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Topic: To Aac Or Mpc ?? (Read 6294 times) previous topic - next topic
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To Aac Or Mpc ??

I was wondering which format is the best (in most cases) for archiving music.
I’m using the AAC setting "-ultra -profile 2" and it sounds pretty good. I had been using Mpc for a while but it "seemed" to be missing the deep bass. ???

Regards,
A Man Eating Duck
Who are you and how did you get in here ?
I'm a locksmith, I'm a locksmith.

To Aac Or Mpc ??

Reply #1 –
Both are (should be) transparent with most tunes (if not all) in the bitrates you are using.

It's more of a matter of taste and practical uses.

Regards;

Roberto.

Edit: Besides, there is some turmoil going on in MPC development. I would wait for a definition before choosing this format.

To Aac Or Mpc ??

Reply #2 –
Quote
Originally posted by A_Man_Eating_Duck
I had been using Mpc for a while but it "seemed" to be missing the deep bass. ???


Likekly entirely psychological. You can easily verify it via an ABX test. If it's a real problem, please post a sample here.

--
GCP

To Aac Or Mpc ??

Reply #4 –
Quote
Originally posted by [JAZ]
Someone already said something like this ( http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/showth...=&threadid=1561 ) . 
Maybe it's time to start thinking it is not that psychological.


But if it can not be quantified, there is no point (except possibly FUD) discussing it. There is nothing anyone can do to to fix the "problem" if it can't be proven that there is a problem. And yes, I'm atheist too.

To Aac Or Mpc ??

Reply #5 –
Quote
Originally posted by [JAZ]
Someone already said something like this ( http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/showth...=&threadid=1561 ) . 
Maybe it's time to start thinking it is not that psychological.


Did you read the entire thread?

Not only did the guy have some major misconceptions, but he never bothered to provide any test samples or do any abx testing.

Oh.. and "lack of bass" has to be the most common false complaint I've ever seen anywhere.  With MPC, with Vorbis, with APS... heh.

As far as I'm concerned, if people are sure that they can hear this stuff, then there is not a single reason in the world not to do both of those things.  If they don't, then I'm just going to assume that they aren't hearing anything.

It's useless to just say "I hear problems with the bass", and then providing nothing else.  If it was a common problem, it would have been caught by now.  Since it hasn't, that either means there isn't a problem (this person is just imagining it), or it's a very rare problem specific to a few clips (again unlikely, but still possible).  If it's the latter case, then it'll be resolved if this person provides some evidence in the form of listening tests and sound clips.

Seriously though people... don't bother making complaints about a format on this board if you aren't going to provide at least some sort of basic information for verification.

To Aac Or Mpc ??

Reply #6 –
It's the never-ending story... seems that the word "ABX"  or at least "reliable blind test" doesn't get into some people's heads...  I wonder why???

To Aac Or Mpc ??

Reply #7 –
I'm not trying to bash mpc or try to convert people off the format, I was just wondering which is the better format in archiving.

I said, "seemed" to lack deep bass, I noticed a difference with the encoded content, maybe it's a plugin issue or maybe I’m making it up. I listened to an .ape file and an .mpc file (not decoded), and the .ape file had deeper bass.

It would be hard to ABX this because you have to use wav files to compare.

Regards
A Man Eating Duck
Who are you and how did you get in here ?
I'm a locksmith, I'm a locksmith.

To Aac Or Mpc ??

Reply #8 –
To get the mpc to wav, simplu use mppdec or the winamp disk writer polugin.

There are some issues to do with clipping i think when doing this but im not completly sure on them so if anyone else wants to step in ...


Kristian

To Aac Or Mpc ??

Reply #9 –
The people who thinks MPC lacks some sound are probably using the equalizer in Winamp... I did try it once and MPC sounds crap with it... Can't figure out why it's only MPC that sounds crap/wierd with it... :/

Anyway, I prefer AAC over MPC... Not that MPC is bad in any way, but one of my requirements for lossy compression is hardware support which MPC doesn't have nor will ever have... And there's also a psychological "thingy" that tells me to trust AAC but not MPC... Must be the brain's way of saying that MPC has no future?

P.S. All the common talk about MPC is most suitable for transcoding... Well, even though MPC might work for it, I would never recommend transcoding a lossy format into another, no matter what technolgies the format uses... I suggest you rip your albums into FLAC and burn them onto CDR disc... By doing so you can easily transcode the music into whatever format you like without loosing anything in the process "in between"...

To Aac Or Mpc ??

Reply #10 –
Let me explain or try to 

I'm talking about playing through winamp quality not the mppdec.exe quality.

I’ve decoded a song through winamp via the diskwriter plugin and then decode the same song with mppdec.exe and compared the .wav's with eac wave compare



I thought that the winamp plugin output should be the same quality as mppdec.exe

winamp EQ is always off 

Regards
A Man Eating Duck
Who are you and how did you get in here ?
I'm a locksmith, I'm a locksmith.

To Aac Or Mpc ??

Reply #11 –
I say goto MPC
well, AAC is really interesting since there is portable hardware support for it already 
I sure hope there's gonna be some portable support for MPC soon.
AAC is leading the battle of the audiophile codecs atm

To Aac Or Mpc ??

Reply #12 –
Regarding the winamp plugin, I guess the loudness of output is set different from the mppdec.exe. Case, maybe you can confirm?

To Aac Or Mpc ??

Reply #13 –
Quote
Originally posted by lucpes
Regarding the winamp plugin, I guess the loudness of output is set different from the mppdec.exe.

Replaygain settings, EQ, DSP plugins and Winamp's volume would affect wave files generated with disk writer, but I'm sure A_Man_Eating_Duck had everything disabled. In_mpc and mppdec.exe only differ in least significant bit, this shouldn't affect quality in any way.

To Aac Or Mpc ??

Reply #14 –
Quote
Originally posted by rjamorim
Both are (should be) transparent with most tunes (if not all) in the bitrates you are using.

It's more of a matter of taste and practical uses.

Regards;

Roberto.

Edit: Besides, there is some turmoil going on in MPC development. I would wait for a definition before choosing this format.


Err, you mean, basically *every* format is going through scrutiny or turmoil

To Aac Or Mpc ??

Reply #15 –
the only reason i use mpc is b/c it can encode without gaps at the beginning and/or end.  i dont kno much about this stuff, but i'm pretty sure aac can't.  if anyone knows how to get aac to not put gaps at the beginning end, i would gladly switch to aac.  someone once told me it was b/c aac encodes in blocks of 1024.

any suggestions?
 

To Aac Or Mpc ??

Reply #16 –
Thanks for clearing that up Case 

Regards
A Man Eating Duck
Who are you and how did you get in here ?
I'm a locksmith, I'm a locksmith.