Re: Just discovered this old gem of a codec.
Reply #1 – 2019-01-15 20:14:50
Discovered Musepack last week Congrats! It's indeed a well established format. Though my Musepack "innitiation" was, like for most people in this forum, back when it was still called MP+, I see myself returning to Musepack's "certainty", so as to speak (encode it once then forget about; its maturity) more often, at this day and age of a broader, almost endeless supply of software available for smart phones (long live foobar2000 for Android!) - which has practically rendered our deciding which format to use, more a matter of personal choice (and I've always had a soft spot for Musepack) than compatibility per se.MPC at its --standard quality setting does all of the above amazingly well . OPUS at 160kbps almost achieves full transient detection and rendering, but in my experience it needs to be pushed to at least ~200kbps to ensure that every single transient is actually detected as such and rendered cleanly . All other aspects of OPUS at 160 are excellent, but it does tend to fall slightly behind when it comes to temporally dense (?) sounds like fast guitar strumming, shakers, castanets, electronic clicks in quick succession, applause, etc. especially in a busy mix. Worth noting that OPUS renders the transients it does detect flawlessly, just that it won't pick up on 100% of them without upping the bitrate. With Musepack, there's no such compromise. Here's hoping all those adjectives and impressions, as well as your decision itself, were thoroughly based on blind testing and nothing else. Not to mention full TOS 8 compatibility.