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Topic: Today, which AAC encoder gives the highest quality? (Read 48778 times) previous topic - next topic
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Today, which AAC encoder gives the highest quality?

Reply #50 –
Quote from: yourlord on
Quote from: bigjoegamer on
I'm glad to see a newer format becoming more known. Looks like a bright future, especially if the size of HDDs/SSDs skyrockets (without price skyrocketing). Then, we can just use lossless.

I can dream. I know it may never happen. 


They just announced reasonably priced 1TB SSDs recently, and 8TB magnetic drives are now available. Very high capacity SD cards exist and the prices should come down steadily over time. Once 128GB SD cards get low enough in price then it becomes reasonable for me to carry most of my library in FLAC format. That wouldn't hold my entire library, but my library has music for my wife and kids in it. If you whittle it down to just the music I like it would fit in 128GB, currently.


I upgraded my storage to a 2TB Western Digital "Green" HDD a few years ago for maaaaaaybe $70. I want to see the same kind of pricing for SSDs soon, so they can take off (in other words, so they can dominate over HDDs in an "overall" sense).



Quote from: IgorC on
It's closed circle. Once You get enough space You want to put something new like HD videos. Tablets today have 64-128 GB. But music library isn't only thing that people want to carry. AAC 256 kbps has so high quality then it makes too little sense to keep lossless on your mobile devices when You want to keep some other of your files. But, yeah, lossless at home all the way.

We keep listening this "lossless will come one day" all the time already for years 

btw, interesting related poll here http://www.hydrogenaud.io/forums/index.php?showtopic=99496

And also, if You have 24 bits original PCM  and encode it to AAC.  What is lossless then here?  high bitrate AAC made from 24 bits PCM or FLAC 16 bits?  Which is more lossy or more lossless here?
Isn't it quite relative (if You can't tell the difference)?


I agree. Lossy is best for portable devices, because of such limited storage. I checked out the poll.  "I use lossless at home and lossy for portable." got over 60% of the votes (with 5 other choices)!? Smart guys...

About the "high bitrate AAC transcoded from 24-bit original PCM vs. 16-bit FLAC"...the FLAC will be the "lossless" one, because no matter what your source material is, lossy encoding with cause loss of data.

But you're right, it is quite relative; all of them will sound the same, most of the time.



Quote from: mjb2006 on
Quote from: bigjoegamer on
In my ABX tests, 192kbps AAC had no real "differences" between itself and lossless files, sound-wise...and thus, that's about the lowest I'll go, for my - *ahem* - "safety" reasons.


192 isn't unreasonable but IMHO that sounds high for AAC, so I'm curious to know what audio you used for your tests, what AAC encoder you used, and what differences you noticed. Can you post the results, too?

If you are able to hear test tones at 17 or 18 kHz (see www.audiocheck.net), I wonder if the encoder's lowpass filtering (which happens at lower bitrates) is a factor for you. I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if you could tell the difference between the original and lowpassed lossy for some samples that have unmasked content above 16 kHz, but couldn't tell the difference between lowpassed original and lowpassed lossy, if that makes sense.

(Of course this doesn't affect your decision of what bitrate to use; it's more just about understanding why your threshold for transparency is so high.)


It was audio from a video game OST that I listened to. I used the qaac encoder - within foobar2000 - to transcode the FLAC file.

I did not keep record of the results; I didn't anticipate a request for them, but I can take the test over again, if you want me to.

Could you link me to those "test tone" thingies that you're talking about? There's tons of tests on that site, and I can't seem to find it.

Today, which AAC encoder gives the highest quality?

Reply #51 –
Quote from: bigjoegamer on
I need to ask about qaac. Do you feel that foobar2000 is the most useful place for utilizing it? If not, what program should I/we use?

Someone else will need to advise you on this point, as I only invoke qaac from the command line on the rare occasions I decide to use it. I use LAME (with ALL2LAME) for all my music encodes, as my hardware players don't support AAC, so the format is of little use to me.

Today, which AAC encoder gives the highest quality?

Reply #53 –
Quote from: Aleron Ives on
Quote from: bigjoegamer on
I need to ask about qaac. Do you feel that foobar2000 is the most useful place for utilizing it? If not, what program should I/we use?

Someone else will need to advise you on this point, as I only invoke qaac from the command line on the rare occasions I decide to use it. I use LAME (with ALL2LAME) for all my music encodes, as my hardware players don't support AAC, so the format is of little use to me.


Damn, ALL2LAME looks easy to use. Too bad I get an error when I try to run it. 

I'll have to fix that and also try qaac from the command line at some point.


Quote from: mjb2006 on
Quote from: bigjoegamer on
Could you link me to those "test tone" thingies that you're talking about? There's tons of tests on that site, and I can't seem to find it.


Sine Tone Generator



I downloaded a 17kHz file, and a 18kHz file (like you said). I played both of them at the same volume, of course (which is not too high; I don't blast my music into my ears). The 17kHz one was louder than the 18kHz, but both were definitely noticeable by me. I don't want to hear these sounds in my music...

Today, which AAC encoder gives the highest quality?

Reply #54 –
Those high frequencies will be in cymbals and other sibilants, as well as background hiss from (e.g.) analog tape used in the recording process.

Since you didn't say what kind of differences you heard in the sub-192 kbps AAC encodes, I was postulating that maybe:
  • you are able to hear a little above 16 kHz (sounds like you can)
  • you were testing with audio having content/noise up there that's audible to you (strong enough to hear and not completely masked by the rest of the music)
  • the encoder is applying a ~16 kHz lowpass filter at these lower bitrates, so it doesn't even try to encode above that.


If all those things are true, then it stands to reason that you only need 192 kbps some of the time, and you could get away with much lower bitrates if the input audio has no audible content above 16 kHz. How much of a given song's high-frequency content is actually audible is hard to ascertain, though.

Today, which AAC encoder gives the highest quality?

Reply #55 –
Quote from: bigjoegamer on
Too bad I get an error when I try to run it.


It's so ooooold that it requires the Visual Basic runtime, which MS does not include with Windows. You can download it from their website, but you can't actually install it, at least under Windows 7, because the installer doesn't work. You need to extract the DLLs from the installer with 7-Zip and place them into your C:\Windows\SysWOW64 directory manually (or put them in the same folder as ALL2LAME, if you have no other VB programs which need the runtime).

Today, which AAC encoder gives the highest quality?

Reply #56 –
Quote from: mjb2006 on
Those high frequencies will be in cymbals and other sibilants, as well as background hiss from (e.g.) analog tape used in the recording process.

Since you didn't say what kind of differences you heard in the sub-192 kbps AAC encodes, I was postulating that maybe:
  • you are able to hear a little above 16 kHz (sounds like you can)
  • you were testing with audio having content/noise up there that's audible to you (strong enough to hear and not completely masked by the rest of the music)
  • the encoder is applying a ~16 kHz lowpass filter at these lower bitrates, so it doesn't even try to encode above that.


If all those things are true, then it stands to reason that you only need 192 kbps some of the time, and you could get away with much lower bitrates if the input audio has no audible content above 16 kHz. How much of a given song's high-frequency content is actually audible is hard to ascertain, though.




It looks that way, perhaps...?


  • I can hear those sine tones at ~16kHz and higher, like we said
  • there were plenty of audible highs in that audio that were part of the music, so I don't think I'd hear the things I heard in that sine test
  • If it was doing lowpass filters at ~16kHz, it was blocked by the actual music, I think...? 




Quote from: mjb2006 on
How much of a given song's high-frequency content is actually audible is hard to ascertain, though.


True, true...this is a rare case.

Today, which AAC encoder gives the highest quality?

Reply #57 –
Quote from: bigjoegamer on
I need to ask about qaac. Do you feel that foobar2000 is the most useful place for utilizing it? If not, what program should I/we use?
In foobar2000, it won't let me use qaac (a.k.a. the "AAC Apple" option in fb2k's converter) without having either iTunes or Quicktime...

foobar2000 has no extra requirements for QAAC. The documentation just mentions the simplest way to make it work. It's also assumed that many people already have iTunes installed as it's quite popular.

Quote from: bigjoegamer on
Damn, ALL2LAME looks easy to use. Too bad I get an error when I try to run it. 

I'll have to fix that and also try qaac from the command line at some point.

Since you already have foobar2000 installed and you know how to use its Converter I can only wonder why you'd want to switch to an old frontend such as this. You get faster speed, support for all source formats foobar2000 can handle, unicode support, proper tag transfer and optional ReplayGain scanning with the converter in foobar2000.

Today, which AAC encoder gives the highest quality?

Reply #58 –
@bigjoegamer:
Fortunatelly, there's no need to install iTunes or Quicktime.
Look here (makeportable)

Today, which AAC encoder gives the highest quality?

Reply #59 –
Quote from: Case on
Quote from: bigjoegamer on
I need to ask about qaac. Do you feel that foobar2000 is the most useful place for utilizing it? If not, what program should I/we use?
In foobar2000, it won't let me use qaac (a.k.a. the "AAC Apple" option in fb2k's converter) without having either iTunes or Quicktime...

foobar2000 has no extra requirements for QAAC. The documentation just mentions the simplest way to make it work. It's also assumed that many people already have iTunes installed as it's quite popular.


"No extra requirements"? Sorry for my ignorance, but I don't know if I'm doing this wrong or not. Do I need iTunes, or not? And...what "documentation"? I must acquire a link to whatever it is. Last time I checked, I can't encode with qaac in fb2k unless I have iTunes.

Did I just answer my own questions? Ugh, such confusion, I'm sorry.. 





Quote from: Case on
Quote from: bigjoegamer on
Damn, ALL2LAME looks easy to use. Too bad I get an error when I try to run it. 

I'll have to fix that and also try qaac from the command line at some point.

Since you already have foobar2000 installed and you know how to use its Converter I can only wonder why you'd want to switch to an old frontend such as this. You get faster speed, support for all source formats foobar2000 can handle, unicode support, proper tag transfer and optional ReplayGain scanning with the converter in foobar2000.


Well, I was gonna stick with foobar2000 either way. I wanted to try something different. BUT...
I just found out how old ALL2LAME is...2003? I had no idea.

Do you think LAME/qaac in the command line could be of any use to me in the future? I'm not sure there are any advantages to that, so...hmmm.




EDIT: sundance just freed me from iTunes. I only saw his post after I submitted this one.

Today, which AAC encoder gives the highest quality?

Reply #60 –
Being old doesn't negate the usefulness of a particular piece of software, but if you prefer to use the converter in foobar2000, that works, too. ALL2LAME just creates a batch file when you run it, but the results are very similar to doing something such as:

Code: [Select]
for %1 in (*.wav) do lame.exe lame_args_go_here %1 %1.mp3
 

Today, which AAC encoder gives the highest quality?

Reply #61 –
Quote from: Aleron Ives on
Being old doesn't negate the usefulness of a particular piece of software




You're talking to a guy who upgraded from Windows XP to Windows 7 just 2 months ago (around July 4th, no less) (desktop screenshots: 1, 2), but you make a good point. I was judging ALL2LAME by the way it looked, when I've never even tried it before.





Quote from: Aleron Ives on
but if you prefer to use the converter in foobar2000, that works, too. ALL2LAME just creates a batch file when you run it, but the results are very similar to doing something such as:

Code: [Select]
for %1 in (*.wav) do lame.exe lame_args_go_here %1 %1.mp3


I understand. Moreover, I discovered that you can enter similar "parameters" into fb2k's "custom" encoder menu.