Smallest File / Mostly Transparent Encoder?, Have not been keeping up.. Options

[funkyblue]

Hello All

I have not been keeping with the latest goings on in the last few years.

Is these a consensus on an audio format vs file size that is mostly transparent?

I have always used V2 with LAME. (I still remember the --r3mix option!)

Currently I encoded a bunch of stuff with -V4 for portable usage and it has been great.

Is there any other file formats or options that give the smallest file size that is mostly transparent?

I know mostly transparent is not a scientific analysis but I am unsure if there is a happy medium now?

Thanks in advance.

[funkyblue]

So I have managed to get this to work:

qaac.exe in Foobar2000.

-V45 -o %d -

Average of 96kbits. Is that the highest quality option for that bitrate?

If so I'll play around that bitrate area.

Thanks everyone

[IgorC]

-V45 -o %d -

Average of 96kbits. Is that the highest quality option for that bitrate?

Yes, it's the highest quality setting for true VBR (-V, TVBR ). You can try a constrained VBR as well (-v, CVBR) -v 96 for comparable bitrate. CVBR has higher score than TVBR though without statistic difference. http://listening-tests.hydrogenaudio.org/i...-96-a/index.htm

Is there a somewhat consensus that FhG is better than QAAC now?

I note the listening tests are about a year old now.

Thanks

The situation hasn't changed since then. There were some small tunings but major releases remain the same.
AAC encoders were tested since a long time ago http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codec_listening_test
And Apple encoder is/was always on top. It could be the case that Apple LC-AAC encoder has reached the best possible quality for the entire AAC format. Possibly there are some other LC-AAC encoders with same or near the same quality but never better than it.

This post has been edited by IgorC: Nov 13 2012, 16:51