it and most of my friends wouldn’t know how to get Vorbis files to play.

[Hatredcopter]

I mostly use V0 or 320
and FLAC on modern codecs

[Meeko]

I put down Lame -V3 for my portable mp3 player. At work, I use Vorbis q0.0 (64kbps) because I would otherwise fill up a computer with music and they wouldn't like that . Plus I've only a Dell 2.0 speaker system that really can't do justice to any music, so why waste space when vorbis is good enough at that bitrate given the equipment I have to listen to it on? Win-win for me I'd say.

[Gornot]

I have never used MP3 in my life. From the very start it was WMA, then OGG, and now I'm using the HE-AAC encoder in Winamp to rip CDs to .m4a files, always 64kb/s, and it suits me just fine
For my MP3 player, I still use OGG ~96kb/s

[Steve Forte Rio]

FLAC -8 / TAK -p4m on PC

LAME 3.98.2 -V2 / NERO AAC 1.5.1.0 -q 0.55 / OGG libvorbis 1.2.3 -q5 (if supported) for portable devices

This post has been edited by Steve Forte Rio: Dec 26 2009, 12:21

[Yuna]

FLAC -5, some in -8 for archiving purpose (Ripped with EAC).

For audio player portable : LAME 3.98.4 320 CBR or NeroAAC 1.5.4 Q0.79.

[shadowking]

Archiving / Transcoding: Wavpack lossy @ 415 k -fx3 (with correction file for very rare albums)

Portable: GOGO @ 160k

[plonk420]

LAME V1 forced stereo (unless i think the music is particularly synthy or distorted). my forced stereo bias has been reinvigorated due to hooking up an old Quad Sansui (QRX-3500) i rescued from mum's basement of dust-gathering objects and listening to it synthesizing the surround as well as Windows Vista doing it (opposed to the classic Winamp 5.1 output plugin). (the primary use for surround was for gaming. and maybe movies)

and speaking of movies, AAC 128kbps is what i use for most (x264) "encodes of minimal size". i'd probably use higher (or even original audio) if i were shooting for visual transparency in an encode.

[Irakli]

Nowadays, I use AAC with VBR ~256 kbps (on average) for just about everything, because compatibility isn't a concern to me and neither is the space taken by ~256 kbps music.

[origami]

Mostly I use Apple Lossless,but occasionally I encode MP3 or AAC (mostly MP3) and then I use 320 kbps. Space is not really an issue anymore, so why not go for the best - even if the difference between 256 (vbr) and 320 is very small.

[Steve Forte Rio]

I think that ~200 kbps is best choice for psychoacoustic lossy encoding, it gives acceptable quality + reasonable filesize.

For my music I used:

AAC: Nero AAC Encoder 1.5.4.0 -q 0.55 or QTAACEnc 20100307 --tvbr 90 --highest
Vorbis: OggEnc libvorbis 1.3.1 -q6
Musepack: mpcenc 1.30--quality 5 (--standard)

or if I need best compability I use LAME 3.98.4 -V 2
All this codecs/presets give ~200 kbps at average for my kind of music.

And as I hear (I spent many ABX tests on Trance music), the best codec for my ears/equipment/music is Musepack standard - I can't hear any audible artefacts on any problem (for other formats) samples. I'm sure it's because the Musepack doesn't have pre-echo effect that I hear clearly with all other codecs on my killer samples....

This post has been edited by Steve Forte Rio: Aug 2 2010, 11:26

[jimmanningjr]

My first post !!!
Well... I use Flac for Archiving thru EAC
I was using Mp3 v0 for my Sansa Fuze But recently switched to Vorbis Ogg at about 192.... because it seems i get better battery life AND less artifax MP3 will in time grow old and fade...like 8 tracks!!!(tapes) Guess there will always be die hards though.. I wish EVERYTHING supported VORBIS and Everyone. I mean whats not to like.....Can YOU HEAR a difference at v5-> ???? I use V6 just to be sure but if I had someone tell me that the difference between V5 and V6 is nil I may drop down to save alittle space...

[sramov]

oggenc -q 4,5 --advanced-encode-option impulse_noisetune=-15