Hi,
I've read quite a bit over the last couple of weeks about digitally encoding audio especially in these forums. I'm in the process of converting my CDs to FLAC format and then will encode in a lossy format for a portable player.

My question is what to do for a portable digital audio player. Looking at the Nomad, Rio Karma and iPod I can get a player now with 30 or 40gB drive that use different encoding formats. I could go for high bitrate, lossy, encoding and still get all my CDs on the player. I won’t be buying until I encode my CDs so it will be a month or so at the earliest so selecting the device will be based upon the encoding format.

I plan to use it in my car, computer speakers and my home stereo. So which encoding would be best sound quality that will work on a portable player for vbr high bitrate? From the players that are now available, should I look at mp3/lame, mp4/aac or ogg format for encoding? All threads I’ve seen talk about low bitrate sound quality. I’m leaning towards mp3 with lame extreme setting since everyone seems to agree that is very good, but don’t know if the other formats offer better sound quality over mp3 with the same bitrates. TIA.

Regards-Michael G.

As far as MP3 players go, you have a very wide selection; too many to mention here. From the ones you mentioned, only the iPod and the Karma are truly portable imo, using my definition of portability (small enough to fit in your pocket without people wondering what the heck is going on in your pants). They both support MP3, which is somewhat outdated, so your choice is really between AAC and Ogg Vorbis. Judging from the results of Roberto's 128kbps Extension Test, I'd suggest the iPod.

30 or 40Gig are large, even for a lossless format. I would be tempted by the Rio - initially put your FLAC files straight on it, if it ever fills up then you have the option of pulling all the files off and encoding to a lossy format.

40 Gig = 40 000 MB say a lossless file is 20MB that will give you 2000 lossless tracks!

You went lossless. That means you're forever free of codec angst

Get whichever player looks best for your needs then do a batch transcode to either AAC or WMA (Pro) depending which your player supports. They're basically equivilent anyway at 128k on a portable. At least you'll never notice whatever minute differences there are.

Use Ogg Vorbis before going the WMA route. WMA doesn't offer as good of quality as ogg at the same bitrate.

WMA isn't an option, I don't know enough about what I'm doing but I used that originally for lossless and it sounded fine but when I tried to use it in other programs to go to a different format it said MS didn't allow WMA to be transcoded. So, rather than find a patch if one even exists, I figured there are plenty other encoders that sound just as good.

I was planning on vbr and a higher bitrate the 128 since I'll be using it on my home stereo. Everything I've read is pretty much comparing cbr and a bit rate of 128 or 192 for mp3. For vbr with higher bit rates, I'm looking for the best encoder format.

As for flac on the Karma, I was getting about 6MB/track with aac encoded with nero vbr extreme:high giving me ~5000 tracks on a 30gB ipod and they sounded good to me. Now that I sent my ipod back I figured I'll find the best sounding encoder then find a player that sounds good and can handle the format rather than let the player determine the format.

Regards-Michael G.

You did not review the recent 128 kbps test? WMA9 Pro outperformed OGG (granted, WMA9 Pro is not portable compliant yet - but WMA9 was not tested)

dBPoweramp transcodes it with ease. And Sveta Portable Audio rocks! Check out Spoon's program.

By %0.02? Am I right? If not, point me to the test results page. But the 128kbps listening test I'm looking at shows that WMA outperformed Vorbis by 0.02 percent. This is somewhat negligible because 1) WMA is a tightly-closed format, and 2) WMA Pro has no portable support like you mentioned.

Also, this is at 128kbps; at lower bitrates OR older versions of WMA, Vorbis clearly outperforms it IMO.

EDIT: tpyos, stuff

You are correct, it is negligible. Your statement should have said - at the commonly used portable rate of 128 kbps, for all intensive purpose MPC, AAC, WMA Pro, and OGG are of comparable quality. At that bit rate, there is no way I can tell the difference between any of them (and that includes MP3 LAME) in terms of quality. I suppose someone with better tuned ears could pick out the MP3. The others? I'd be dubious with the numbers that close.

Your statement said

By your own admission, this is an incorrect statement.

How well does the iPod M9245LL/A 40GB perform with settings like --aps?

*EDIT*

Are the NOMAD 3, NOMAD Zen or iRiver HP-100 also a good choice to use with --aps? I ask this because I read that a lot of old players can't read VBR MP3s.

That only applies to the first generation mp3 players, your mpman f10, Rio 300 - and even then all they tend to get wrong is the track length.

However,

But, none of this really matters, as WMA isn't even an option here No worries.