The former poll asking this question is hopelessly outdated. When it was started, Vorbis had no hardware support, AAC was very little supported (iPod didn't support AAC, iTunes hadn't been released for Windows, the Nero AAC codec was still to be launched), and there was lots of hope surrounding MPC SV8.

The scene changed considerably since then, so I believe it's worth starting a new poll, showing how the forum member's habits changed in two years.

Regards;

Roberto.

AAC all the way!

w00t!

I'd love to say AAC but I use mainly lossless or musepack.

The same as in the last poll: Ogg Vorbis... because of it's for-my-ears-good-enough quality, it's freeness and the good software support under all systems I work with

I haven't really changed in the past few years: lossless (or just plain old CD's) for home use, MP3 for portability. I've dabbled with AAC and MPC along the way, but they don't meet my needs for various reasons.

I certainly hope that, in this day and age, nobody is still using VQF. Or at least they won't admit to it

If people answered to the previous poll and changed their behaviour since, it could be interesting to notice this change.

I voted for musepack long time ago, but now, it's lossless for PC listening. MP3 is still necessary for my portable players. For lossy, I'd probably keep MPC, according to the results of my listening tests on classical music.

Like many other people, I have a large mp3 collection. 95% of my (mp3 encoded) full albums are --aps or higher. I recently began sharing mpc files, which i LOVE. slightly smaller in some cases and even sound better. I've ripped my favorite albums to mpc. I have a decent mpc collection.

My problem has most recently become hardware support. See, I've got an IPOD, which doesnt support MPC. At first, I didnt consider this a big deal because I could easily use mpxchange to convert to mp3 and transfer my songs.

But it becomes inconvenient when I'm on the way out and I get the urge to throw an album on the ipod to take with me. I hate having to sit there and wait for an album to transode before I leave the house.

What I think I might do is transcode all my mpc albums and just keep 2 copies of the album on my drive (I'm not pressed for space or anything, so that doesn't matter).

I just wish there was a way to get musepack files onto the ipod.

MP3Pro, because at 80kbs it sounds better to me than HE-AAC at same or even 96kbs. Plus no hardware support for HE-AAC....


***Edited Part***
Wish they had SBR for Vorbis(that had hardware support also) and wished that the encoder was LAME that did the mp3 encoding part in the nero MP3pro encoder. I goofed off a little awhile back to see if I could see if there was an easy way to rip the SBR info out of the mp3pro file, then re-encode at the appropriate cut off point in LAME and add it back. Didn't look so simple though...

Vorbis is my favorite non-SBR format though.

FLAC for desktop use, Ogg Vorbis for my Rio Karma. (Obviously, I voted for the latter rather than "lossless only".)

I voted Lossless only. I changed from Monkey's Audio to FLAC due to smoother playback, though I sometimes encode from FLAC to some lossy format, usually Ogg Vorbis, to give my friends some samples. I use Ogg Vorbis rather than MusePack for this because I know the former better.

EDIT: For music, that is.

the problem with this poll is, it calls for a mutual exclusive vote. But I'm not using one format exclusive, I'm using several.

The shortest answer is Ogg Vorbis to play on my Palm Tungsten T3. It seems to be the best portable option for me (quality on mid bitrate and existing support). I can play MP3 and WMA, also, if necessary.

well, I voted for MP3, though I use FLAC to archive everything and transcode. I only use MP3 because Im forced to. I would prefer MPC but there just isnt support for it in any hardware (little support for AAC or Vorbis either)

I use MPC for pop/rock and hybrid codecs (still can't decide between DS and WavPack lossy...) for soundtracks and classical music. I picked MPC because there was no choice for hybrid.

Ever since I bought my H120 I've pretty much been using Vorbis exclusively, though I still have many Musepack (which I love but no hardware support) and FLAC files. I voted Vorbis as it's probably the format I encode to most nowadays simply for ease of use and transfer to my portable. Since it supports vorbis I never encode to mp3 anymore and the only mp3s I have are downloads.

Unfortunately, it's impossible to allow voting on more than one option.

It would also be great if users could later change their votes.

I use standard MP3, if AACPlus cmd line Encoder comes available for the Public, i will use AACplus.
Reason:
It is the only compression algorythm for the forseeing future, and one of the best at Low Bitrates, and it is mpeg Standardized.

I chose lossless because that's all I rip to for myself nowadays, however, I still rip things to mpc for friends who have slow connections or aac for those who use macs and that's what I receive from them. So I use all 3 formats quite heavily I just prefer lossless for my own personal circumstances.

Quicktime AAC for me, as I own an iPod.

I was using vorbis when I voted last time, for purely ideological reasons...

I wish there were polls with check-buttons instead of radio-buttons only
(I'm using MPC for quality, MP3 for portability, OGG for low-bitratity, and OFR for losslessity)

back with -aps mp3

I can't afford a portable as a cash-strapped college student, so I use MPC almost exclusively. Great file size at transparency (for me).

LAME 3.96.1 --preset standard, keep up the good work LAME team!

I'm not a big fan of lossy formats, when I had M-Audio Revolution 7.1, I used MPC quite a bit, but after getting Dynaudio Audience 42 speakers I lost my feelings to MPC and. Now with RME Hammerfall DSP 9632 I don't have that big placebo effect anymore, maybe it's because Revo sound was harsh.
For lossy formats I'd choose Vorbis since MPC is quite dead and it's not for portables, but audiophiles don't use lossy

Is that a rule?

To me an audiophile is a music lover, as a music lover I say mp3 is great!

I keep my entire collection in FLAC on my 250 GB external HDD, shared over my network. This is used for playback over my home theater via the Echo Indigo output from my network server running Winamp (which I can control remotely by wireless connection). Occasionally I play the FLACs over my PC, though (when someone else is watching TV, for instance) with either speakers or headphones.

I transcode to Vorbis aoTuV b2 @ -b 160 -M 180 for my car's 60 GB audio system (which can't handle any Vorbis bitrates over 200kbps or so, even quick spikes, hence the managed bitrate mode).

And for my 512 MB portable player (PocketTunes on a Sony CLIE handheld PC), I transcode from FLAC to Vorbis aoTuV @ -q -1. Over the portable's output stage and earbuds, the sound quality is fine for this purpose.

Vorbis is my lossy choice because it's the only one with hardware support and gapless playback on all my platforms. Gapless playback is the only reason I don't use MP3. If it were gapless on any platform I'd certainly use it.

I use mp3 exclusively. I think almost all my encodings are lame 3.95 and higher. Mostly 3.96 I think. All were encoded with preset standard. I don't have a large hd so although I would like to go lossless but I can't as my collection grows bigger by the day. I have everything backed up onto cd as lossless (ape and flac).

I am thinking very seriously about buying myself a iPod mini. Then I think I may go and buy myself a larger hd and store everything losslessly and encode that to AAC for the iPod. But at the moment mp3 suits my needs nicely.

Need multiple options.
I checked WMA because it's slower to kill my MP3 player battery than OGG or AAC, and it sounds better (at low bitrates) for spoken audio (on my iRiver, at least

If OGG didn't suck battery, and if bitrate constraints permitted, I'd use it exclusively. OGG owns my computer music.

And for music, I LAME everything. Battery life is everything.

Lame 3.90.3 APS is great to me. I archive in FLAC for quick conversion should any other version become standard, but to my ears, the MP3's are great and I don't have to worry about setting a constant bitrate. Also, with 15GB on my iPod, I've only filled about half of it, so I've no need to use AAC. Nero's AAC at -normal quality will be my next option should I run out of space on my iPod, which I likely won't do.

Musepack. Now it just needs portable support.

I could go lossless, but i could save the large space by just reripping lossy from my cds.

I voted lossless, but I use musepack else... but NEVER mp3

iTunes AAC @ 128kbps for computer listening and my iPod

I'm glad this poll was updated, I'm interested to see what the majority of HA is using in 2004. Though my guess would be that MusePack or MP3 will still dominate

AAC and Mp3 here

last time i voted for MPC and this time it's MPC again, but i'm thinking about using vorbis soon (something < q4), because i'm running out of space with MPC standard and my ears aren't that good..

-andy-

FLAC.

When/if I ever get an MP3 player, I'll probably transcode the FLACs to LAME MP3 192-320kbps VBR (depending on the size of the player).

I use FLAC for all my CDs, and since the vast majority of the music I listen to is classical and film music, I get very good compression ratios (easily half the size or more).

My computer have MP3, MP2, FLAC, Ogg vorbis, AAC, M4A, TTA and WMA audio files. But most of my music is MP3, second is ogg vorbis, third is M4A(iTunes). WMA , AAC and MP2 are extract from some video clips. FLAC is for arciving cd use, TTA is for experiment use .

I use Vorbis because I need something suitably free-but-good (in all senses) for my game projects, with an excellent programming API. I also like its general development buzz. And so, when you learn what its strengths and weaknesses are it seems a shame to use anything else!

I voted for AAC because 128kbps and 160kbps iTunes AAC is good enough for me. I use MP3 for burning CDs, though.

I use QuickTime AAC 6.5.1, despite it's bugs. I'm too lazy to dig up QuickTimeMPEG4.component from an earlier version. Ever since failing to ABX velvet.wav using FAAC -q100, I've considered my self incapable of hearing most AAC artifacts

If Ogg Vorbis integrated fully with iTunes, I might use that. The results form the recent test really impressed me. I know it's not going to happen, though...

I'm using mp3 but I'm going to switch back to mpc when I get my new PC.

Plain CDs for home stereo and in the car. MP3 on my laptop and sometimes for portable listening. I would use Musepack but there is no decent solution for mpc playback on a Mac and on portable. The MP4 Thing is also very interesting in the future for video and audio content. But at the moment are DVDs and Audio CDs much more practically than anything else.

BadHorsie

i vote musepack again

all my audio is previously/currently/in-the-future going to be musepack until another codec is as good at a good transparent/size ratio.

hardware support will eventually happen ( *crosses fingers* ) and my audio listening situation doesn't require a lesser codec


later

Since the last poll I've gone from Musepack to Vorbis.

MPC seems dead and I'm kinda miffed that there is no "final" SV7 release. The last beta (1.14) is 21 months old and even the most recent alpha (1.15r) is now over 17 months old. It just felt like time to move on. OK, you can't complain much about MPC quality but there are three usability improvements that Vorbis offers (to me):

1) OggdropXPd offers the ability to easily change the processing priority (to lowest, for example). mppenc.exe wanted to run at normal priority and that could be a pain if you wanted it to run in the background. I could not find a suitable "mpcdrop" equivalent.
2) Vorbisgain offers native recursive album handling. A lifesaver if you need to replaygain a few dozen albums at a time. MPC's replaygain can't do this without some annoying batch fix.
3) in_vorbis.dll doesn't have that terrible scretching noise problem that all in_mpc.dll versions gave me if I searched ahead in WinAMP.

Vorbis is still alive with the official 1.1RC1 incorporating a nice enhancement by aoTuv and lots of "local" work on improving Vorbis transient handling. With Musepack, it seems you are stuck with a sole developer who just doesn't seem to want to work on the project anymore.

I would also like to say that I am rather impressed with the current versions of LAME (3.96+), particularly its VBR performance at lower bitrates. We aren't talking about transparency here but I remember the time when 128kbps CBR MP3 was a recipe for disaster and yet today I have created 90-100kbps VBR MP3s with LAME that sound, well, pretty damn nice and are quite acceptable for portable player use. This wasn't the case with LAME 3.93 and earlier.

Same answer as in the last post: mainly Ogg Vorbis.

In detail:
* Archival/rip format: FLAC
* Personal listening format if not FLAC: Ogg Vorbis
* Traktor DJ Studio format: Lame mp3
* Movie backup format: mp4/aac

Mainly Musepack, but I do use MP3 for external MP3 only devices.

Musepack has a great filesize/transparency tradeoff and is fast. Once hard-drive storage becomes practicle for me store my CDs losslessly online, my Musepack collection shall dwindle.

I am still on MP3 (LAME --aps), because of the hardware support. I like to just grab my cd-wallet with mp3-CDRs knowing that wherever i go, every portable will be able to play my lossy files. This is especially interesting to me, since i like to visit non-commercial meetings and parties and am often the one who serves the music during the later hours (mostly unpopular downtempo: trip-hop, post-rock, electroacoustic, ambient, old analogue synths, etc.).

Yes, other formats can achieve the same quality at lower bitrates. Yes, there may be opensource alternatives - but they are useless for me if i'm not able to play the music. Staying with MP3 for now just gives me the freedom that i can grab a bunch of CDs without deciding beforehand what i will play and go whereever i want. And i don't see this changing anytime soon - even in maybe 2-3 years many people will still own portables which only support MP3 & WMA.

However, when i someday get a bigger HDD + DVD-burner, i may go the hybrid-route which many others here have choosen as well: lossless for archiving, lossy for portable-use.

So in short: MP3 for on-the-road freedom for me

- Lyx

Voted ogg...but I actually flogg (flac and ogg). Flac's then moved to DVD+RW's.

LAME 3.96 --alt-preset insane --lowpass 20 --athaa-sensitivity 1 --athlower 100 --npsytune --ns-bass -2 -q0 -m j --verbose

...don't mind the switches.....

Mainly because I have a NOMAD Jukebox 3 which only supports MP3, (sucky) WMA, and WAV.

Wow, impressive. Most of those switches are even redundant and/or don't do anything.

I keep backup copies of all my CDs on a harddrive. I've ripped the CDs as images with EAC, then compressed the WAV files with WavPack 4.0. I keep the CUE sheet in a APE2 Tag. One file per album!
I've written a Python script which automates everything, except the ripping with EAC and the ReplayGaining.

Since I do not (yet) have a portable, I have no use for lossy compression. Should I ever buy one, it's easy to transcode from lossless.