Should i start using AAC? Can you notice a better quality? Options

[Bahamut2]

I have read everywhere that it is better than MP3, but will i be able to notice the difference?
I encode all my files to VBR -V0 and i don't know anything about AAC, what would be the equivalent encoding settings for AAC?

Can you people really notice that theyre is a reall difference in quality? I want to test it by myself (encoding always it max quality off course) but first i want to ask here.

[shadowking]

The modern lossy bitrate is far too bloated. Comparisons for mp3 Vs AAC are difficult as the average bitrate is now 250 .. 300k . Several years back the motivation of AAC and others was to provide near transparency @ 128k and better handling for problem samples where mp3 192k wasn't cutting it. Other encoders used VBR to implement these improvements. An early example was the MPC encoder which gave great quality @ 160..200kbit

Things where really interesting back then on the lossy side of things - 2002 ~ 2006. The other thing is mp3 was always competitive at 192k if you don't count rare problem samples. Even then it could probably sound very acceptable and satisfy 90 something % of people . This is probably true even for the old CBR 192 encodings.

Where its at today you could have just stuck it out with 256 CBR mp3 ten yrs ago , ignored any audio lossy development since and still be competitive .

[HTS]

The modern lossy bitrate is far too bloated. Comparisons for mp3 Vs AAC are difficult as the average bitrate is now 250 .. 300k . S

But I think video games and other entertainment media are still using sub-standard 128-160kbps mp3 or oggs.