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Audio Format Transcoding for Compatibility?
brandorf asks: "With the multitude of compressed audio formats that are available today, (MP3, Ogg, AAC, and FLAC to name very few) our music libraries start to spread across quite a few different formats. While this isn't a problem for desktop/media PC use, as programs like Winamp or iTunes have plugins available for almost every format. However, when it's time to start using a portable unit, it's unavoidable that some files will get transcoded. Have there been any studies or experiments as to how similar the codecs really are? Will transcoding from Format A to B sound worse than going from A to C? What's your experience with this?"
Hard drive space is plentiful. Just rip everything to a lossless format, such as FLAC, or even .wav or .aiff if you can't be bothered with the hassle, then make a convenient shell script to convert everything into another format as and when required. That way, you get the best sounding MP3s or Ogg Vorbis files with none of the bad side effects of transcoding, and as soon as any given codec is improved or replaced by a better one, you won't have to worry about not taking advantage of the shiny new algorithms.
I only speak for myself, but I know that I consider it silly encoding anything above about 150kbps ABR Ogg Vorbis, because above that, I can't hear the difference. I've been used to listening to 128kbps CBR MP3s for so long that I can't tell the difference any more. Sure, they're crappy PC speakers, but why bother with anything better if I simply cannot tell the difference. A musical friend of mine tried to test this - he played me a song twice, at different bitrates - I couldn't hear any difference. Surely you're listening to the wrong sort of music if you get distracted by the bitrate.. I mean, if it's *really* low then there's obvious reason, even I can tell at the extreme low end of the bitrate spectrum. I'd rather have manageable filesize and reasonable quality. However, I demand more digital music players to be ogg vorbis compatible! What I wouldn't give for one of those sleek HP jukebox jobbies.. *drools*