mpeg4 AAC vs. CDs? (1 Viewer)

[Ben LG]

I was checking out apple's itunes site and came across this:

AAC compressed audio at 128 kbps (stereo) has been judged by expert listeners to be “indistinguishable” from the original uncompressed audio source.*

Assuming that I am able to get itunes installed without crashing midway on XP , is the quality of the songs on these new p2p pay services really “indistinguishable” from CDs if I were to burn them onto a CD-R?

 

[Kevin C Brown]

AAC is a compression scheme that is big in Japan. But it is still lossy compression. One person's *opinion* might be that it is indistinguishable from CD, but I guarentee that with the right components and source material, you *will* hear a difference. 128 kbps vs LPCM at about 1400 kbps. Easy to do the math. Greater than a 10:1 reduction.

 

[RobBenton]

It is as good as it gets at that low of a bitrate but on a good system with a half way decent ear for music you will notice a difference.

 

[Kevin C Brown]

RB- I don't know a lot, but do you think a good MP3 codec could beat AAC?

I was always mystified why Sony didn't try to push ATRAC more for compressed audio (other than MD). For similar rates of data reduction, I think it it is a nice compression scheme. I have directly compared ATRAC 4.5 (type R) vs CD, and it was really tough to spot the differences. Can't remember the data rate though.

 

[Thomas Newton]

MiniDisc ATRAC runs at about 280 Kbps, give or take.

The LP2 and LP4 modes on newer MD models use "ATRAC3" at lower bit rates.

 

[RobBenton]

No mp3's are not nearly as good as atrac. A 128kb mp3 will sound much worse then a 128kb atrac file.. at higher bitrates though the differnce is less noticable.

 

[ElevSkyMovie]

AAC is MPEG layer 4 audio (MP4), correct? So AAC will obviously be better than MP3.

 

[Seth_L]

AAC is MPEG layer 4 audio (MP4), correct? So AAC will obviously be better than MP3.

And you came to this conclusion how? Because it has a higher number? AAC is not MPEG layer 4 audio. AAC is sorta incorporated into the MPEG-4 standard.

 

[ElevSkyMovie]

I came to that conclusion because the codec was developed 10 years after mp3. If it wasn't better, why create and release it?

 

[Seth_L]

I came to that conclusion because the codec was developed 10 years after mp3. If it wasn't better, why create and release it?

VHS was created after Beta, but was technically inferior in quality. I'd suspect it has more to do with some one not wanting to pay FHG for the mp3 license. While AAC may be better than mp3 at 128kbit/sec it's still not CD quality. There are better compression schemes at 128kbit/sec than AAC. Anyhow, I'll take my Alt Preset Extreme LAME encoded mp3s.