I have a huge music collection which I store on a networked harddrive and play via Sonos and my iPod.

Most of it is MP3 (typically 256kbs/VBR) but some of it - if I bought it on iTunes - is non-DRM AAC/MP4.

Lots of listening tests say that at the same bitrate AAC is better than MP3 so I was thinking of encoding future files I rip from CD's into AAC. But AAC is less convenient because Windows Explorer can't edit AAC tags, windows Media Player can't play them, and I don't have an audio editor for AAC (I use MP3DirectCut for my MP3's). Questions:

1. I can't hear the difference between AAC and MP3 at 256kbs/VBR. But I don't know if guests can or I will if I get better equipment. How big a difference do you think there is at 256/VBR?

2. What's a good (cheap!) AAC/mp4 audio editor?

3. Other than iTunes, what's a good tag editor for AAC/mp4?

3. Any chance that Microsoft will offer better support in the future for this standard? (it's an industry-standard format, fer goddsake, it's not just an Apple standard!)

Thanks in advance!

foobar2k, happily supports AAC/mp4/m4a..As does MP3tag for AAC/m4a tag editing...

I believe the newer Windows Media Player that comes with Windows 7 supports AAC out-of-the-box.

I confirm,Windows 7 reads natively AAC and mp4 in general out of the box. Windows Explorer and Windows Media Player 12 support with all tagging and everything

Does WMP support id3v2.4 yet?

1. It's unlikely you'll hear a difference at higher bitrates.

2. Why do you want to edit a lossy file? I'm not sure you'll find one that won't transcode.

3. Windows 7 natively supports it .

4. ''

don't be silly.

OP mentioned that he uses MP3DirectCut as his editor of choice for MP3 files, so I assume that, by editing, OP meant only to cut/crop/copy/paste audio files which are lossless operations.


If you want something equivalent to MP3DirectCut but for AAC files, the only free software that I know of is BeSplit.

Nope the tagging support on WMP12 is still a complete and utter joke and it still dosn't support disc number tags . At least Ars Technica had the balls to bitch about it, while everyone else just keeps saying how good Windows 7 is or its just Vista SP3 .

Sometimes I want to edit out stuff that I don't need or want in a song, e.g. applause or talking, or long gaps or pauses. or I want to change the fade at the end, or I want to adjust the levels of extra quiet or extra loud passages, etc. Other times I want to concatenate two or more tracks. Sometimes I want to mix or combine stuff I bought on iTunes (non-DRM AAC) with stuff I ripped, etc. So yes, some of it is just cutting and pasting and some of it is actually changing the bits.