[Darth-Apple]

MP3 is obviously the standard for music formats today. It is supported by pretty much everything these days, including Apple products. However, MP3 is a very old format as well. While it certainly does do a good job compressing audio, newer compression methods can show much better results. The .OGG format is an example of a newer format that can show some very impressive audio quality even at lower bitrates. In fact, a file compressed down to about 48kbps or so still sounds good enough to listen to in the ogg format, whereas in the MP3 format it would be unbearably horrible. Of course no format will be at its best at 48kbps, but ogg can do some pretty amazing things when it comes to audio compression. MP4/ACC is also showing slightly better results than MP3, although it still doesn't compare to the OGG format.

Many games are starting to use the ogg format to avoid licensing issues with MP3, and are also saving disk space in the process. Personally, I'd love to see OGG become the next standard, but unfortunately not all devices support it yet. Because of that, I still encode my files in MP3 at 192 or 256kbps. What's your opinion?

[Acko]

I like OGG the best, because it's non-proprietary, and best supported by the open source community. But not all devices support it, so I still use MP3 most of the time.

[Darth-Apple]

The fact that OGG is non-proprietary is a huge advantage. I think that MP3's licensing issues can be a bit of a setback for many people who would like to use the format. That's yet another reason I hope that the OGG format becomes more popular soon.

[Hoolio]

I am into hires audio

So I often listen to sound files of classic albums in one of these resolutions

96k 24bit
192k 24 bit
88.2k 24 bit

I use a fancy pants converter (a Grace 903) and Mac software called Decibel to play the files back

It amuses me, a fancy vinyl record player and amp set up would probably sound better but with small kids running around vinyl isn't really an option. This is a backlash to the dumbing down of audio quality to the MP3 format.

I can recommend trying HiRes audio! There are cheaper 96k 24 bit converters out there..

I listen to classic rock and classical music (a lot of Baroque)

Here is a link to an article about it...

http://www.macworld.com/article/1160651/...e_mac.html

[Darth-Apple]

I am into hires audio

So I often listen to sound files of classic albums in one of these resolutions

96k 24bit
192k 24 bit
88.2k 24 bit

I use a fancy pants converter (a Grace 903) and Mac software called Decibel to play the files back

It amuses me, a fancy vinyl record player and amp set up would probably sound better but with small kids running around vinyl isn't really an option. This is a backlash to the dumbing down of audio quality to the MP3 format.

I can recommend trying HiRes audio! There are cheaper 96k 24 bit converters out there..

I listen to classic rock and classical music (a lot of Baroque)

Here is a link to an article about it...

http://www.macworld.com/article/1160651/...e_mac.html

That's very interesting. It seems like CDs are the standard these days, but perhaps the digitization of music will change that.

Perhaps I should give "high-res" audio a try sometime.

[Hoolio]

Yeah there more to be had than CD quality. You can get better with HiRes

[Darth-Apple]

Is there a good place to download HiRes MP3s? As far as I know, most music stores sell only the standard MP3 files.

[Hoolio]

Classical is good here

http://highresaudio.com

pop rock / jazz here

https://www.hdtracks.com

But they aren't MP3's they are very big sound files - one song perhaps as big as a whole CD !

It takes up a lot of hard rive space

I pay for them

These sites may have some free sample however

[Darth-Apple]

Thanks, I'll have to check them out sometime. Hopefully my sound card is good enough for me to tell the difference!

[Acko]

OGG for me. For one, it's supported by the FOSS community, and two, it's just generally better.

[spork985]

I don't use Vorbis or MP3. I use mostly FLAC for my music. It's 100% lossless. If I had to pick though, I would use MP3. Vorbis isn't widely used or recognized at all.

[SpookyZalost]

oh I'm strongly OGG vorbis whenever possible, it's just a better format.
had my choice I'd use crystal discs with Vorbis files for my music consumption lol