Firstly, this thread isn’t to start a war between formats.
I’ve used both formats but have gone back to lame for compatibility with family and friends devices.

But I’m still not clear how much better AAC is than mp3 (lame –alt-preset standard) at a similar average bit rate?

I’ll admit listening to both I can only tell the difference when I have an AAC at 128 next to a lame aps mp3, the AAC is worst.

Cheers.

Roberto's listening test (conducted over a year ago) concluded that iTunes AAC and LAME were not statistically different in quality at 128kbps. ( http://www.rjamorim.com/test/multiformat128/results.html )

However advances in the quality of both codecs have been made since then, so these results may not be valid anymore.

192kbps AAC is what I personally use (which is somewhat overkill), but there's obviously little quality benefit over aps since that's also perceptually transparent on most music. That encoding speeds are about five times faster and all my equipment is compatible makes it a no-brainer for me to use AAC, and when iTunes gets VBR AAC the space savings over aps will be more substantial as well.

Anyways, 192kbps AAC has really been transparent on everything for me, including killer samples like castanets.

AAC is probably a little better than Lame at most bitrates, but not a ton better. Mp3 has the advantage that it's compatible with nearly every hardware player out there, whereas AAC isn't supported by much other than the iPod (which, of course, has a very substantial market).

im also an AAC fan since I like how it performs overall against MP3. High bitrates and lower bitrates sound better to me, but not just me... look at the tests.

It also has more of a chance to really become widespread thanks to iPod. Hardware support is already here (at least LC profile):

Portable MP3/AAC CD player: Phillips Expanium exp503
Car Stereo Receiver : Kenwood MP4 Lineup
Portable MP3/AAC HD player: iPod

and a bunch of diretshow filters, winamp plugins, NeroDigital and its the HD-DVD audio standard (correct me if im wrong)

In the end i like it more because of its combo of high bitrate quality and hardware support

Where?


MP3's hardware support is far more superior. You can pretty much play it on anything that is able to produce sounds.


High bitrate quality is on par with mp3, at best. And for most of the time, pretty much all codecs are transparent at high bitrates. And again, mp3 has far more hardware support.

Tests? I've yet to see anyone on this forum with a high bitrate AAC killer sample

In which sometimes LAME 3.97a11 comes into mind.
Will there be a listening test comparing AAC (from iTunes or Nero encoder) w/ MP3s from LAME 3.97a11?
Maybe at bitrates around 128kbps and 192 kbps (or maybe --preset fast standard too).

Thanks to LAME 3.97a11, I still lean a bit more to MP3 than to AAC.
AAC is good, but I currently have no h/w players that supports it, and I'm not too fond of iPods.
(don't take this too personally, iPod fanboys...)

So, yeah, MP3 is personally a no brainer to me.
The h/w players' price range are more reachable than those incorporating AAC support.
(and I'm talking cheap DAPs and car stereos which are owned by most of my friends)

But cmiiw... =)

For me, AAC used to have an advantage because it offered higher encoding speed (at least over the recommended LAME 3.90.3) with good quality. But with the new 3.97 alphas, that might not be true anymore. I encode with mp3 exclusively for my 20GB ipod. An added bonus is I also get to play my files on my Samsung YP-MT6Z. So I prefer mp3 because of 1) speed, 2) good quality and 3) hardware compatibility.

I am personally using AAC. I decided that I like the quality it produces at 128 kbps and I already had my collection ripped to AAC. I wasn't going through ANOTHER encoding spree to convert back to LAME MP3, LOL. Plus I like its integration into iTunes since it is now my primary ripper/media player.

Looking at the 128 kbps multiformat listening test, LAME MP3 is on par with the best AAC encoder out there at the moment which is the iTunes AAC encoder. Great job to the LAME development team since AAC is supposed to be a much superior format. I'd guess that in the coming years you'll see AAC bypass MP3 and LAME even more in quality but at the moment, there isn't a huge difference at 128 kbps at least.

Thanks for the replies people!
I did start to encode my music with AAC 128 for my 20GB iPod but I've gone back to Lame APS.

Sounds like it will be interesting to hear the new VBR AAC when it comes out though.

Part of that is because many more people encode with mp3 and many more were trying to break MPC. With enough perseverance you will eventualy succeed. AAC is transform based and has all the evil artifacts like the rest of them. Sure at 192k they are usually below hearing threshold - but the principles are the same. Somewhere out there there will be samples that under certain conditions can ruin AAC even at 192k.

I also remember abxing the lifamim sample at Nero aac transparent profile a while back now.

AAC support in the Expanium is a joke. Volumes are way too low, it won't play some bitrates, and IIRC, a more recent firmware replaced AAC support with MP3pro support.

Ah, it won't play AACs inside MP4 either. Only unwrapped streams.

The keyword is “killer sample”.
Now do I need to remind you the percentage of that samples in all music?