I'm back in the thread.
Exhale 1.07 at mode 0 (48 kbps at 32000 Hz) was tested against OPUS and HE-AAC, and it's really competitive!

FRIEDMAN version 1.24 (Jan 17, 2002) http://ff123.net/
Blocked ANOVA analysis
Number of listeners: 60
Critical significance: 0.05
Significance of data: 0.00E+000 (highly significant)
---------------------------------------------------------------
ANOVA Table for Randomized Block Designs Using Ratings
Source of Degrees Sum of Mean
variation of Freedom squares Square F p
Total 299 455.02
Testers (blocks) 59 57.64
Codecs eval'd 4 299.02 74.75 179.36 0.00E+000
Error 236 98.36 0.42
---------------------------------------------------------------
Fisher's protected LSD for ANOVA: 0.232
Means:
HIGH USAC OPUS HE-AAC LOW
4.74 3.08 3.07 2.69 1.64
---------------------------- p-value Matrix ---------------------------
USAC OPUS HE-AAC LOW
HIGH 0.000* 0.000* 0.000* 0.000*
USAC 0.910 0.001* 0.000*
OPUS 0.001* 0.000*
HE-AAC 0.000*
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
HIGH is better than USAC, OPUS, HE-AAC, LOW
USAC is better than HE-AAC, LOW
OPUS is better than HE-AAC, LOW
HE-AAC is better than LOW
https://hydrogenaud.io/index.php?topic=120081.msg989570;topicseen#new