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WMA9 or AAC which is better technically?
- Thread starter Francesco
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AAC. it preservers more of the original audios sound.
just listen to the same song with the same basic settings when ripped from a CD. you can tell...believe me.
just listen to the same song with the same basic settings when ripped from a CD. you can tell...believe me.
I can't seem to find the link, but there was an article that compared mp3, wma, and AAC, and AAC came out on top for sound quality. If I'm right, WMA cuts out the top 1/5 of what humans can hear... Or maybe it was mp3, but either way, AAC came out on top...
-Francesco
They are pretty damn close in quality, but AAC has slightly better frequenncy response - less dithering in the compression (the whooshing sound). But AAC files are slightly larger.
'Course, with a 10, 20, and 40gb iPod, who cares?
Then, of course there are the DRM and ideological differences, but seemed more geared toward actual sound.
They are pretty damn close in quality, but AAC has slightly better frequenncy response - less dithering in the compression (the whooshing sound). But AAC files are slightly larger.
'Course, with a 10, 20, and 40gb iPod, who cares?
Then, of course there are the DRM and ideological differences, but seemed more geared toward actual sound.
And I bet the compression ratio for lossless is the reason why it's almost completely ignored in general. And regardless, there are other codecs out there (open codecs for that matter) that deal entirely in lossless compression, so I can't say that it's particularly interesting
.lossless WMA does exist, but the files are like 25 MB each. it's not really practical to use it for most people.
at 64 kbps, WMA is the winner hands down, IMO. at 64 kbps, though, even though WMA is better, the sound quality is still not even close to "CD Quality" whatever that means. even though WMA is the best at 64 kbps, you can still tell that sound has been stripped/lost (hence the term lossy).
at 128 kbps, all 3 (WMA, MP3, and AAC) are pretty good. at that bitrate, WMA and MP3 are pretty comparable. the sound is pretty true, but still not perfect. AAC at 128 kbps is truer than the other 2 though. IMO, AAC at 128 is the best balance of keeping the files small and also preserving really high sound quality. at 128 kbps, WMA, AAC, and MP3 will all yield pretty similar file sizes, AAC is slightly larger, but the difference is pretty small.
Thanks for your help guys.
The website i'm getting my music off of (puretracks.com) compresses at 320 WMA so I was wondering if it's worth getting music off that website or waiting till there's an AAC website or itunes opens in Canada.
I guess 320kps is should be pretty on
par with AAC 128 though.
Francesco
The website i'm getting my music off of (puretracks.com) compresses at 320 WMA so I was wondering if it's worth getting music off that website or waiting till there's an AAC website or itunes opens in Canada.
I guess 320kps is should be pretty on
par with AAC 128 though.
Francesco
WMA's dirty little secret
Perhaps they've stopped doing this, but I recall when WMA was relatively young it was discovered that the encoder was also increasing the amplification by +4db, or something like that. The supposition as to why is due to the fact when a human listens to two sounds that are identical in every respect except for volume, the louder sound is perceived to be of higher fidelity.
Yeah, basically MS was cheating.
When testers adjusted their samples to compensate for that small volume increase, the perceived quality of WMA went down. Wish i could remember what I was reading - it was a comparison of WMA, MP3, Real, and some other codec (this was in the pre-iTunes, pre-iPod days).
Perhaps they've stopped doing this, but I recall when WMA was relatively young it was discovered that the encoder was also increasing the amplification by +4db, or something like that. The supposition as to why is due to the fact when a human listens to two sounds that are identical in every respect except for volume, the louder sound is perceived to be of higher fidelity.
Yeah, basically MS was cheating.
When testers adjusted their samples to compensate for that small volume increase, the perceived quality of WMA went down. Wish i could remember what I was reading - it was a comparison of WMA, MP3, Real, and some other codec (this was in the pre-iTunes, pre-iPod days).
the windows media audio lossless codec is something like 470-960 kbps VBR. that's pretty high. i think with AAC at 320 it will be close enough to lossless that you won't be able to tell the difference. most people cannot even tell any difference at 128 kbps. at 128 kbps AAC, i honestly have to be listening really really closely and it's only noticeable on a high quality set of speakers and even then only with certain kinds of music. like horrortaxi said, though, AIFF is truly lossless.
it is for the best quaity:size ratio.
VBR means that when there is a lot of sound the bit rate is higher and when there is only a small amount of sound the bit rate is lower.
The higher the bit rate the larger the file. Most VBR files are rated about an average of 192Kbps - they are about 50-100% larger than an average MP3 but sound excellent by comparison.
I do however reccommend AAC at at least 160Kbps. I use reverse quality - if a CD is supposedly equal to 128Kbps - then encoding at 160Kbps hopefully keeps enough data for those few extra sounds that I need.
Hope this helps.
VBR means that when there is a lot of sound the bit rate is higher and when there is only a small amount of sound the bit rate is lower.
The higher the bit rate the larger the file. Most VBR files are rated about an average of 192Kbps - they are about 50-100% larger than an average MP3 but sound excellent by comparison.
I do however reccommend AAC at at least 160Kbps. I use reverse quality - if a CD is supposedly equal to 128Kbps - then encoding at 160Kbps hopefully keeps enough data for those few extra sounds that I need.
Hope this helps.