[CUBE] itunes 4-Where to now?

[Todd Masco]

eableson at mac.COM (Erik Ableson) wrote:
> AAC aka MP4 (or MPEG4 Audio) is significantly better, and smaller.
> Seriously 128kbps AAC is almost indiscernable from the original CD.

Oh, how I wish that were true.  I did a bunch of testing in the last 
few days and 128 Kbps AACs made by iTunes are definitely substandard, 
it was obvious from the first track I tried and tested on my 
Soundsticks.  160 Kbps AACs are acceptable, though still far from 
ideal.  For reference, I rate 256 Kbps mp3s as acceptable.

Reading up on it around the web, AACs are about as good as an MP3 that 
the AAC is 60-70% the size of, given a roughly equal quality encoder, 
relative the "state of the art."

The encoder makes a huge difference - unfortunately, the one in 
Quicktime 6.2 and thus used by iTunes is one of the worst, it's the 
Dolby consumer-level one.

	-- Todd