Which format do you prefer?

Which format do you prefer?

I usually use AAC but as I was saying, I feel so sorry for MP3! Everyone is forgetting the poor little revolutionary.

Well among those AAC, Ogg if Apple had better support for it. I prefer Apple Lossless and FLAC to any of the above though.

My collection used to be ogg at Q8 and I was quite happy there. However Apple's playback of high bitrate ogg files leaves a lot to be desired. So I reripped to Apple Lossless or AAC depending on how much I listen to the album (about 90% are encoded in Lossless). It now takes a lot more space but if I go through another format change I have almost all my music in lossless so I don't need to rerip from source.

i use mp3 because it is cross platform and i dont know the benefits of the other formats.

definitely the good ol' mp3

mp3 all the way, baby. I think no matter what operating system (and that means even Linux or Windows) or computer you have, the result of a poll like this will always be the same--mp3.

By the way, for what does the acronym OGG stand?

Kokopelli said:

Well among those AAC, Ogg if Apple had better support for it.

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Well Apple might never make support, but the 3rd party OGG quicktime plugin works nicely with iTunes:

http://qtcomponents.sourceforge.net/

Now if only they could add iPod support.

By the way, for what does the acronym OGG stand?

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a quick stop to AcronymFinder.com is usually the best place to find such answers.

lol OGG stands for Operation Good Guys? Thats a funny name!

aac is cool, but I still prefer mp3, simply for the cross platform compatibility, and flexibility
when it comes to editing it, converting it, etc. I don't see aiff up there?

Explanation of options: (I'll probably get called out on some mistakes or oversimplifications)

MP3: MPEG-1 layer 3 audio. Currently the most popular format for compressed digital music. A standardized format using techniques patented by Thomson and Fraunhofer. Widely used and supported, but often yields lower quality than newer formats.

WMA: Windows Media Audio. Audio format developed and controlled by Microsoft; their preferred replacement for MP3.

AAC: Advanced Audio Codec; part of the MPEG-4 standard. Used by Apple in iTunes and, in modified form, on the iTunes music store. Uses techniques patented by many companies including Dolby.

OGG: Ogg Vorbis audio format, a Free (no patents, no licensing) audio codec. Rarely seen thus far.

These formats are all "lossy:" they use various tricks to shrink the file sizes. Compared to AIFF or WAV, the quality is slightly lower but the file size is many times smaller.

As a compromise, formats like FLAC, Apple Lossless, and the Windows Media lossless format cut file sizes in half (compared to AIFF/WAV) but retain 100% of the quality.

Correction 1: The quality of a lossless format depends mostly on its bitrate. A high-bitrate MP3 file will sound better than a low-bitrate AAC or WMA file, but AAC will usually sound slightly better than MP3 at the same bitrate.

Correction 2: iTunes (and the iPod) support MP3, AIFF, and WAV in additon to AAC and Apple Lossless

I picked AAC, simply because it allows me to cram more music on the iPod than MP3 does :black:

technologist said:

Correction 1: The quality of a lossless format depends mostly on its bitrate. A high-bitrate MP3 file will sound better than a low-bitrate AAC or WMA file, but AAC will usually sound slightly better than MP3 at the same bitrate.

Correction 2: iTunes (and the iPod) support MP3, AIFF, and WAV in additon to AAC and Apple Lossless

Click to expand...

Correction: The quality of a lossy format depends mostly on its bitrate. Lossless are by definition without loss of any part of the sound.

And thanks MacAddikt, but I have used that. It works ok for Q4 oggs but not Q8. Occasionally (about once every hour of play time) it will pause for 1-3 seconds in the middle of playback. This makes it unacceptable for me. Otherwise it worked fine though. There are actually three variations on the ogg plugin and all three exhibited the same problem.

D3v1L80Y said:

I picked AAC, simply because it allows me to cram more music on the iPod than MP3 does :black:

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but thats at a lower bitrate, you may not be able to tell the difference, but many, myself included, can. lower bitrate using aac = smaller files/lower quality. you have to use a decen biterate which in the end, leaves you with files of the same size/quality as using mp3.

Macman said:

but thats at a lower bitrate, you may not be able to tell the difference, but many, myself included, can. lower bitrate using aac = smaller files/lower quality. you have to use a decen biterate which in the end, leaves you with files of the same size/quality as using mp3.

Click to expand...

I can tell the difference, too....I just don't care that much :headphone

If I wanted to hear the best quality, I would just listen to the CD :black:

I, with my spectacular hearing thanks to the metal concerts I have gone too, see no difference in sound quality (just like I can't tell when a note is slightly off of a musical instrument); I am happy with whatever choice takes up the least amount space.

I like aac, because it's sexy in every fashion. :closed:

And as we know, sexy always wins

mp3 is my ole favorite

I like AIFF or AIF they have great quality, but they can be very large in size. For example a 5:08 song is 50.8MB