I have been helping a man who has rights to a KJV (King James Version) Complete Audio Bible get his audios converted into the lowest bitrate, good quality, smallest size possible M4A audio files. Getting the whole Bible into M4A format has been interesting to say the least.

We have been trading files back and forth to get the sound and file size "just right". I think we got it to sound good, and wanted to share our experiences with encoding M4A mono spoken word audio (in this case The Bible).

I first suggested Nero 6, and he tried using all kinds of settings. At first I thought HE-AAC would be the best quality and size option. I tried and tried, but HE-AAC just wouldn't cut it on the mono files using Nero. We then decided on 48K, CBR, AAC LC, mono using Nero as it worked with the M4A players (including the sometime "buggy" WinAmp 5.07) .

I just wasn't satisfied that the rich tones of Willard Waggoner, the man reading the audio Bible, weren't being adequately captured and preserved. Then tonight I thought to try Compaact! 1.21 and he did. The resulting AAC LC, 48k files using TNS and MS enabled are the best sounding I have heard for encoding a mono audio source at 48k.

So in case anyone else is thinking about encoding the whole audio Bible, I recommend using Compaact! with 48k mono CBR

Hopefully this will help others looking to encode audio books and spoken word using AAC. I was a bit disappointed with Nero at 48k mono. Perhaps it hasn't been tuned for that optimally (yet).

Well, hats off to the developers at Compaact!, for they have just helped get the Bible shrunken down to good sounding audio files at 48K bitrate.

If anyone would like a copy of the whole Bible in M4A format, the man I was helping, Ray Hamilton, just posted the product available on eBay for sale for $9.95 at:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...item=4061293603

I am not sure, but this is the first M4A format complete audio Bible (KJV) I have seen. It should work with RealPlayer 10.5, WinAmp 5.07, Apple iTunes and iPods, plus Windows Media Player 10 (using the 3ivx.com DirectShow filter). I know someone else did a text Bible that displays the Bible text on iPods, but this is the first comeplete audio Bible I know of.

Again, thanks to the Compaact! developers for giving us the best sound quality we could find at 48k mono for encoding the Bible!

Hehe. This post is a little spamish , but your findings about Compaact! on those bitstream settings are indeed interesting.

Sorry not trying to push the Bible on people... Just wanted to let people know about this new audio Bible in M4A format and our experience with the different encoders and bitrates.

P.S. I have no financial interest in the program, nor have I received any money from the author of this program. I just helped out and gave him advice about the M4A format and AAC in general. I also beta tested the audio files. I was curious at what bitrate it would sound fairly good. That's all. No spam intended. If anything it might be considered a product announcement.

Here is a download link if anyone wants to hear the quality of the 48k, mono audio Bible. It is from 1 John Chapter 1 (KJV):

http://www.zoned.biz/files/1jo_01.m4a [476 k in size, 1:26 running time - Compaact! 1.21]

For comparison, here is the best sound for this same file we could get out of Nero: http://www.zoned.biz/files/1jo_01_nero.m4a [510k, 1:26 - Nero 6]

Any m4a player should handle it. Let me know if anyone has any problems. Also feedback on quality would be appreciated by Ray, the distributer of the audio Bible.

what version of Ahead's codec has been used?

Nero codec 2.9.9.998

Also Nero would only encode a 48k mono file at 32kHz, but Compaact! encoded it at 44.1kHz, Strange.

How do you call an unrequested and unrelated product announcement in your mailbox (or anywhere else)? Hint: It's a four letter word that starts with s.

Wouldn't a lower samplerate be better for such a low bitrate? I'd think that to be the reason Nero resamples. Surely the lowpass at that bitrate is going to be way lower than 16kHz especially for voice.

Sorry but I see product announcements and discussions all the time here on HA. The developer of this new audio Bible gave me permission to talk about the product and provide sample downloads to show the audio quality using 2 AAC encoders. I posted this initially to make people aware that the AAC Audio format was being used to make an audio Bible available.

I value the discussion about the best AAC encoder to use to make the spoken word audio (in this case the audio Bible) sound the best possible. Ray plans to make the audio Bible files available for free downloading on his web site, as well as on a DVD which I linked to.

I thought people would find it interesting how we got the Bible encoded using AAC LC.

You'd think so. But for some reason (perhaps lack of tuning at this bitrate) Nero performed (at least to our ears) at poorer quality than Compaact! This is taking into account various selections we listened to from throughout the audio Bible.