I'm heard how AAC is supposed to sound better than WMA at 48 kbps. I have a bunch of WMA tracks encoded at 64 kbps and am just curious if the 48 kpbs AAC tracks would still sound better. (Some of the WMAs are v8 and some are v9.)
That depends...
AAC is:
LC-AAC
HE-AACv1
HE-AACv2
WMA is a lot of things, but two mainly differences are:
WMA standard and WMA Pro.
A WMA standard codec should not sound better than any HE-AACv1/HE-AACv2 file at the same bitrate. There might be discrepancies if a LC-AAC at 48kbps sounds better or worse than a wma standard at 48kbps. (The former will sound duller, while the latter will have more artifacts).
WMA Pro, on the other side, is more competitive than wma Standard (and less supported). It should be competitive with HE-AACv1 (v2?), although the codec is more geared to high bitrate.
(Not sure if this will add more info or more confusion: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Media_Audio (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Media_Audio) )
WMA Pro at 64 vs Nero HE-AACv1 was evaluated by Hydrogenaudio members in 2007: http://listening-tests.hydrogenaudio.org/s...4-1/results.htm (http://listening-tests.hydrogenaudio.org/sebastian/mf-64-1/results.htm)
Wma Standard and Pro at 48 vs Nero HE-AAC(v1?v2?) was evaluated at the end of 2006: http://listening-tests.hydrogenaudio.org/s...8-1/results.htm (http://listening-tests.hydrogenaudio.org/sebastian/mf-48-1/results.htm)
(You have a global result at the end. Higher numbers are better)
Thanks. That was very helpful.