4 ms·

> MP3 is obsolete What should we be using instead for lossy audio?

by dleslie 5y ago

Synaesthesia 5y ago
AAC is far superior, as is OGG, on a technical basis
- rwmj 5y ago
  On the basis of "can it play in my car", MP3 is the only winner. My car's player has one of those baseline decoding chips that can only do MP3.
  - LinAGKar 5y ago
    That's true, MP3 is by far the most widely supported lossy audio format (except presumably MP1/MP2, since MP3 decoders have to support them), so it will live on for a long time, although Opus is the best one nowadays. Just like with PNG and JPEG for images, which will live on for a long time even though we have WebP, AVIF and JPEG XL. And AVC will probably live on for a long time even though we have HEVC, VP9 and AV1.
  - herbst 5y ago
    Same here. And it doesn't even do that very well. Imagine spending 15k or more on a brand new car in 2021 just to realize that the sound tech is borrowed from a $5 MP3 player from the early 2000s.
    - rwmj 5y ago
      Almost exactly the same situation as me. The worst part of it is it doesn't sort the directory entries! It displays them in the same order they are written to the directory (ie. usually random). Luckily there is https://fatsort.sourceforge.io/ https://fatsort.sourceforge.io/
    - dleslie 5y ago
      This is why I prefer cars where the stereo is replaceable.
  - thaumasiotes 5y ago
    I mean, what I want is for the car to have an audio input that I plug a cable into. There's no reason for the car to be decoding audio at all.
    - rwmj 5y ago
      "Now you have two problems." Specifically the steering wheel controls won't work and I'd have to deal with charging the second device.
      - mechanical_bear 5y ago
        My controls work even when I use the aux cable.
jchw 5y ago
The current state of the art is Opus, but HE-AAC is also superior, and then there’s always the appeal of lossless which is a lot more practical than it once was.
- hulitu 5y ago
  A format which cannot deliver quality is not state of the art. Opus is the Internet Explorer 6 of musical and video formats.
  - jchw 5y ago
    Are you mixing up Opus with something else? By many metrics, it is better at delivering quality than just about any other lossy audio codec.
  - Thorrez 5y ago
    Opus is an audio format, not a video format. Opus is better than MP3. Wouldn't MP3 actually be the Internet Explorer 6 of audio formats? https://sound.stackexchange.com/questions/26167/opus-vs-mp3-size-quality-comparison https://sound.stackexchange.com/questions/26167/opus-vs-mp3-...
  - bjoli 5y ago
    What on earh are you talking about? For lossy formats, there is currently nothing better than opus in actual use.
- LinAGKar 5y ago
  HE-AAC is only useful at low bitrates though (below 64 kb/s), and supposedly never reaches transparency. Above that, you should use AAC-LC (or, of course, Opus if you can). Vorbis is also notable as a better format than MP3, although that too is made obsolete by Opus.

> MP3 is obsolete What should we be using instead for lossy audio?

Synaesthesia 5y ago

AAC is far superior, as is OGG, on a technical basis

rwmj 5y ago
On the basis of "can it play in my car", MP3 is the only winner. My car's player has one of those baseline decoding chips that can only do MP3.
- LinAGKar 5y ago
  That's true, MP3 is by far the most widely supported lossy audio format (except presumably MP1/MP2, since MP3 decoders have to support them), so it will live on for a long time, although Opus is the best one nowadays. Just like with PNG and JPEG for images, which will live on for a long time even though we have WebP, AVIF and JPEG XL. And AVC will probably live on for a long time even though we have HEVC, VP9 and AV1.
- herbst 5y ago
  Same here. And it doesn't even do that very well. Imagine spending 15k or more on a brand new car in 2021 just to realize that the sound tech is borrowed from a $5 MP3 player from the early 2000s.
  - rwmj 5y ago
    Almost exactly the same situation as me. The worst part of it is it doesn't sort the directory entries! It displays them in the same order they are written to the directory (ie. usually random). Luckily there is https://fatsort.sourceforge.io/ https://fatsort.sourceforge.io/
  - dleslie 5y ago
    This is why I prefer cars where the stereo is replaceable.
- thaumasiotes 5y ago
  I mean, what I want is for the car to have an audio input that I plug a cable into. There's no reason for the car to be decoding audio at all.
  - rwmj 5y ago
    "Now you have two problems." Specifically the steering wheel controls won't work and I'd have to deal with charging the second device.
    - mechanical_bear 5y ago
      My controls work even when I use the aux cable.

jchw 5y ago

The current state of the art is Opus, but HE-AAC is also superior, and then there’s always the appeal of lossless which is a lot more practical than it once was.

hulitu 5y ago
A format which cannot deliver quality is not state of the art. Opus is the Internet Explorer 6 of musical and video formats.
- jchw 5y ago
  Are you mixing up Opus with something else? By many metrics, it is better at delivering quality than just about any other lossy audio codec.
- Thorrez 5y ago
  Opus is an audio format, not a video format. Opus is better than MP3. Wouldn't MP3 actually be the Internet Explorer 6 of audio formats? https://sound.stackexchange.com/questions/26167/opus-vs-mp3-size-quality-comparison https://sound.stackexchange.com/questions/26167/opus-vs-mp3-...
- bjoli 5y ago
  What on earh are you talking about? For lossy formats, there is currently nothing better than opus in actual use.
LinAGKar 5y ago
HE-AAC is only useful at low bitrates though (below 64 kb/s), and supposedly never reaches transparency. Above that, you should use AAC-LC (or, of course, Opus if you can). Vorbis is also notable as a better format than MP3, although that too is made obsolete by Opus.