Skip to main content ↑ ↓

Notice

Please note that most of the software linked on this forum is likely to be safe to use. If you are unsure, feel free to ask in the relevant topics, or send a private message to an administrator or moderator. To help curb the problems of false positives, or in the event that you do find actual malware, you can contribute through the article linked here.
Topic: XLD—I ripped AAC@320 kbps w/Encoder Quality=med; should I re-rip@high? (Read 5029 times) previous topic - next topic
0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

XLD—I ripped AAC@320 kbps w/Encoder Quality=med; should I re-rip@high?

Hi there

I've been converting a bunch of lossless files to 320 kbps AAC via XLD. However I just noticed that my settings were such that "Encoder Quality" was set to medium.

If I specified 320kbps as the target bitrate, does Encoder Quality still matter? To ensure maximum quality AAC files, would I need to re-convert the original lossless files with Encoder Quality set to Maximum?

Many thanks

XLD—I ripped AAC@320 kbps w/Encoder Quality=med; should I re-rip@high?

Reply #1 –
Currently (as of QuickTime 7.7.0), "medium" is actually what you want, and no higher.

There's a bug in the QuickTime AAC encoder that can produce artifacts - in all encoding modes - at quality settings of "high" and "max".

Apple is aware of the bug, and supposedly will be addressing it in the next release of QuickTime.
"Not sure what the question is, but the answer is probably no."
 

XLD—I ripped AAC@320 kbps w/Encoder Quality=med; should I re-rip@high?

Reply #2 –
Quote from: mixminus1 on
Currently (as of QuickTime 7.7.0), "medium" is actually what you want, and no higher.

There's a bug in the QuickTime AAC encoder that can produce artifacts - in all encoding modes - at quality settings of "high" and "max".

Apple is aware of the bug, and supposedly will be addressing it in the next release of QuickTime.

Can you please state the source?

What I found after encoding flac files from one music album into AAC with the "maximum" encoder quality setting [ABR, 128kbps, XLD, CoreAudio/Quicktime 7.7.1, Mac OS X 10.7.2] is indeed the presence of exaggerated stinging, high-pitched, hissing noises that didn't seem to be present to the same extent in a playback of the original flac audio. However, I have not seen this addressed in any of the other threads or webpages where this topic is discussed (see below). I have also yet to find a clear explanation of what CoreAudio's "Quality" setting does. Does it really trade quality for speed? Does this setting only come into effect when encoding in TVBR and CVBR modes?

http://forums.sbooth.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1478
http://forums.sbooth.org/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=974
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....showtopic=73469
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....showtopic=63863
http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#te...237/_index.html

Any answers would be greatly appreciated.