HydrogenAudio

Hydrogenaudio Forum => Polls => Topic started by: rjamorim on 2004-08-02 21:37:08

Poll
Question: Which lossy format are you using?
Option 1: MP3 votes: 191
Option 2: Ogg Vorbis votes: 139
Option 3: AAC/MP4 votes: 76
Option 4: Musepack votes: 194
Option 5: WMA / WMA Pro votes: 8
Option 6: RM / VQF votes: 0
Option 7: AC3 / Atrac votes: 1
Option 8: MP3pro votes: 2
Option 9: No lossy - lossless for me votes: 68
Option 10: Other votes: 3
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: rjamorim on 2004-08-02 21:37:08
The former poll (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=2404&hl=) asking this question is hopelessly outdated. When it was started, Vorbis had no hardware support, AAC was very little supported (iPod didn't support AAC, iTunes hadn't been released for Windows, the Nero AAC codec was still to be launched), and there was lots of hope surrounding MPC SV8.

The scene changed considerably since then, so I believe it's worth starting a new poll, showing how the forum member's habits changed in two years.

Regards;

Roberto.
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: Fuchal on 2004-08-02 21:46:15
AAC all the way!

w00t! 
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: Latexxx on 2004-08-02 21:48:56
I'd love to say AAC but I use mainly lossless or musepack.
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: Slo Mo Snail on 2004-08-02 21:52:10
The same as in the last poll: Ogg Vorbis... because of it's for-my-ears-good-enough quality, it's freeness and the good software support under all systems I work with
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: Cygnus X1 on 2004-08-02 21:58:54
I haven't really changed in the past few years: lossless (or just plain old CD's) for home use, MP3 for portability. I've dabbled with AAC and MPC along the way, but they don't meet my needs for various reasons. 

I certainly hope that, in this day and age, nobody is still using VQF. Or at least they won't admit to it 
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: guruboolez on 2004-08-02 22:00:23
If people answered to the previous poll and changed their behaviour since, it could be interesting to notice this change.

I voted for musepack long time ago, but now, it's lossless for PC listening. MP3 is still necessary for my portable players. For lossy, I'd probably keep MPC, according to the results of my listening tests on classical music.
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: Download-This on 2004-08-02 22:00:24
Like many other people, I have a large mp3 collection. 95% of my (mp3 encoded) full albums are --aps or higher. I recently began sharing mpc files, which i LOVE. slightly smaller in some cases and even sound better. I've ripped my favorite albums to mpc. I have a decent mpc collection.

My problem has most recently become hardware support. See, I've got an IPOD, which doesnt support MPC. At first, I didnt consider this a big deal because I could easily use mpxchange to convert to mp3 and transfer my songs.

But it becomes inconvenient when I'm on the way out and I get the urge to throw an album on the ipod to take with me. I hate having to sit there and wait for an album to transode before I leave the house.

What I think I might do is transcode all my mpc albums and just keep 2 copies of the album on my drive (I'm not pressed for space or anything, so that doesn't matter).

I just wish there was a way to get musepack files onto the ipod.
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: slippyC on 2004-08-02 22:21:00
MP3Pro, because at 80kbs it sounds better to me than HE-AAC at same or even 96kbs.  Plus no hardware support for HE-AAC....


***Edited Part***
Wish they had SBR for Vorbis(that had hardware support also) and wished that the encoder was LAME that did the mp3 encoding part in the nero MP3pro encoder.  I goofed off a little awhile back to see if I could see if there was an easy way to rip the SBR info out of the mp3pro file, then re-encode at the appropriate cut off point in LAME and add it back.  Didn't look so simple though...

Vorbis is my favorite non-SBR format though.
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: Volcano on 2004-08-02 22:25:26
FLAC for desktop use, Ogg Vorbis for my Rio Karma. (Obviously, I voted for the latter rather than "lossless only".)
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: NoXFeR on 2004-08-02 23:19:59
I voted Lossless only. I changed from Monkey's Audio to FLAC due to smoother playback, though I sometimes encode from FLAC to some lossy format, usually Ogg Vorbis, to give my friends some samples. I use Ogg Vorbis rather than MusePack for this because I know the former better.

EDIT: For music, that is.
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: robert on 2004-08-02 23:31:28
the problem with this poll is, it calls for a mutual exclusive vote. But I'm not using one format exclusive, I'm using several.
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: Faelix on 2004-08-02 23:32:03
The shortest answer is Ogg Vorbis to play on my Palm Tungsten T3. It seems to  be the best portable option for me (quality on mid bitrate and existing support). I can play MP3 and WMA, also, if necessary.
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: Eli on 2004-08-02 23:38:04
well, I voted for MP3, though I use FLAC to archive everything and transcode. I only use MP3 because Im forced to. I would prefer MPC but there just isnt support for it in any hardware (little support for AAC or Vorbis either)
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: Ruby on 2004-08-03 00:14:42
I use MPC for pop/rock and hybrid codecs (still can't decide between DS and WavPack lossy...) for soundtracks and classical music. I picked MPC because there was no choice for hybrid.
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: DreamTactix291 on 2004-08-03 00:26:14
Ever since I bought my H120 I've pretty much been using Vorbis exclusively, though I still have many Musepack (which I love but no hardware support) and FLAC files.  I voted Vorbis as it's probably the format I encode to most nowadays simply for ease of use and transfer to my portable.  Since it supports vorbis I never encode to mp3 anymore and the only mp3s I have are downloads.
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: rjamorim on 2004-08-03 00:51:44
Quote
the problem with this poll is, it calls for a mutual exclusive vote. But I'm not using one format exclusive, I'm using several.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=231275"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


Unfortunately, it's impossible to allow voting on more than one option.

It would also be great if users could later change their votes.
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: ara-fat32 on 2004-08-03 01:10:35
I use standard MP3, if AACPlus cmd line Encoder comes available for the Public, i will use AACplus.
Reason:
It is the only compression algorythm for the forseeing future, and one of the best at Low Bitrates, and it is mpeg Standardized.
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: Krug_Stillo on 2004-08-03 01:36:31
I chose lossless because that's all I rip to for myself nowadays, however, I still rip things to mpc for friends who have slow connections or aac for those who use macs and that's what I receive from them. So I use all 3 formats quite heavily I just prefer lossless for my own personal circumstances.
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: Bongoboy on 2004-08-03 02:09:28
Quicktime AAC for me, as I own an iPod.

I was using vorbis when I voted last time, for purely ideological reasons...
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: rutra80 on 2004-08-03 03:04:08
I wish there were polls with check-buttons instead of radio-buttons only
(I'm using MPC for quality, MP3 for portability, OGG for low-bitratity, and OFR for losslessity)
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: bubka on 2004-08-03 03:07:20
back with -aps mp3
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: Raja on 2004-08-03 03:40:23
I can't afford a portable as a cash-strapped college student, so I use MPC almost exclusively.  Great file size at transparency (for me).
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: westgroveg on 2004-08-03 03:43:52
LAME 3.96.1 --preset standard, keep up the good work LAME team!
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: MiChael. on 2004-08-03 04:10:36
I'm not a big fan of lossy formats, when I had M-Audio Revolution 7.1, I used MPC quite a bit, but after getting Dynaudio Audience 42 speakers I lost my feelings to MPC and. Now with RME Hammerfall DSP 9632 I don't have that big placebo effect anymore, maybe it's because Revo sound was harsh.
For lossy formats I'd choose Vorbis since MPC is quite dead and it's not for portables, but audiophiles don't use lossy
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: westgroveg on 2004-08-03 04:41:18
Quote
but audiophiles don't use lossy
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=231340"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Is that a rule?

To me an audiophile is a music lover, as a music lover I say mp3 is great!
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: ScorLibran on 2004-08-03 04:42:15
I keep my entire collection in FLAC on my 250 GB external HDD, shared over my network.  This is used for playback over my home theater via the Echo Indigo output from my network server running Winamp (which I can control remotely by wireless connection).  Occasionally I play the FLACs over my PC, though (when someone else is watching TV, for instance) with either speakers or headphones.

I transcode to Vorbis aoTuV b2 @ -b 160 -M 180 for my car's 60 GB audio system (which can't handle any Vorbis bitrates over 200kbps or so, even quick spikes, hence the managed bitrate mode).

And for my 512 MB portable player (PocketTunes on a Sony CLIE handheld PC), I transcode from FLAC to Vorbis aoTuV @ -q -1.  Over the portable's output stage and earbuds, the sound quality is fine for this purpose.

Vorbis is my lossy choice because it's the only one with hardware support and gapless playback on all my platforms.  Gapless playback is the only reason I don't use MP3.  If it were gapless on any platform I'd certainly use it.
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: Bonzi on 2004-08-03 04:50:58
I use mp3 exclusively.  I think almost all my encodings are lame 3.95 and higher.  Mostly 3.96 I think.  All were encoded with preset standard.  I don't have a large hd so although I would like to go lossless but I can't as my collection grows bigger by the day.  I have everything backed up onto cd as lossless (ape and flac).

I am thinking very seriously about buying myself a iPod mini.  Then I think I may go and buy myself a larger hd and store everything losslessly and encode that to AAC for the iPod.  But at the moment mp3 suits my needs nicely.
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: riggits on 2004-08-03 05:12:55
Need multiple options. 
I checked WMA because it's slower to kill my MP3 player battery than OGG or AAC, and it sounds better (at low bitrates) for spoken audio (on my iRiver, at least

If OGG didn't suck battery, and if bitrate constraints permitted, I'd use it exclusively.  OGG owns my computer music.

And for music, I LAME everything.  Battery life is everything.
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: CyberInferno on 2004-08-03 05:27:33
Lame 3.90.3 APS is great to me. I archive in FLAC for quick conversion should any other version become standard, but to my ears, the MP3's are great and I don't have to worry about setting a constant bitrate. Also, with 15GB on my iPod, I've only filled about half of it, so I've no need to use AAC. Nero's AAC at -normal quality will be my next option should I run out of space on my iPod, which I likely won't do.
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: unfortunateson on 2004-08-03 05:33:11
Musepack.  Now it just needs portable support. 

I could go lossless, but i could save the large space by just reripping lossy from my cds.
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: ®om on 2004-08-03 06:25:14
I voted lossless, but I use musepack else... but NEVER mp3
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: Teqnilogik on 2004-08-03 06:52:20
iTunes AAC @ 128kbps for computer listening and my iPod

I'm glad this poll was updated, I'm interested to see what the majority of HA is using in 2004.  Though my guess would be that MusePack or MP3 will still dominate 
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: cartman on 2004-08-03 08:00:02
AAC and Mp3 here 
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: AndyMutz on 2004-08-03 08:51:30
last time i voted for MPC and this time it's MPC again, but i'm thinking about using vorbis soon (something < q4), because i'm running out of space with MPC standard and my ears aren't that good..

-andy-
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: Insolent on 2004-08-03 09:44:35
FLAC.

When/if I ever get an MP3 player, I'll probably transcode the FLACs to LAME MP3 192-320kbps VBR (depending on the size of the player).
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: Corsair on 2004-08-03 09:46:14
I use FLAC for all my CDs, and since the vast majority of the music I listen to is classical and film music, I get very good compression ratios (easily half the size or more).
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: yong on 2004-08-03 10:47:38
My computer have MP3, MP2, FLAC, Ogg vorbis, AAC, M4A, TTA and WMA audio files. But most of my music is MP3, second is ogg vorbis, third is M4A(iTunes).  WMA , AAC and MP2 are extract from some video clips. FLAC is for arciving cd use, TTA is for experiment use  .
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: aspifox on 2004-08-03 12:06:05
I use Vorbis because I need something suitably free-but-good (in all senses) for my game projects, with an excellent programming API.  I also like its general development buzz.  And so, when you learn what its strengths and weaknesses are it seems a shame to use anything else!
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: danchr on 2004-08-03 13:26:55
I voted for AAC because 128kbps and 160kbps iTunes AAC is good enough for me. I use MP3 for burning CDs, though.

I use QuickTime AAC 6.5.1, despite it's bugs. I'm too lazy to dig up QuickTimeMPEG4.component from an earlier version. Ever since failing to ABX velvet.wav using FAAC -q100, I've considered my self incapable of hearing most AAC artifacts

If Ogg Vorbis integrated fully with iTunes, I might use that. The results form the recent test really impressed me. I know it's not going to happen, though...
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: calx on 2004-08-03 13:40:37
I'm using mp3 but I'm going to switch back to mpc when I get my new PC.
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: BadHorsie on 2004-08-03 15:35:06
Plain CDs for home stereo and in the car. MP3 on my laptop and sometimes for portable listening. I would use Musepack but there is no decent solution for mpc playback on a Mac and on  portable. The MP4 Thing is also very interesting in the future for video and audio content. But at the moment are DVDs and Audio CDs much more practically than anything else.

BadHorsie
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: xmixahlx on 2004-08-03 16:40:56
i vote musepack again

all my audio is previously/currently/in-the-future going to be musepack until another codec is as good at a good transparent/size ratio.

hardware support will eventually happen ( *crosses fingers* ) and my audio listening situation doesn't require a lesser codec


later
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: mithrandir on 2004-08-03 16:54:28
Since the last poll I've gone from Musepack to Vorbis.

MPC seems dead and I'm kinda miffed that there is no "final" SV7 release.  The last beta (1.14) is 21 months old and even the most recent alpha (1.15r) is now over 17 months old. It just felt like time to move on. OK, you can't complain much about MPC quality but there are three usability improvements that Vorbis offers (to me):

1) OggdropXPd offers the ability to easily change the processing priority (to lowest, for example). mppenc.exe wanted to run at normal priority and that could be a pain if you wanted it to run in the background. I could not find a suitable "mpcdrop" equivalent.
2) Vorbisgain offers native recursive album handling. A lifesaver if you need to replaygain a few dozen albums at a time. MPC's replaygain can't do this without some annoying batch fix.
3) in_vorbis.dll doesn't have that terrible scretching noise problem that all in_mpc.dll versions gave me if I searched ahead in WinAMP.

Vorbis is still alive with the official 1.1RC1 incorporating a nice enhancement by aoTuv and lots of "local" work on improving Vorbis transient handling. With Musepack, it seems you are stuck with a sole developer who just doesn't seem to want to work on the project anymore.

I would also like to say that I am rather impressed with the current versions of LAME (3.96+), particularly its VBR performance at lower bitrates. We aren't talking about transparency here but I remember the time when 128kbps CBR MP3 was a recipe for disaster and yet today I have created 90-100kbps VBR MP3s with LAME that sound, well, pretty damn nice and are quite acceptable for portable player use. This wasn't the case with LAME 3.93 and earlier.
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: Emanuel on 2004-08-03 17:00:16
Same answer as in the last post: mainly Ogg Vorbis.

In detail:
* Archival/rip format: FLAC
* Personal listening format if not FLAC: Ogg Vorbis
* Traktor DJ Studio format: Lame mp3
* Movie backup format: mp4/aac
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: evereux on 2004-08-03 17:36:50
Mainly Musepack, but I do use MP3 for external MP3 only devices.

Musepack has a great filesize/transparency tradeoff and is fast. Once hard-drive storage becomes practicle for me store my CDs losslessly online, my Musepack collection shall dwindle.
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: Lyx on 2004-08-03 18:41:18
I am still on MP3 (LAME --aps), because of the hardware support. I like to just grab my cd-wallet with mp3-CDRs knowing that wherever i go, every portable will be able to play my lossy files. This is especially interesting to me, since i like to visit non-commercial meetings and parties and am often the one who serves the music during the later hours (mostly unpopular downtempo: trip-hop, post-rock, electroacoustic, ambient, old analogue synths, etc.).

Yes, other formats can achieve the same quality at lower bitrates. Yes, there may be opensource alternatives - but they are useless for me if i'm not able to play the music. Staying with MP3 for now just gives me the freedom that i can grab a bunch of CDs without deciding beforehand what i will play and go whereever i want. And i don't see this changing anytime soon - even in maybe 2-3 years many people will still own portables which only support MP3 & WMA.

However, when i someday get a bigger HDD + DVD-burner, i may go the hybrid-route which many others here have choosen as well: lossless for archiving, lossy for portable-use.

So in short: MP3 for on-the-road freedom for me

- Lyx
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: Xenno on 2004-08-03 19:03:34
Voted ogg...but I actually flogg (flac and ogg). Flac's then moved to DVD+RW's.
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: 127.0.0.1 on 2004-08-03 19:34:01
LAME 3.96 --alt-preset insane --lowpass 20 --athaa-sensitivity 1 --athlower 100 --npsytune --ns-bass -2 -q0 -m j --verbose

...don't mind the switches..... 

Mainly because I have a NOMAD Jukebox 3 which only supports MP3, (sucky) WMA, and WAV.
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: Jebus on 2004-08-03 19:47:59
Quote
LAME 3.96 --alt-preset insane --lowpass 20 --athaa-sensitivity 1 --athlower 100 --npsytune --ns-bass -2 -q0 -m j --verbose

...don't mind the switches..... 

Mainly because I have a NOMAD Jukebox 3 which only supports MP3, (sucky) WMA, and WAV.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=231556"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


Wow, impressive. Most of those switches are even redundant and/or don't do anything.
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: amn on 2004-08-03 19:49:39
I keep backup copies of all my CDs on a harddrive. I've ripped the CDs as images with EAC, then compressed the WAV files with WavPack 4.0. I keep the CUE sheet in a APE2 Tag. One file per album! 
I've written a Python script which automates everything, except the ripping with EAC and the ReplayGaining.

Since I do not (yet) have a portable, I have no use for lossy compression. Should I ever buy one, it's easy to transcode from lossless.
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: Vietfobster on 2004-08-05 21:04:02
mpc 1.14, --quality 6 --xlevel. ideal for me :-D
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: twostar on 2004-08-05 21:28:05
i picked mp3.

looking at the current results, i'm suprised that mpc still holds the top spot. i guess most HA members would sacrifice hardware compatibility for quality. also suprising is vorbis still trailing behind mp3 and mpc despite recent availability of hardware players.

it might be too early to tell though. 
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: ilikedirtthe2nd on 2004-08-05 21:31:12
I still prefer the stable quality of MPC at moderate bitrates, but with latest development Vorbis really get's my interrest again. Lossless is not quite right for me, yet. I'd prefer FLAC or Wavpack though.

Regards; ilikedirt
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: B on 2004-08-05 22:12:01
I voted lossless, because that's what I use most of the times. After several years of ripping and encoding I got tired of grabbing the same cd again from one of my shelfs to encode in some (exotic) format for whatever reason. I bought a big hd, and a second one is on his way and the plan is to rip my collection one final time. Transcoding then is clean and easy.

I do use lossy though. I weekly record two shows from fm radio that I encode to mp3,  so I can make my friends happy who still use mp3 only.

My favorit lossy codec is mpc though, great quality, fast encoding, etc etc.

Lossless is the best solution for me, but lossy is more fun. 
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: HotShot~ on 2004-08-05 23:19:27
Primary use : listening to music from my computer exclusively, I'm no fan of portable devices, not enough room to keep my CD collection at home, not enough GB of hard disk to go lossless.

Xing Mp3 long ago (), then Lame -aps, then a few tries with Ahead AAC...
now MusePack q6 and I'm quite satisfied with it.
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: zombiewerewolf on 2004-08-06 12:09:03
Hardware support is very essential to me. MP3 therefore is still my choice. Anyway, I use MP4-AAC in my computer.
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: QuantumKnot on 2004-08-06 15:09:30
Last time, I chose Ogg Vorbis.  And again, in this poll, I'm choosing Ogg Vorbis again, though I am using iTunes AAC for my brand new iPod now.  So Ogg Vorbis is mainly for computer listening as well my expermental tunings. 

Ogg Vorbis is free, is open source, and has a lot of potential for further improvement, as aoTuV recently demonstrated.  Now if only someone managed to optimise Tremor for the ARM7, then Ogg Vorbis support on the iPod is within reach (currently it runs at 80% realtime)
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: damaki on 2004-08-06 16:01:34
I use Wavpack lossy, 450 kbps (wavpack -b 450 -h -x). Because I often need to transcode and I can't afford lossless archival.
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: Xenion on 2004-08-07 01:33:07
Ogg Vorbis

to me the most complete encoder that has good overall quality.
i tried aac when vorbis development was almost dead but i have to say that was very dificult to do simple things like tagging or replaygain. not to mention that there are several formats or containers that can only be played with certain players. i can't remember exactly what it was and if it still is a problem but to me it seems just more easy to drop a wave file into oggdrop and that's it. i can play those files on any platform and my ihp140 hardware player plays them also.

other codecs like aac may have better quality but i just like vorbis for it's completeness. it's just working. (not to mention what the 128kb test showed)

but this are just my personal preferences

i don't want to sound offending against other codecs.
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: Megaman on 2004-08-07 03:58:48
I voted Ogg Vorbis. I was impressed by the aotuv improvements at low bitrates, making it really good to my ears at around 128kbps, it is my format of choice at this average bitrate. I don´t have a portable myself, but it´s a good reason to choose Vorbis if I ever get one.

For music I feel is really important to me (less than 1% of the albums I have access to), I still use lossless archiving (usually Monkey´s Audio CD Image, but also started to experiment with FLAC).

Anyway since portability is not an issue for me, I like to experiment with different formats, using Musepack and MP4-AAC whenever I feel the urge to do it .

I´d say since the aotuv tunings, for general music Vorbis -q4 sounds really good to me.
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: Mgz on 2004-08-07 04:18:19
MP3 all the way (at least until 2006). I like AAC and Vorbis, they have GREAT potetial but I still choose to rip in MP3, and preset -extreme sounds BEAUTIFUL in my krappy ears  .
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: ~*McoreD*~ on 2004-08-07 06:04:18
Appreciated the new Poll. 

Windows Media Audio 9 Professional
VBR Quality 75, 44 kHz, 2 channel 24 bit 1-pass VBR

Cheers,
McoreD
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: realmax on 2004-08-07 09:01:30
I hate mp3 format,but it is seen everywhere.
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: DreamTactix291 on 2004-08-07 09:02:51
I can't say I hate the mp3 format since LAME has brought it up to be quite transparent with aps.  I can say I hate most of the 128kbit mp3s on the internet.  I'm more than happy to teach people how to encode with LAME and actually taught someone yesterday.
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: unmei on 2004-08-07 17:03:29
voted for vorbis since i have a iriver that i fill with vorbis and also use vorbis for video encodings.
I also keep a backup archive of my CDs where newer rips are mpc and older ones mp3. This is just for in case i damage a CD or lose one which unfortunately happens or at least happened a lot in the past.

But i listen almost exclusively from the iriver nowadays (and therefore mostly vorbis) because i dont need to run a software player like this and can leave it running all day without having to change disks all the time.
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: fragtal on 2004-08-07 18:13:59
still Ogg Vorbis and I don't think I'll change!
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: PlazzTT on 2004-08-07 18:44:58
I rip to FLAC for PC use, and to MP3 alt preset extreme for my portable (although standard would probably be sufficient)
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: JEN on 2004-08-07 18:49:51
I voted for mp3 as its still the main codec I use.  However the real picture is like this:

Archiving, Home listening - Flac
Portable mp3, but it would be aac/mp4 if I had a portable player which played aac files

I have noticed someone voted for "other", whats "other"?
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: rjamorim on 2004-08-07 19:22:11
Quote
I have noticed someone voted for "other", whats "other"?
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=232789"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


Anything that doesn't fit the others. WAV, ADPCM, WavPack and OptimFrog lossy, some of the bizarre stuff you can find at ReallyRareWares...
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: Cygnus X1 on 2004-08-07 19:26:19
Quote
Quote
I have noticed someone voted for "other", whats "other"?
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=232789"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


Anything that doesn't fit the others. WAV, ADPCM, WavPack and OptimFrog lossy, some of the bizarre stuff you can find at ReallyRareWares...
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=232803"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


Maybe somebody encodes their music with MS ADPCM 4:1 or mu-law 
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: Muzzy^F8 on 2004-08-07 20:36:10
I use Musepack Xlevel Quality 6
Earlier - Musepack Quality 5
Much earlier: MP3
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: rohangc on 2004-08-07 20:40:46
I would love to shift to Musepack, but it currently has no hardware support AFAIK. That's why I am sticking with MP3. Besides, for me, LAME 3.90.3 APS MP3s are transparent enough.
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: Miriam on 2004-08-07 20:47:08
Same for me. 
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: shadowking on 2004-08-08 04:58:08
In the beginning i made a lot of mistakes and ended up ripping multiple times. I still haven't finished. Now everything is ripped to Flac, transcoded to mpc q5 for listening then the flacs are archived to dvd. I could have even stored them on cd-r a year ago.

I may even use hybrid lossy for listening and transcoding but its hard to give up the quality / size bargain of mpc.

No matter which route you choose - rip it once.
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: shadowking on 2004-08-08 05:20:24
Forgot: I still use mp3 for discman portable. Settings are lame 3.96.1 apfm / apfs -Y / apfs, transcoded from mpc or lossless.
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: Omion on 2004-08-08 06:43:51
Most of my stuff's in MPC, but I got tired of worrying about quality, so I'm re-ripping it all to FLAC -7. It's mostly classical, so I'm getting an average bitrate of 583kbps. (409 for one CD  ) Still voted for MPC, because it is the lossy format I am using; I'll just be using it much less in the future.
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: plonk420 on 2004-08-13 10:44:57
MP3. almost my entire collection is that. i really liked the idea behind OGG and i even was ripping exclusively to it at one time, but everything i own that i listen to music on that plays something other than CDDA only plays MP3.

i'd use MPC since it's pretty much become the same as OGG in the way of "mostly patentless" (or expired at least) from what i've gathered from many, many bickering threads (please don't start any more in this one) HOWEVER the compression gained over MP3 isn't enough to push me over the edge to reencoding my collection.

i AM rearing to see AAC hit headunits and discmans and home audio systems as 128kbps is good enough in my ears and almost half of what i'm getting with APS-forced stereo (that's another of my "things").
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: MugFunky on 2004-08-13 16:15:52
*quietly avoids asking the dumb question about forced stereo*

i'm slowly converting to mpc, as i do most of my listening at the computer.  but like most of us, i've got a large legacy collection in mp3.
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: plonk420 on 2004-08-14 08:37:14
Quote
Most of my stuff's in MPC, but I got tired of worrying about quality, so I'm re-ripping it all to FLAC -7. It's mostly classical, so I'm getting an average bitrate of 583kbps. (409 for one CD  ) Still voted for MPC, because it is the lossy format I am using; I'll just be using it much less in the future.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=232905"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


yeah, classical encodes insanely well. i did a sasha lazard track which encoded at under 640kbps... unfortunately the smallest fraction of my collection is classical, however.
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: fistandantilus on 2004-08-14 11:22:16
With insanely large hard disks at an all time low price i decided to set up a raid mirror with 2 250gig drives.

What do I use, flac of course. For archival choice lossless is the only way to go. With eac and my drive offset setup perfectly I never have to worry about quality, updating the codec, having to re-rip if something better comes along. And the replaygain metadata is a superb touch, so much better than normalizing.

I guess I won't ever change now unless perhaps flac2 comes along with 200% better compression and even then i can just transcode as its lossless  lol 
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: daphox on 2004-08-14 12:10:48
When AAC came along I just decided settling for it at 160kbps. To me, it's very comfortable with the small file-sizes. Also, I'm on a Mac & only using iTunes, hence the decision. If something revolutionary comes along, I just re-rip some of my fav. CDs.
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: rossthiof on 2004-08-14 20:53:01
Still using MP3  for use on dektop [preset standard], notebook [preset 128] and portable.   

Reasons : transparency (with APS), wide hardware-support and low energy-consumtion. The combination of Lame, foobar200, Winamp5 with mpg123-decoder offers me all the things I need : good tagging, replaygain-support and gapless playback.

For archiving on DVD-/+R I use FLAC. I'm pretty happy with this combination after severall experimentations with Vorbis, Musepack and (oh my god  ] WMA.
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: prankstare on 2004-08-15 13:13:09
I always tend to go, either with .mpc or lossless.
But on this poll I rather choose .mpc for the rankings.. 
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: Digisurfer on 2004-08-15 22:39:07
FLAC for PC listening, which are transcoded to Vorbis for use with the Rio Karma. If the Karma ever gets MPC support (or something else comes along that does), I'll switch to that because I feel it's the absolute best choice of all the lossy codecs at the moment.

Note about editing this post: Original vote was MP3, made back before I owned a portable or knew anything about ABX testing.
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: BoNeLeSS on 2004-08-16 07:25:51
Musepack, soon switching to mp4/AAC since I'm getting an iPod
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: Pike84 on 2004-09-06 09:46:00
Even though this poll is fairly young, compared to the previous one, some conclusions can be made. As expected with constantly growing hd sizes, lossless has gained users. The support seems to have pretty much doubled since the last poll. What is not expected, is that in spite of a long period of non-existant development, Musepack seems to have also gained support at the expence of mp3 and ogg vorbis, which have both dropped by ~6% units since the last time. The reasons might include the security of the most largely tested format, and also the individual listening tests (Guruboolez) that have one after another proved mpc to be the best format in reaching transparency. Mpc might also be easier to adopt than ogg vorbis because of the one (or perhaps two) best encoder version, instead of several different branches.

I'm still using mpc myself, because I'm mainly listening to music at home on my own computer. I also still believe that mr. Klemm will get that SV8 done one day, and then mpc would really start to interest people in a whole new way.
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: Caiburn on 2004-09-06 11:22:27
Ogg Vorbis all the way. At least my iRiver iHP-100 says so. And I like that.

--Cai
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: dawids on 2004-09-06 17:58:23
Anyone that has been in computers since 80col card punches, and pc's since keyboards attached to tv and loading from 4track tape, will probably have lots of MP3 as I do. I also support what I use - paid for using MMJB, Copernic and Winzip. I see no mention here of MP3Pro and WMA lossless? It also seems the quality is less important than size / speed. I agree that original CD can serve as backup, but have lost a lot of disks to midnight shopping here in SA, so lossless best option with min disk space would help. For use, whatever will play in the car and on hi-fi cd at least at inaudible degradation will do.

I do MP3pro VBR 100%, not sure if that would audibly compare to the others mentioned, but plays in the car and hi-fi. Will investigate lossless for backup.

PS: I suppose the right to play my stolen CD MP3's now resides with the unlawful owner??
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: Triza on 2004-09-06 18:22:07
Well Guruboolez also shows that the latest Ogg Vorbis variants (AoTuvb2 and its successors) are on a par with MPC (or very close or sometimes better), which was also backed up by the latest 128kbps test, where Ogg Vorbis fared better.

I personally never considered MPC because it is not prevalent enough no HW support,
It also turned out in this thread (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=27090) there as of now there is no way to cut MPC files let alone I suppose to join them (although I might be wrong). Anyway this lack of basic support is alarming to me.

I considered only MP3 or Vorbis and decided on Vorbis because there is HW support, easy tagging, which MP3 does not have. It has pretty gradual quality settings (10 levels), which the old LAME did not have. Also free so there is no legal issues and fundamentally better format than MP3 by learning from some of the mistakes MP3 had.

Although when I made this decision Vorbis had issues. Now even that is gone thanks to all the very active Vorbis members on HA (Aoyumi, Harashin, Guruboolez, Quantumknot, phong and a lot of others whose contribution made it into the official Ogg Vorbis too recently (Vorbis 1.1RC1)

So for me it seems I have no compromise to make. Ogg Vorbis is a clear winner.

Triza
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: chrisgeleven on 2004-09-06 19:56:08
I have been using and will continue to use MP3 (aps) for my music collection. The reasons are simple: don't want to re-rip, the sound quality is great, and I use several devices that have MP3 playback (car stereo, portable player, etc). Plus the hard drive space taken up by it isn't insane compared to lossless.
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: cbope on 2004-09-06 20:19:18
Everything goes first to FLAC for my home theater system (2x 120GB), then to AAC 192 using iTunes for my iPod. I still have some MPC -q7 laying around, and some MP3's as well. But all new encodes are FLAC and AAC.
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: RIV@NVX on 2004-09-06 21:26:58
I use AAC mainly since I bought an iPod. I still have many tracks in MPC and other codecs, but I'm encoding new tracks into AAC mostly.
For lossless stuff, I use WavPack.
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: DreamTactix291 on 2004-09-06 21:33:10
Very recently, since I have more hard drive space now, I've now started what will probably be my final rips since i'm encoding entirely to FLAC for use on my computer and then encoding the FLACs to Ogg Vorbis for use with my iHP-120.  It's win-win and it really doesn't use up all that much space IMO.
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: Pike84 on 2004-09-06 23:24:34
Quote
Well Guruboolez also shows that the latest Ogg Vorbis variants (AoTuvb2 and its successors) are on a par with MPC (or very close or sometimes better), which was also backed up by the latest 128kbps test, where Ogg Vorbis fared better.

Well, I mainly meant higher bitrate levels - consistently transparent levels, like in the most recent test (I think) of Guru's. There mpc still reigns fairly dominant (according to the test). Btw, could someone throw a link to this latest 128k test?

Quote
It also turned out in this thread there as of now there is no way to cut MPC files let alone I suppose to join them (although I might be wrong).

Can't really say it just turned out; it's been like one eternal question about mpc, popping up once in a while in the forum - as said, mpc's development hasn't progressed for ages. So, the reasons for mpc's high support lie elsewhere.
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: Triza on 2004-09-07 01:08:30
Quote
Btw, could someone throw a link to this latest 128k test?


Here you go! (http://www.rjamorim.com/test/multiformat128/results.html)
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: k.eight.a on 2004-10-25 23:32:50
I'm still sticking with MP3 --aps, because of the wide HW support. I was considering to go for Ogg Vorbis but unfortunately I'm still confused with those many various compiles and "transparent settings" so for me it's not enough clear to move to Ogg Vorbis.

I hope one day it might be clearer and Ogg Vorbis would be more supported by HW then I'll go with Ogg Vorbis...

To this day I'm using Monkey's Audio for lossless but I'll consider to convert to FLAC...

The future will show us the way!
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: Nick Jr III on 2004-10-30 20:07:34
I'm using MP2 (Musicam @384 kbps) for compatibility and transparency.
And happy with that    !
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: blessingx on 2004-10-30 22:06:05
Use to be MP3/FLAC, but on OS X, FLAC playback is pretty much just regulated to VLC (well for active projects) and its volume implementation isn't the best. With the release of ALAC, I'm pretty much AAC/ALAC now. Compared to LAME, its very quick to encode a new bitrate from lossless through iTunes.
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: kotrtim on 2004-10-31 05:19:10
i learned this the hard way!
best quality doesn't mean it will certainly gain HW/industry support
last time i voted for MPC becoz i archive my songs to mpc
--standard is cool = around 180kbps and its transparent to me
but now i voted for AAC!

Industry! I hate ISO!
mp3 10 yrs ago is pretty bad right?
but mp3 still lives today! why? Internatinal standard, HW support etc.........

it takes yrs for WMA is just dominate around 20% of the share
mp3 still yield a whopping 70+% according to cnet's page.
M$ finally surrender to mp3 and added mp3 ripping support in windows
media player 10_ hehehe M$ is afraid that ppl will not
use WMP as it doesn't support mp3

AAC is quite succesful to gain ~5% share after apple launch
its music store for windows recently

even in this poll, AAC is catching up!


in my opinion, (prediction)



lossless format that can last for a long long long long long
time
= PCM

Lossy formats that can last
= Mp3 (Mp2/Mp1)
  WMA/WMA Pro
  AAC in mp4 container
  Vorbis in ogg container

mpc is definitely not a good solution for portable
just do some decoding test with dBpowerAMP converter

WMA 096kbps CBR 76X
WMA 128kbps CBR 72X
WMA 160kbps CBR 67X
WMA 320kbps CBR 50X

WMA Pro 128kbps 2pass VBR 47X

OGG 092kbps VBR 69X
OGG 122kbps VBR 62X
OGG 166kbps VBR 55X
OGG 180kbps VBR 56X
OGG 309kbps VBR 43X

AAC 096kbps ABR 50X
AAC 128kbps ABR 50X
AAC 160kbps ABR 48X
AAC 320kbps ABR 42X

Mp3 128kbps CBR 17X (something wrong, decoder too slow compared to FhG acm)

MPC 146kbps VBR 23X

NOTE : decoded with P4 1.4 GHz


OGG Vorbis is really excellent at "portable" bitrates 128-192kbps
which should use less bettery than AAC around that bitrate according
to this test

but OGG Vorbis decoding is on a par with AAC above 300kbps

WMA, oh my god, very very fast.......no wonder it produces crappy
sound!

WMA PRo which can produce much better quality seem to loose to AAC n OGG Vorbis
in decoding speed
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: Digisurfer on 2004-10-31 06:40:53
Quote
mpc is definitely not a good solution for portable
just do some decoding test with dBpowerAMP converter
[{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a] (http://index.php?act=findpost&pid=251117")

Great, now I'm totally confused... 

[a href="http://www.foobar2000.org/foospeed/]http://www.foobar2000.org/foospeed/[/url]
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: linus on 2004-10-31 07:06:29
Quote
I'm still sticking with MP3 --aps, because of the wide HW support. I was considering to go for Ogg Vorbis but unfortunately I'm still confused with those many various compiles and "transparent settings" so for me it's not enough clear to move to Ogg Vorbis.

I hope one day it might be clearer and Ogg Vorbis would be more supported by HW then I'll go with Ogg Vorbis...

Exactly te same for me
I have 130 giga of mp3 stored in cd and external hd, and lame preset standard or extreme is enough transparent to me.
All mp3 are mp3gained and tagged, and reencoding is not in my plan now... too much work!
I still go with mp3, because I will keep simple my collection: only mp3= only 1 set of programs (well, 1 set for every OS!)
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: Dologan on 2004-10-31 07:39:59
Quote
mpc is definitely not a good solution for portable
just do some decoding test with dBpowerAMP converter

[...]

MPC 146kbps VBR 23X
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=251117"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Something is seriously wrong with either your setup or with dBpowerAMP converter. Musepack should be around 90x on a setup like yours. Perhaps you are dithering? As Digisurfers link shows (and also as general knowledge), Musepack sweeps the floor with every other codec at (undithered) decoding speed, a feature that would make it great for portables. Decoding speed is not what stops MPC from getting portable support.
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: shadowking on 2004-10-31 09:05:24
Has anyone gotten a hold of that MPC ready chinese DAP yet ?
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: kotrtim on 2004-10-31 10:05:45
Quote
Something is seriously wrong with either your setup or with dBpowerAMP converter. Musepack should be around 90x on a setup like yours. Perhaps you are dithering?
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=251126"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


I'm confused too!
maybe dBpowerAMP is setting dither as default, I've never changed the default settings?

from the spec foo 2003,
aac is faster than ogg vorbis
but my test shows that ogg vorbis is ~10X faster than aac
and only on a par with aac at bitrate above 300 kbps.

really really confused now
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: guruboolez on 2004-10-31 12:29:55
kotrtim> use another tool for speed measuring. Your values have serious troubles. MP3 speed is not alone to be wrong; mpc too...

I suggest you foobar2000, using speed_meter and file buffering in RAM in order to avoid fragmentation issues.
My results (http://www.foobar2000.net/lossless) (middle of the page) on a Duron 800 are very different from yours.
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: theboyjenkins on 2004-10-31 14:12:58
Nero (vbr) AAC over here...
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: grokwik on 2004-11-02 13:02:35
Musepack of course !
it's the best ratio size / quality
it's fast to encode
the name is cool   
foobar's icon is blue (ok it's a joke)
I don't care about portability : I need archive and mpc --q6 or more is for me cd quality .

it's "unknown" by most of people and p2p users.

In general I like to use different softs (such as foobar instead of winamp) or codecs (mpc for audio,  rv10 for video and matroska for container).
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: user on 2004-11-18 22:21:33
I voted MPC
as I use as lossy format mainly MPC 1.14 at quality 8 (it fulfills 3 goals: 1. archival backup storage additional to lossless, 2. laptop, portable music, eg. CD/DVD-writer, 3. playing the music on pc-based players with digital connections to amps)

If it would be interesting to see, how many people already store in lossless, we would need another poll, as most people here voted for their preferred lossy codec, in case they were using lossless, too.


So, for the eternal archiving & HiFi listening/sessions, I use Lossless, respectively a burnt CD. The original Cds are closed away, as those are in danger to get damaged in the long run, and because of the CDDA without error correction possibilities like in data-CD, you have to make a backup of music CDs.
I switched over from FLAC to WavPack 4.1 , wavpack.exe -h -m

I extract the CD with EAC & mareo -> WavPack & MPC.
The mpc version and the lossless version are stored on different DVD+R's. So, that I have a backup, doubled safety. I add to every album 6% par2 data, blocksize 40000 B, as I have a 'slow PC'.

for portable:
I have an iRiver clone (the early 100), the AVC Soul CD-player, which plays CDDA, MP3 and wma.
So, I transcode sometimes to MP3, lame 3.90.2 , alt-preset 128k abr , usage : rather noisy car.

I have some music in 320k Lame, Fraunhofer 256k-stereo, alt-preset extreme & insane from past, 1st attempts in combining HiFi & PC. As my TYT 2000 clone Grundig 130 (UK: Scan 2000; worldwide various brands, like Daewoo 2000, 5800 etc.) can today even play DVD full of mp3, the Lame 320k (alt-)preset insane is still not totally out of usage !
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: k.eight.a on 2004-11-18 22:38:05
Quote
I switched over from FLAC to WavPack 4.1 , wavpack.exe -h -m
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=254876"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


What made you to go this way? I'm just curious...
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: user on 2004-11-18 22:45:20
wavpack 4.1 in -h high mode needs ca. 3% less space than flac 1.1.1 or 1.1.0 in default mode 5. As speed is nearly comparable equal (by my subjective feeling and my needs, both formats require only minimal cpu power), I took advantage of the new wavpack.
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: k.eight.a on 2004-11-18 23:06:50
Quote
wavpack 4.1 in -h high mode needs ca. 3% less space than flac 1.1.1 or 1.1.0 in default mode 5. As speed is nearly comparable equal (by my subjective feeling and my needs, both formats require only minimal cpu power), I took advantage of the new wavpack.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=254884"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


I see, thanks for reply... And what about Monkey's Audio? I think it's quite fast and has better compression but it requires more CPU power to encode & decode...
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: user on 2004-11-18 23:22:20
yes, with the 3% size win to flac, wavpack 4.1 is now close® to monkey's ape sizewise, but at clearly lower cpu consumption than ape.
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: Mindaxiz on 2004-11-19 11:49:44
Musepack for me.

after alot of ABXing and testing of several lossy formats i finally settled for Musepack.  although it seeks a bit slow on my machine for some reason (which i suspect is a hardware problem) i chose it because of its fast encode/decode speeds and transperancy.  i still do have tons of mp3s though, also i use vorbis or ACC for <100kbps.

all my music goes on an external harddrive using WavPack -x4 -m prior to encoding to lossy.  (-x4 -m, cause the slowdown isnt that bad at all to me and it offers decoding speeds very close to flac and compresses just as good as wavpack -h, in some cases i even end up getting smaller files with -x4 then with -h)
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: jcrab66 on 2004-12-15 15:53:55
lossless only for me....usually flac, sometimes shn
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: Iceberg on 2004-12-15 19:35:26
When I began encoding my music collection, I only used LAME 3.90.2 -alt-preset-standard. Then I changed to LAME 3.90.3.

But right now, after buying an iRiver H340, I have been converted to Ogg Vorbis.

I encode with Oggenc2.3 using libVorbis 1.1.0 with IMPULSE_TRIGGER_PROFILE option and -q varying from 5 to 6,25, depending on genre and interest of music compressed
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: Gray_Wolf on 2004-12-16 17:51:14
For me, after the a lot of ABX testing with different encoders, and many types of music and killer samples, my decision was vorbis aoTuV b2 and musepack...

For vorbis (aoTuV b2): -q6 for all of my music (jazz and rock in general)

Musepack (1.14): --xtreme --xlevel; too for all of my music.

Particularly I am very impressed with the quality of vorbis aoTuV b2.

In the past I did not like vorbis (1.0.1 and older), but, now, with the new versions and the hard work of the HA vorbis developers, my opinion is very different...
I believe (in the present moment) vorbis is a great encoder, and for me, is my encoder of choice...

Musepack is great encoder too, but,  , i believe in this moment is limited only for computers.
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: FunkyRes on 2004-12-20 11:13:18
mp3 for me, lame 3.96.1 from rpm.livna.org
I use aac sometimes for iTunes but usually not.

I use mp3 because it works well just about everywhere, aac doesn't work very well in my Linux desktop yet (the apps that support it skip if you do other stuff, and for encoding - there's faac and nothing else)

mp3 plays nicely in all my media players regardless of the OS, and on my mp3 cd player.
So it wind be default. Ogg - I use to use ogg, haven't tried it in awhile - but I found the quicktime plugin for ogg to be slow, it's young, so it's out for me.

I rip to flac so changing in future is not a problem.
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: apecat on 2004-12-23 23:34:09
I use mp3: LAME 3.96.1 from rarewares with --alt-preset standard. APS is really the only way to pack "transparent" audio that is playable everywhere on any hardware. Actually I preach quite a lot to all people I know about the wonders of --alt-preset standard and I think I doubled the amount of people ripping cd:s in my school.

If I had the Hardware I'd use Vorbis becouse it's better and it's Open, but since I'm stuck with my Sony mp3cd player I'm fine with APS. I wish I had one of those iRiver HD players....
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: encosion on 2005-01-01 11:50:34
Quote
Has anyone gotten a hold of that MPC ready chinese DAP yet ?
You got more info on this?
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: shadowking on 2005-01-01 15:07:40
http://www.dfan.com.cn/read.php?ID=527 (http://www.dfan.com.cn/read.php?ID=527)


Original post:


http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....64&hl=mpc&st=50 (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=9364&hl=mpc&st=50)
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: eagleray on 2005-01-01 15:44:03
I am sort of surprised to see how many people use musepack and how few use lossless.  As musepack has no hardware support, it is a pc only solution.  Considering how cheap hard drive storage and blank DVD's have become, it seems to me that lossless should be the preferred method for music storage and playback, even if it is three times the size as  MPC @ 6.  OK, I realize some people do not have the right hardware for this. 

When ripping in burst mode with either dbPoweramp or Foobar2000, and compressing with either flac or Monkey's I can have an average length CD on my hard drive in two minutes.  this means that I do not have to keep much stored permanently.  Its disposable compressed music.  Again, I realize this will not appeal to those who don't mind spending half an hour to rip a scratched CD with EAC in secure mode only to find it has clicks and pops that go away when the rip is done again using burst mode.
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: -Mike- on 2005-01-04 18:08:04
I use Vorbis because that's fast and highquality. And what can be better
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: music_man_mpc on 2005-01-04 18:26:45
Quote
I use Vorbis because that's fast and highquality. And what can be better
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=263045"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Musepack is faster and is reputed to be of higher quality than Vorbis at high bitrates, although this may not still hold true.  I'm not saying that there isn't still much reason to use Vorbis (it is certainly better quality at ~128kb/s and below, hardware support, etc).  It's just that based on the two criteria you mentioned in your post Musepack certainly can be better .
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: -Mike- on 2005-01-04 22:33:50
Quote
Musepack is faster and is reputed to be of higher quality than Vorbis at high bitrates, although this may not still hold true...


Ok, It's my discrepancy
I already tested it! It's clear, ogg was better than Musepack at low (and also middle)  bitrates. (-q5 for example)
Higher bitrates aren't necessary to me because i don't have hi-fi HW
Title: Which lossy format are you using?
Post by: picmixer on 2005-01-05 18:30:34
Quote
Quote
Musepack is faster and is reputed to be of higher quality than Vorbis at high bitrates, although this may not still hold true...


Ok, It's my discrepancy
I already tested it! It's clear, ogg was better than Musepack at low (and also middle)  bitrates. (-q5 for example)
Higher bitrates aren't necessary to me because i don't have hi-fi HW
[{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a] (http://index.php?act=findpost&pid=263075")


Maybe you could do us all a favour and back those claims up with some abx results and also read over the forum rules here again.

[a href="http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=3974&view=findpost&p=149481]TOS #8[/url]