What is the smallest and best digital audio format (i.e not mp3)?

[dcpsoguy]

What is the smallest and highest quality digital audio format? I don't care if it is old or new, I just want to know the smallest digital audio format, other than .MP3.

Ogg Vorbis?

Thanks in advance.

 

A lot of people like Ogg Vorbis, and I've heard some good things about somehting called Monkey Audio I think. They won't work well if what you've got is already mp3 though - mp3 is lossy and the others aren't.

 

[dcpsoguy]

Woah, I just compressed a WAV file into monkey's audio, and the resulting APE file was 12 MB. Compared to the original 29MB Wav file, and a 2.5MB MP3 encoded with LAME VBR at 60% quality.

Is this how .APE compresses? If so, it is terrible.

 

[Pepsi90919]

it's CD quality, it's not terrible at all.

 

[her209]

We all know RealPlayer is the best.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Actually Ogg Vorbis is lossy just like MP3 and WMA. Monkey's Audio and FLAC are lossless but only about 40-45% smaller than raw CD audio / WAV files (i.e. they're huge).

But as you say, once a file is already MP3 re-encoding it as anything else that is lossy (including a smaller MP3) will degrade the sound quality still further.

For ripping from your own CDs, WMA is supposedly a little better than MP3 now at low bitrates (64-128 kbps) for those that don't mind radio-quality sound.

 

[Supermercado]

Ogg is good. MPC is also good. I know more about Ogg and basically, with a filesize the same as an MP3, you get a better-sounding file. I'm pretty sure MPC is similiar (you have to download an MPC codec to be able to play MPC in Winamp, though. Oggs are playable by default after version 2.80 or 2.81). Neither is completely lossless, but both are good alternatives to MP3.

 

[Sid59]

Originally posted by: dcpsoguy
Woah, I just compressed a WAV file into monkey's audio, and the resulting APE file was 12 MB. Compared to the original 29MB Wav file, and a 2.5MB MP3 encoded with LAME VBR at 60% quality.

Is this how .APE compresses? If so, it is terrible.

APE is lossless.. meaning when you uncompress it, it's EXACTLY the same, bit for bit .. that's why it only smashes it down so much.

OGG and mp3 and wma are lossy. They cut out bits that are inaudible to the ear so it saves space when you compress it. When you decode an mp3, the resulting wav is different than the original wav.

 

[Ameesh]

cornoa is the best hands down, all you haters need to stop

 

[DaveSimmons]

Originally posted by: Ameesh
cornoa is the best hands down, all you haters need to stop

You mean WMP9 right? like I said, better than MP3 at low bitrates. Open to debate at 234 kbps VBR.

For true CD quality (but with only about 40% compression) FLAC is a little better than Monkey or WMP9 since the code is open source and cross-platform, and even used in some hardware devices. Of course a 200 GB drive will only fit about 600 FLAC-compressed CDs, so it's only for people that really care about sound quality.