Re: Which encoder to use today?
Reply #15 – 2017-10-21 13:12:04
@eahm You are a little too jumpy to recommend but you're not experienced enough to recommend a bitrate, you can suggest buy not recommend, I see a big difference there. Yes, true i am not experience and i know i am no expert at ABXing (as i doubt i am anything special here). but as far as my whole 128kbps and 256kbps Apple AAC comments ain't it basically true that 128kbps is a pretty strong setting overall? (like on those ABX tests score 4.00+ largely) ; hell, it appears iTunes uses that on some things while using the 256kbps on others. i just figured i would say that because it's probably a good ball park guideline for those who care about space and those that don't. with that said, i realize there is no concrete answer as i am sure people around here would default to telling someone to ABX themselves to find the point they are happy with etc.Don't take it personally, I think the forums needs to see more experience, more abx logs, months of testing and relax and retest etc. I don't recommend anymore either, that's why there are recommendation pages for all the lossy codecs, point the users there instead of confusing them more with "my recommendation here and there". I understand. it's a safer thing for you to say that because of the higher standards of this site. but we all got opinions on such stuff and would you actually disagree with my basic 128kbps/256kbps opinion on Apple AAC ; like as a really basic guideline? ; 128kbps a general use sorta thing on the go (i think Apple AAC tests really well in this range as i want to say 4.00+ area on a wide range of samples) and for the more paranoid type use 256kbps(i am not 100% sure but i would imagine ABXing at this range has either got to be non-existent or not far from it(?)) at the end of the day... one of the common things people would tell others asking for recommendations is to ABX themselves til the point they no longer can and then maybe bump up the bit rate a little over that as a precaution.The 64 bit setting is already set, for all the encoders that have the option, I think I was the one to suggest it probably 2 years ago so no extra step there, same number of clicks to get it to work like the 32 bit. And there is quite a speed difference if you have a more powerful i5/i7 IIRC. Maybe i was not doing things right but when using 32bit qaac, Foobar2000's general Convert menu works but with the 64bit qaac it does not work from that general menu as without the 32bit qaac there it just seems to error and apparently is looking for the 32bit qaac executable file. so unless i am missing something the 64bit qaac seems a bit harder to setup as it seems to need the 'custom' option which uses commands instead of the sliders. as for the speed difference... assuming your right with the i5-i7 CPU's then the 64bit qaac definitely looks more appealing. but on my i3 it's not worth using given that it's not as straight forward to use like the usual 32bit is through the Convert menu in Foobar2000.This is what I do, I have few rules: I suggest AAC from ~96 up, Opus same or even ~80 up at this point since I was able to hear some stuff at ~64 but I have to test deeper, MP3 from V4/V3 up with personal tests to see if V4 is enough, the rest is up to again, more personal tests from the user. I don't suggest any other lossy codec but if you want to use Vorbis or MPC or LossyXXX whatever. For lossless I suggest FLAC, default -5. WavPack or ALAC only on few situations. It seems we are likely similar here with the starting low point of Opus/AAC/MP3 and i also agree those three lossy encoders/formats are all that are worth using at this point in time to as Opus is the newest and does well so people will have some interest in that and AAC/MP3 are basically the standard that a lot of hardware supports so those are always going to be appealing. because with Opus when i switch from 48kbps to 64kbps that's the last clearly noticeably change for me as i can ABX on 48kbps but at 64kbps i would not be surprised if i can't do it consistently and i have heard others go with the 80kbps setting to as their safe minimum. as for the FLAC comments... you prefer FLAC 5 over 8. any reason for that? I heard with today's computers there is not much reason not to use FLAC 8? ; correct me if i am wrong, but ain't the only drawback to 8 over 5 is initial encoding time? ; because if decoding time is not effected i see no reason not to use 8 over 5 since encoding times would not really matter much either way since it's very fast with modern computers and you might as well save the 3-5MB extra disc space per full album with FLAC 8 over FLAC 5.