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Topic: OPUS 128 vs QAAC 128 | OPUS 192 vs QAAC 192 (Read 8721 times) previous topic - next topic
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OPUS 128 vs QAAC 128 | OPUS 192 vs QAAC 192

Guys, I need an answer for two questions from experienced visitors.  :) I want to convert my huge music library into lossy for listening at home. Will there be a noticeable difference on a good audio equipment between these codecs at the following bitrates? Good audio equipment, for example RME ADI-2 DAC FS + Sennheiser HD660S. Sorry for google translate.

1) OPUS 128 vs QAAC -V54 (128kbps)
2) OPUS 192 vs QAAC -V91 (192kbps)

Re: OPUS 128 vs QAAC 128 | OPUS 192 vs QAAC 192

Reply #1
do a few conversions and find out! :)


Re: OPUS 128 vs QAAC 128 | OPUS 192 vs QAAC 192

Reply #3
At 192, you shouldn't be having problems with any of those.
At 128, opus might have a small edge over AAC, but I'm not aware of tests done at that bitrate (we have a recent one here on hydrogenadio at 64).

Just a note: If you have gapless albums (i.e. albums where one song continues from the previous one without silence), test if the program you use does it for aac and/or opus. Both should work, but depends on the application

Re: OPUS 128 vs QAAC 128 | OPUS 192 vs QAAC 192

Reply #4
That graph is about the expected frequency bandwidth that the codec should provide when encoding at that bitrate.
 It is not about quality, although it is obvious that if a codec does not have fullband stereo, it will filter out some sounds compared to others that do.

Re: OPUS 128 vs QAAC 128 | OPUS 192 vs QAAC 192

Reply #5
That graph is about the expected frequency bandwidth that the codec should provide when encoding at that bitrate.
 It is not about quality, although it is obvious that if a codec does not have fullband stereo, it will filter out some sounds compared to others that do.
No, it is a graph of (subjective) quality vs bitrate.  The bandwidths on the left are just indicative, and should be considered mostly to apply to Opus - the others may do something entirely different.  See https://opus-codec.org/comparison/

Re: OPUS 128 vs QAAC 128 | OPUS 192 vs QAAC 192

Reply #6
Does this image from Wikipedia correspond to reality? After 128, there is no difference between the codecs.

In my opinion it's just marketing of the worst kind.

Re: OPUS 128 vs QAAC 128 | OPUS 192 vs QAAC 192

Reply #7
Thanks for answers! I read the forum and came to this conclusion:

OPUS
+ Less annoying artifacts on all bitrates
+ More advanced TVBR mode
+ More modern, theoretically more perfect
- Possible clicks between tracks
- Hardware incompatibility

QAAC
+ More appropriate for halftones
+ Standard & compatibility
- Worse at lower bitrates (less than 128)
- Participation in the development of Apple with its capabilities

Does Anyone Else Have Something Further to Add?  :)

Re: OPUS 128 vs QAAC 128 | OPUS 192 vs QAAC 192

Reply #8
If there was more hardware support for Opus, I'd encode to it.  But for now, I'm sticking with aac.

Re: OPUS 128 vs QAAC 128 | OPUS 192 vs QAAC 192

Reply #9
Does Anyone Else Have Something Further to Add?
The majority of software that play OPUS files do not handle multi-track OPUS files as separate logical streams

Re: OPUS 128 vs QAAC 128 | OPUS 192 vs QAAC 192

Reply #10
Thanks for answers! I read the forum and came to this conclusion:

OPUS
+ Less annoying artifacts on all bitrates
+ More advanced TVBR mode
+ More modern, theoretically more perfect
- Possible clicks between tracks
- Hardware incompatibility

QAAC
+ More appropriate for halftones
+ Standard & compatibility
- Worse at lower bitrates (less than 128)
- Participation in the development of Apple with its capabilities

Does Anyone Else Have Something Further to Add?  :)

Unless you have specific requirements, we now live in a world where Bandwidth and storage space isn't as much of a problem anymore.  LC-AAC is also patent free.

Personally I would just use AAC. Unless you want something below 96kbps, otherwise the benefits of AAC far outweighs any benefits Opus may have.

 

Re: OPUS 128 vs QAAC 128 | OPUS 192 vs QAAC 192

Reply #11
Yes, bandwidth of an average home connection isn't problem anymore. 

Though data cap of mobile data plan is a real problem.
Most of smartphone owners have capped connection ( for example, 4GB per month) .  4G hasn't resolved this and it's look like 5G will be even more expensive and doesn't target limitless connection as a first priority.

When most of mobile plans will go limitless then people (me too) and companies will stop care about new audio formats. Meanwhile Google, Amazon, Fraunhofer, Dolby and many others are already working on a new audio compression algorithms based on AI/ML.

Re: OPUS 128 vs QAAC 128 | OPUS 192 vs QAAC 192

Reply #12
Yes, bandwidth of an average home connection isn't problem anymore. 

Though data cap of mobile data plan is a real problem.
Most of smartphone owners have capped connection ( for example, 4GB per month).

Not everywhere, with this company, for example, you can reset the data used and start from scratch for a small fee and there are no problems with music. https://www.ho-mobile.it - start from 70GB for $ 6,85 (USD, tax included, each month. It's a Vodafone brand)

I do not believe that those who write in this forum are a representative sample of people in general, in the world we have millions of people who choose a paid service to listen to music and the others are satisfied with what they find for free.

So already today many people don't care about what format to use to hear music outside the home.

Re: OPUS 128 vs QAAC 128 | OPUS 192 vs QAAC 192

Reply #13
I do not believe that those who write in this forum are a representative sample of people in general, in the world we have millions of people who choose a paid service to listen to music and the others are satisfied with what they find for free.
Do You realize that this statement has no any sense? Are you  trolling here or just being silly?

Anybody of us (forum member or not) pays for some music streaming services _and/or_ get music from somewhere.

Reread your statement as it doesn't make any sense at all and express yourself correctly.


Not everywhere
I didn't say that it was everywhere.


So already today many people don't care about what format to use to hear music outside the home.
I didn't say that otherwise.
You have a comprehension problems.

https://www.ho-mobile.it - start from 70GB for $ 6,85 (USD, tax included, each month. It's a Vodafone brand)
Where I live You can only get 3GB for that money. And I will be glad to pay extra money for a streaming services with a new more efficient audio format that would allow me to spend less money on expensive mobile traffic.



Re: OPUS 128 vs QAAC 128 | OPUS 192 vs QAAC 192

Reply #14
Does this image from Wikipedia correspond to reality? After 128, there is no difference between the codecs.
Yes and no.
The image is based on a hand-drawn note used in a presentation as a quick reference years ago. It was supposed to give a rough estimate what kind of bandpass can be expected from each codec, but it's not based on any hard data. It's more or less a quick comparison visualized on a napkin.
I also once fell into the trap of taking that exact picture (albeit from a different source) as the quick comparison chart, while it actually doesn't mean all that much. It's like using a 1:100k map to navigate a city: it gives you a good but rough idea where you are, but that's about it.

Re: OPUS 128 vs QAAC 128 | OPUS 192 vs QAAC 192

Reply #15
I have found opusenc to be a much faster encoder than qaac on Windows and Linux. According to my quick, unscientific measurements, qaac takes almost 1.5x as long as opusenc on Windows

Re: OPUS 128 vs QAAC 128 | OPUS 192 vs QAAC 192

Reply #16
QAAC

Requires iTunes.

- Possible clicks between tracks

The Opus format supports gapless playback, so if you are getting this, contact the developer of the tool you are using. I remember that an old version of ffmpeg did not decode Opus gaplessly, thus affecting various applications that use ffmpeg as a back-end for decoding, but that has been fixed some time ago.

- Hardware incompatibility

In practice, this is mainly car radios and smart TVs (except Samsung's recent smart TVs). But it is supported natively on Android (so it can be used with any Bluetooth-enabled device, including some car radios) and on Rockbox. Application support is quite good, including foobar2000 (Windows and Android), DeaDBeeF, AIMP, VLC, etc.

On the negative side, Opus may have some (perhaps irrelevant) distortion in the near-infrasound range.

Also, loudness normalization is still somewhat tricky. Few tools support setting the header gain (which is what most players support), and some players do not support REPLAYGAIN or R128 tags (which is what most loudness scanning tools support).