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Topic: best aac encoder (Read 5118 times) previous topic - next topic
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best aac encoder

What's the best AAC encoder?. is dolby pulse codec better than apple aac encoder
 

Re: best aac encoder

Reply #1 –
qaac (using Apple libraries) in my experience is the best AAC-LC/AAC-HE encoder.

Re: best aac encoder

Reply #2 –
Quote from: birdie on
qaac (using Apple libraries) in my experience is the best AAC-LC/AAC-HE encoder.
Would you mind sharing settings for both modes? I guess it is something like  -V 91 -q2 for AAC-LC, and what about AAC-HE?

Re: best aac encoder

Reply #3 –
This is the file you proposed as a test, in another discussion.

Boat_to_Havana.m4a - Apple AAC encoder at 128kbps

Boat_to_Havana.mp4 - Apple AAC encoder at 192kbps VBR

Boat_to_Havana.m4b - Apple HE-AAC v2 encoder (aacp)

Boat_to_Havana-eld.m4a - Apple Enhanced Low Delay AAC encoder at 48kbps (aacg)

Boat_to_Havana-adm.m4a - Apple AAC encoder at the same bitrate of Apple Digital Masters on iTunes Store

Boat_to_Havana-9.mp4 Exhale 9 (usac at 192kbps)

Boat_to_Havana-5.mp4 - Exhale 5 (usac at 128kbps)

Boat_to_Havana-1.mp4 - Exhale 1 (usac at the nearest bitrate of Apple HE-AAC v2 encoder)

Code: [Select]
Loudness Info:
    additional loudness parameters   :
        aa noise floor master            : "-87.21 -87.23"
        aa headroom master               : "0.440313 0.459883"
        aa source bandwidth master       : "20887 20844"

    main loudness parameters         :
        aa ebu max momentary loudness    : -10.1899
        aa ebu top of loudness range     : -11.95
        aa itu sample peak               : -1.03412
        aa itu true peak                 : -1.01801
        aa ebu max short-term loudness   : -11.7103
        aa ebu loudness range            : 5.7
        aa itu loudness                  : -15.1735

    dialogue anchor parameters       :
        aa speech activity percentage    : 85.2721
        aa ebu loudness range            : 7.2
        aa itu loudness                  : -18.5332

    sound check info                 :
        sc ave perceived power coeff     : "1301 1147"
        sc max perceived power coeff     : "8137 13314"
        sc peak amplitude msec           : "5433 6571"
        sc max perceived power msec      : "7105 6571"
        sc peak amplitude                : "27275 29090"

    bit depth pcm master             : 16

sound check volume normalization gain: -0.83 dB

Re: best aac encoder

Reply #4 –
Quote from: Kraeved on
Would you mind sharing settings for both modes? I guess it is something like  -V 91 -q2 for AAC-LC, and what about AAC-HE?

For AAC-LC I have these settings:
Code: [Select]
qaac.exe -v 256 -q 2

which ostensibly mimic the settings used by Apple themselves for their iTunes Store while providing transparent encoding but you might have your own considerations, so you might want to try something different which matches your needs.

As for AAC-HE I don't use it that often.

Re: best aac encoder

Reply #5 –
Apple AAC encoder seems to be considered the best around here for standard AAC (i.e. AAC-LC) that we had for many years now. I suggest using QAAC (which is installed with 'Foobar2000 encoder pack' if your using Foobar2000) paired with Foobar2000 for making your AAC (.m4a) files since it's nice and easy (one still needs the 'QTfiles' folder into the following directory though... "Program Files (x86)\foobar2000\encoders" ).

some additional comments...

while the 256kbps CVBR option (like mentioned in this topic that Apple themselves uses for iTunes) will offer strong sound quality, it clearly lacks efficiency. like off the top of my head... even for people who are fairly picky on sound quality, but still want some level of efficiency, I can't see why someone would use 256kbps over 192kbps (maybe even 160kbps) for example.

I noticed people talked about AAC-HE... I would generally avoid it since it's not as standardized as regular AAC (i.e. AAC-LC) which anything that works with AAC will work with the usual AAC-LC we have had for a long time now. plus, from what I can tell it seems AAC-HE (and the like) is for getting better sound quality at the low bit rates (Foobar2000 with 'AAC (Apple)' profile (which uses QAAC) in CVBR mode shows "Use HE-AAC - recommended for bitrates below 80kbps"), which unless one is really hard up for storage space, it's not likely someone would really need to use it since I would say as a general guideline with AAC (AAC-LC) is to use a minimum of 96kbps (TVBR or CVBR) as if you stick to this standard you won't be disappointed. going lower than 96kbps, while one can do it and it might be 'good enough' for some people, your starting to gamble on sound quality.

I see people mentioning 'q91' above (which is TVBR @ 192kbps setting)... I figure this would be the high end of the bit rates I would even consider using. or to put it another way, damn near everyone will probably want to use between 96kbps to 192kbps (i.e. 96/128/160/192) with AAC (AAC-LC). even for people who's hearing is a bit suspect, while they could probably go below 96kbps, I would still avoid it just to account for others potentially listening and you would not save much storage space either at that point which makes it even more useless to do since with 96kbps it guarantee's a good level of all-around sound quality.

when it comes to TVBR vs CVBR, I think one can sum it up like this (assuming same bitrate settings for each)...

-TVBR (say q45(96kbps) or q64(128kbps) etc) = a more efficient use of storage space as these are typically smaller in file size vs CVBR on average.
-CVBR = potentially slightly better sound quality (although these cases will likely be quite limited) but have a bigger file size on average vs TVBR. this could be beneficial in certain cases where the music your encoding, which I would imagine would be more likely to apply at lower bit rates(say 96kbps and the like) than higher bit rates, drops a little too low on kbps since this mode seems to force the bit rate to stay closer to your selected setting without it varying too much either way of it and can potentially clean up sound quality a bit once in a while.

but you can't really lose either way given the listening tests around here and considering one can get a rather massive amount of storage space nowadays for minimal $ (for example... 128GB MicroSD card for $20 or so), I would easily understand if someone wanted to use higher bit rates since they got storage space to burn and one could reason out why even risk having a drop in sound quality. but to me the whole point in using a lossy encoder in the first place is to find that balance of sound quality/file size and in this regard I feel either 96kbps or 128kbps is the sweet spot for most people (beyond 160kbps or 192kbps is a straight up waste of storage space if you ask me). or another way to look at it... if you took some random music and encoded it at say 96kbps and had a bunch of random people listening to the music playing straight up, I doubt someone is going to complain about lack of sound quality. because in my estimations with the common person is... as long as the sound quality does not become obviously bad to the average person they will think it's pretty much perfect and in this regard it seems pretty safe for me to say 96kbps passes that standard easily.

but with all of that said... I think it's safe to say most people will probably want to use 96kbps or 128kbps as your getting strong efficiency at these bit rates to (i.e. meaning lowest amount of kbps while still maintaining strong enough sound quality overall).

p.s. hell, if one can use the Opus format... I think using 64kbps is a option as I am confident it will be satisfactory for many people (since it still easily passes that standard to where the sound quality is no where near obviously bad), especially if your a bit tight on storage space, otherwise I would default to the 96kbps option to play it safe.
For music I suggest (using Foobar2000)... MP3 (LAME) @ V5 (130kbps). NOTE: using on AGPTEK-U3 as of Mar 18th 2021. I use 'fatsort' (on Linux) so MP3's are listed in proper order on AGPTEK-U3.

Re: best aac encoder

Reply #6 –
celona
Come sta? Il suono di questa canzone ferma i cuori. :D
Let’s wait for someone to nitpick about Boat_to_Havana-1.mp4 - Exhale 1, which is not downsampled to 32kHz.
I wonder, how did you manage to create that Boat_to_Havana.m4b - Apple HE-AAC v2 encoder (aacp)?

ThaCrip
-V91 is like an urban legend already, just slightly above QAAC’s default for LC (which is -V90 according to --help).

Re: best aac encoder

Reply #7 –
Quote from: Kraeved on
Let’s wait for someone to nitpick about Boat_to_Havana-1.mp4 - Exhale 1, which is not downsampled to 32kHz.

Exhale is also full of flaws because the developer has been dealing with requests like mine for over a year. The messages of the software are not aligned with what it does because it changes every month, do not blame the developer because it does not meet our needs yet, it takes time. On the other hand, exhale 1 at 44100Hz is one of the most successful parts.

Quote from: Kraeved on
I wonder, how did you manage to create that Boat_to_Havana.m4b - Apple HE-AAC v2 encoder (aacp)?

I used afconvert, a tool that doesn't exist for Windows.

Code: [Select]
afconvert input.flac output.m4a -f m4bf -d aacp -q 127 -s 2

Boat_to_Havana.opus - Opus without parameters

Boat_to_Havana.caf - Opus only CELT based on MDCT.

Re: best aac encoder

Reply #8 –
I use -v 256 -q 2 with qaac. If you dont want to download itunes there are .dlls that you can put in the same folder.
Thats how it is on itunes