AAC/M4A Encoder / Decoder Plug-in : Quality and reliability?

[tapotio]

Hi there,

i'm struggling with dilemna and can't make up my mind. Help from the community would be greatly appreciated.

I want to do an all-in-one solution for my ipod. So I bought MM and AAC/M4A Encoder / Decoder Plug-in.

I just wonder is i meet the quality of itunes encoding using it.

1) I used to use Nero digital AAC encoder, but I read on the net that it is bloated and gives poor results, although it's free.

I'd like to use the AAC/M4A Encoder / Decoder Plug-in to do my encodings, but wonder if quality would be as good as the itunes one (or worse, or same, or better compared to Nero).

2) Furthermore, i'd love to encode to both Apple lossless AND itunes aac (seems i can read but not produce Apple Lossless).

3) I see the max quality of AAC/M4A Encoder / Decoder Plug-in acheive 300 kps. Is there a difference with 256 VBR or 320 non VBR fproducted files from itunes that worth the extra size of the resulting file?

Can someone have good information about that (dev maybe)?

Thanks.

[kingguru]

It's a shame that the plug-in doesn't support AAC VBR wth more than 210 avg. kbps, which is somehow max for 100% quality.
I'd really love to have my library transcoded from FLAC to AAC ~320 for my portable player.

[matthewschenker]

Hello,
I'm a little confused about this as well.

I made the switch away from iTunes recently, and I really like MediaMonkey. I'm using the Gold version. But I'm wondering about bit rates.

In iTunes, using "Apple Lossless" (AAC) encoding, I sometimes got bit rates over 800. My old files show up in MediaMonkey as M4a files with these higher bit rates. But with MediaMonkey, ripping CDs in M4a with VBR, the resulting files max out at a bit rate around 300, and several tracks come in under 250.

How do I get the higher VBR numbers I was seeing in iTunes using MediaMonkey? Or maybe the lower bit rate is just as good in MediaMonkey as the higher bit rates in iTunes?

I really like MediaMonkey, and wold like to figure this out!

Thanks,
Matthew

[Teknojnky]

apple lossless is different than the normal (lossy) aac in m4a files.

the mm m4a encoder/decoder does NOT currently support ALAC.

I would suggest checking out dbpoweramp reference, which can securely rip and encode in to ALAC compatible with itunes and MM.

[matthewschenker]

Teknojnky,
Thanks for responding. I appreciate it!

However, I admit I'm still a bit confused. If I encode in m4a with VBR at 100%, is that equivalent in sound quality to "Apple Lossless"?

Thanks for your patience!

[nohitter151]

Teknojnky,
Thanks for responding. I appreciate it!

However, I admit I'm still a bit confused. If I encode in m4a with VBR at 100%, is that equivalent in sound quality to "Apple Lossless"?

No. As stated above by Teknojnky, MediaMonkey currently doesn't have the ability to encode to apple lossless format.

[Peke]

To clarify bit more. There is no free or reasonable priced ALAC encoder library to be included in native plugin and we certainly do not want to double plugin price just to include ALAC support. Again Apple do make things harder for us as they are holders for Patent and licensing.

[matthewschenker]

Peke,
I understand. No problem.

My concern is maintaining a library with lossless music in case I need to burn CDs.

Even more important, I run the Sonos system in my home, and for that I like to stream CD-quality music. Apple Lossless has been the format of choice, mainly because I was using iTunes and Sonos picks it up nicely.

I've done a lot of reading on the subject, but I still cannot determine whether m4a is equivalent in quality to Apple Lossless. I'm not asking if it's the same -- just whether it is equally as good. I ask because the bit rate in MediaMonkey m4a is a lot lower than the bit rates for Apple Lossless. Maybe that's not so important?

Thanks for helping!

[Teknojnky]

I've done a lot of reading on the subject, but I still cannot determine whether m4a is equivalent in quality to Apple Lossless. I'm not asking if it's the same -- just whether it is equally as good. I ask because the bit rate in MediaMonkey m4a is a lot lower than the bit rates for Apple Lossless. Maybe that's not so important?

Short answer, NO.

Long answer, it depends on *YOUR* EARS. When in doubt, decide for yourself with double blind ABX testing. FOOBAR has an excellent ABX component, you can compare a ALAC or WAVE or other LOSSLESS file with an AAC/m4a, mp3 or whatever else, to see if you can actually hear a difference.

But understand this, M4A is just a container format, standard M4A AAC files are LOSSY.

M4A files encoded with ALAC are LOSSLESS.

if you do not understand the difference between LOSSY and LOSSLESS then I suggest you start @ http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php ... best_codec and read the articles about LOSSY and LOSSLESS codecs.

[Lowlander]

It's not equivalent, because one is lossy and the other is lossless. Flac would be equivalent.

But, you should conduct listening test. There are many sources online that claim that double blind testing has show that most people couldn't differentiate a MP3 from a WAV. (I don't remember at what bitrate MP3 this difference is unnoticeable).

[nohitter151]

It's not equivalent, because one is lossy and the other is lossless. Flac would be equivalent.

But, you should conduct listening test. There are many sources online that claim that double blind testing has show that most people couldn't differentiate a MP3 from a WAV. (I don't remember at what bitrate MP3 this difference is unnoticeable).

for LAME mp3 its generally cited as the v0 vbr setting (or about ~245 kbps).

[Teknojnky]

It's not equivalent, because one is lossy and the other is lossless. Flac would be equivalent.

But, you should conduct listening test. There are many sources online that claim that double blind testing has show that most people couldn't differentiate a MP3 from a WAV. (I don't remember at what bitrate MP3 this difference is unnoticeable).

for LAME mp3 its generally cited as the v0 vbr setting (or about ~245 kbps).

I don't think thats quite accurate, lame should be transparent for most people and most audio types somewhere between v2 and v5.

V0 is considered way overkill thus the 'extreme' nickname.

when in doubt, ABX it and prove it to yourself that you can hear the differnce.

[matthewschenker]

Hello,
Thanks everyone for jumping in.

Yes, I do understand the idea of lossy versus lossless. My confusion was that I had been working under the assumption that m4a is lossless. Then I learned that m4a is just a "container" which could be either Apple Lossless or AAC, the former being lossless and the latter being lossy. In other words, if you have a buynch of m4a files, you can't say whether they are lossy or lossless unless you further specify whether they contain AAC or Apple Lossless files. And you can't figure that out without some kind of decoder. OK, that's confusing, don't you think?

Regarding sound tests: I can indeed hear the difference between 256 mp3 and lossless files. There is no doubt about that. This is the main reason I made the switch originally away from mp3 files: when I played them on my home system the quality was clearly worse.

I think I understand the whole m4a/Apple Lossless issue now.

[Teknojnky]

I agree that m4a files can be very confusing, and there is no indication within MM itself other than the bitrate.

You probably already know this, MM can PLAY both lossy and ALAC files, it just can not encode ALAC files.

From my own research, I re-iterate the suggestion that you should look closely at dbpoweramp reference for ripping and encoding to ALAC. Additionally, it can add a bunch of detailed columns and/or info to explorer pop up, so you can see easier into the details of the files (codecs, lossy/lossless, etc).

You can then continue to manage and play your files with MM, along with sonos and itunes when necessary.

[nohitter151]

I don't think thats quite accurate, lame should be transparent for most people and most audio types somewhere between v2 and v5.

V0 is considered way overkill thus the 'extreme' nickname.

when in doubt, ABX it and prove it to yourself that you can hear the differnce.

That doesn't seem to match up with this: http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php ... _answer.29