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AAC is the file format used in the new online iTunes Music Store. The store is online now for Mac users and will be available to Windows users later this year.
Exactly what restrictions does it have on playback?
Can you convert it to AIFF for use in a normal CD player?
Yes. iTunes already has the ability to burn AAC files to a CD in AIFF format suitable for playing on most consumer audio CDs.
Does it really sound better than MP3s? The only scientific study I’ve seen so far is here. They compared AAC, MP3, and other file formats. Their conclusion:
That’s not very useful in this case, since most MP3s and AACs are encoded at rates higher than 64 kbits/s.
However, personal assessments from various users appear today via Macintouch. Here are a few excerpts from these comments:
FYI, I’m an audio engineer with over 25 years experience recording and mixing all kinds of sound and music. I downloaded “New Frontier” by Donald Fagen, an impeccably recorded song, and auditioned it switching between the original CD, an MP3 ripped from that CD at 160 Kbs VBR, and Apple’s ACC MP4 file. I couldn’t hear a farthling’s worth of difference between any of them, and this is on a studio reference monitor system.
My Professional opinion: The sound quality is excellent, and a darn sight better than the crap found on Morpheus, KaZaa, et al. Plus no spyware and ad banners and bogus files.
Some songs encode well in AAC and some don’t. If you’re not obsessed with high fidelity—if MP3 sounds fine to you, if you’re satisfied with the sound from your FM radio—then the iTunes Music Store is all you need.
I doubt that the casual listener is going to notice a huge difference in sound quality, if they are used to listening to 128kbps MP3s. If they are sticklers for sound quality, and are used to encoding their MP3s at 160kbps or above, they may notice lower quality with AACs bought from Apple.
AAC is the audio codec of choice for XM satellite radio, and XM achieves very good sound quality (better than FM radio) at bitrates as low as 25 kbit/s. (No, that’s not a typo.)
Most people appear to agree that AAC is better than MP3. However, it appears that AAC, while excellent, may not yet be equivalent to the full AIFF file you get when you buy a CD.
#1
#2Michael, thanks for the great comment.
#3Michael, I'm glad my ears aren't as sensitive as yours!
#4Apple Lossless, by the very definition of the term "lossless", is exactly the same audio as a CD. No more, no less. And guess what? So are AIFF and WAV. It's laughable to see an "audiophile" like you comparing the sound of these different formats. Now that you know the facts, do you still think WAV sounds better than AIFF sounds better than ALE?
#5Here is an another engineers view on audio formats, I'll go a bit more in depth about it all.
The reason Mp3's sound poor to some people but not all is due to hearing range. Human hearing ranges from 20Hz to 20kHz. Not everyone can hear all the way to those extreme freaquencies, so MP3's jsut remove some of those frequencies around 20Hz and 20kHz.
CD Quality is 128kbps/44.1kHz Sample rate.
MP3's are 64kbps/32kHz sample rate.
ACC's are 128kbps/96kHz sample rate.
ACC's might look better at first, but they still remove frequancies. CD audio is lossless compression audio. ACC is lossy(as opposed to lossless) compression. So, despite the higher sample rate, its still digital (analog IS better).
It really doesn't matter because most consumer speakers can only put out about 60Hz-16kHz.
My opinion, always go with WAV, AIFF, or Apple lossless, because they are jsut that, lossless. They equal CD quality. If space is a problem, go with ACC at teh highest sample rates. If you must, encode MP3's with as high of a sample rate as possible.
#6I'm a complete idiot with these things. Can you explain something to me? Just transfered 800meg worth of aiff files from a 700meg CD into iTunes. These have been converted to AAC. Trying to burn the same songs onto a new 700meg CD and it tells me there's not enough space on the disc. How did someone get 800megs worth of songs onto a 700meg CD in the first place? What do I do to burn the same amount of music I ripped onto a single CD?
#7That's a very good question. AAC is a "lossy" compression format -- that is, it reduces the space an audio file takes up, by sacrificing some of the sound. The files it produces should be smaller than AIFF files. Are you sure that the source files are AIFF, and that iTunes is set to output in AAC? iTunes can export in a variety of formats.
#8thanks for the response, vik
i opened the cd in finder and the files are listed as aiff. the collective memory for the 23 song files is 800.7MB. the disk, however, is a 52X 700MB/80mins cd. how is that possible? like i said, i imported the songs into iTunes and there they are listed as m4a files, but the same 23songs won't burn onto a blank 24-4x speed 700MB/80min CD, saying there's not enough space on the disk. any ideas?
#9No idea.
What happens if you save them using Apple Lossless compression? That's a compression format that doesn't sacrifice any audio data.
#10while i read this i pulled out my dads bob marley and the wailers cd,and ripped one love in all formats from high to low.
and i ended up with 9 versions of one love ranging from,a 128 bit rate to 1536 bit rate.and im using in ear phones made by bose to listen to them.
and to tell you the truth i can barely hear the difference.
so the best bet for for all those "non audiophiles" is to rip one song from a good WAV disk,and then rip the same song into mp3 and compare if you hear the diference if you don't by all means countinue with you're MPEG ripping/downloading.
but im 16 ad i wont say my hearing is in tip top shape to listen to frequencies near 18 khz.but im good enough to hear the mosquito ringtone.
and our proclaimed audiophille i wonder how old you are since it is a known thing once you pass a certain age you're hearing just keep detorating little by little.
unless you're younger than me,or an adult who has never been exposed to loud noises.or you're blind like stevie wonders and yu have an acute sense of hearing.
any comments on this mail me at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) //= 0; i=i-1){ if (l[i].substring(0, 1) == ' ') output += "&#"+unescape(l[i].substring(1))+";"; else output += unescape(l[i]); } document.getElementById('eeEncEmail_ZdtUj3e9eS').innerHTML = output; //]]>
#11i got the dsi and i put a bunch of my music from itunes on it and it says there are no acc file on it how do i turn them into acc file
#12Vic and Nishi, thanks for the great comments!!! I can't believe I wrote that almost FIVE YEARS AGO. Funny thing is that I am still pissing and moaning about storeage space---I traded my 20GIG Ipod up for an 80Gig Ipod long ago and damn if I'm now being forced to delete songs because, at 79GIGS filled, the unit keeps crashing.
I can't believe people claim there is no difference between MP3 files and AIFF or WAV files. If these people can't tell that their music is 'squished' I say "God Bless 'em' If anything, I am JEALOUS of these people because they can get almost ten times the songs I can load up on my Ipod. Me? I can't do MP3s---listening to MP3, for me, is like listening to the final two minutes of 'I am the Walrus' by the Beatles, where Lennon deliberately did that---squish the music!!!
Everyone knows the CD was first introduced to America on 01OCT1982 and that, as a playback medium, it is recorded at 128kbps@8bits/44kHz. But do you know WHY 44Khz was chosen? The answer lies in the storage medium available in the late 1970s when CD was first conceived. Digital audio was in its infancy in the early 80s and what audio recorders were availaible were RARE and OUTRAGEOUSLY expensive. So the Format's creators turned to the recording storeage medium at the time, which was the 3/4" U-Matic Video Cassette Machine (any of you ancient broadcast types remember those machines?). The U-Matic Video Cassette machine was widely used in broadcasting and this format could be converted into pulse code modulation (PCM) audio as black and white video information!!! Because black and white video information is approximately 80 Frames a Second, it matched up mathmatically with 44.1kHz. Also, we are DAMN lucky we got CDs at 8bit lenghts. Philips argued 2bits was sufficient for all consumer applications but SONY threatened to walk away from the project unless it was in 8bit lenghts (I can't remember why Sony insisted on 8bit word lenghts---I think it had to deal with computer and Sony's entry into the computer market?). Thank God, SONY got their way---by today's standards, 8bits is hopelessy inadequate.
Today, the ignoble CD is in pinnacle termination---not only are there better playback storage systems out there (Blu Ray is 24bit@192kHz PCM digital audio), consumers aren't 'doing' CDs anymore (Generation Media types now directly download their music to their IPODS/Iphones without having to deal with the physicality of a CD in a jewel Box). Me, I am sticking with my 1888 technology---the 180 gram LP played back on a decent turntable (like my chincy Systemdek IIx table, Linn Basik Plus Arm (modified with silver cable), Sumiko BPS cartridge on a Mitchel Gyromat/Gyroclaim played back thru an Acurus RL11 Pre, Beldini Vacuum Tube outboard phono stage as powered by an Acurus A150 watt amp and played on NHT 1.3A speakers/Energy Sub.
#13I have a question about APPLE's LOSSLESS. The recording engineers that I have spoken to (confirmed by AppleStore salesmen) state there IS some compression involved in APPLE's LOSSLESS system although, again the argument is made that most 'consumers' won't be able to hear the difference. The recording engineers I've spoken to state if they are cutting masters and/or archiving music, they always go AIFF over LOSSLESS. I am a babyboomer whose hearing isn't at what it was when he was 18. Still, I can hear the difference, however slight, between AIFF and LOSSLESS (I did ten A/B blind tests and was able to pick the LOSSLESS recordings 8/10 times. To me, it just seems more lifeless than AIFF, and thus more irratating. I can't decern the difference immediately but if you play me three songs that I know well in AIFF verses three songs I know well in LOSSLESS I can almost always decern the difference because there is no soundstage (ability to walk around the instruments) or sheen to the upper mids in LOSSLESS---because it is compressed at one point, whereas AIFF is never compressed.
#14What is the risks of adding lyrics to your songs? Does it add lyrics to the end of the song or replace bits of the song with the lyrics?
On the iPOD and music formats:
I am an audiophile. To my ears, "CD Audio quality" AINT!!! The best recorded CD sounds hopelessly bright and two dimentional compaired with a SuperVinyl LP played back on a decent Front End (Turntable/arm/cartridge). So if "CD Audio Quality" is your playback goal, your standards of excellence are really LOW!!!
The worst of the worst sound is MP3. MP3 is so "Pinched", one dimentional sounding and shrill on the ears as to be compairable to someone writing on a chockboard. The format is completely unlistenable. When I first bought my ipod and heard the playback in MP3, I was so disillusioned by it that I almost gave my iPOD away to my nephew. When I 'pissed and moaned' about the sound quality to an Apple store employee, he gave me a look like someone just dug me out of the icepack and said "Dude, like, you KNOW you can record songs in AAC, WAV. and AIFF if you don't like the way MP3 sounds. Also, have you tried Apple Lossless?!!!" I went home, re-read my iPod manual and threw it against the wall---the manual doesn't talk about formats.
AAC: Way above MP3 but it is still not CD Quality. The good news is that AAC is listenable, i.e., it sounds like a good cassette tape recording. But it's not as good as the other formats.
APPLE LOSSLESS: (ALE) APPLE LOSSLESS sounds better than AAC but only marginally so. To my ears, it's like using a Metal cassette over Chrome---the highs sound better but the base is too thin and the mids are non existant.
AIFF: This is the most tolerable format next to WAV. files. The problem is that it is almost as space hungry as WAV. files. My 20 GIG iPOD is 3/4s filled (16Gig) with only 336 songs and 336 songs get mighty boring after two weeks' intense play. If an LP/CD holds 20 songs approximately, that means you are restricted to hearing 20 LPs/CDs worth of material OVER AND OVER.
WAV. WAV. files sound the best but damn if they don't suck up space. At 10 MEGs per minute of music, you are gigable after only a few songs. I truely pitty the iPOD mini people with their piddly 4GIGs. THey have what, a couple of singles to carry around at best. Well, there you have it!!!