First of all, I must say that I thought AAC was an exclusive Mac audio format, so I did not pay much attention to it, but since I discovered AAC it is equal to MP4, I felt curious about it... so:
Have you tried it?
What are your impressions?
Does it worth to convert my whole MP3 collection to MP4?
OGG, MP3PRO or MP4?
Please bring some light to this ignorant...
Ok, some people obviously dont get this, so I shall enlighten you. 
You are calling AAC MP4 in the way that AAC=Mpeg 4,
now, you call MP3 in this same naming system, when MP3 does not = Mpeg 3,
MP3 is actually MPEG-1 , its just LAYER 3 of that format.
And its not like just because AAC has a higher number, its better. I cant say whether it is or isnt, because I havent heard too much of it.
So in conclusion, if you call AAC MP4, please call MP3, "MP1", just as not to confuse (many) people. Or just call it AAC, and don't buy into the propoganda.
Sorry, thats just a pet peeve of mine, they did that on "The Screen Savers" for like 10 minutes, and I almost smashed my TV. 
I like OGG at Variable Bitrate, for my (not professional) ears, it gives me the best sound quality for compression rate. And of course, its an open source format (unlike MP3,aac), so thats always good.
PS. Dont convert one compressed audio format to another, you get one crappy sounding song, always rip it from the CD.
OMG constrasutra, do you feel the need to correct everyone (No offence)? LOL you need to take a major chill pill (not a referance to a drug).
OK, it was worth it converting MP3 to MP4 (aac, mp4, m4a (thier about the same))
I dont have any CDs To rip them from... I think thats what a lot of people want to do is convert thier existing Mp3s to MP4...
1. If your source audio is OGG then you need to get the Nero OGG plugin somewhere...
2. Get the recent version of Nero (over 5.5.10.0)
3. After installing Nero, Click on the Extras menu at the top and click file encoding, Yull get it pretty easily its very stright forward, Nero preserves File names even with multiple files.
Nero is a good tool to have even if you dont have a CD burner, its easy and wonderful, of coarce yull need to buy the MP4 encoder DLL from nero if have more than 50 mp3s you have to encode.
Nero will rip CDs to Mp4 too..
1. Click the view menu and click on save track w/ your audio CD in the drive, you can select them all and the out put directory... the only bad thing is your going to have to rename the encoded files...
Contrasutra is correct. MP3 is short for MPEG 1 layer 3. And it really isn't a good idea to convert from MP3 to another compressed format.I believe almost all audio compression formats are "lossy" meaning portions of the data are removed from the original to compress it. When you convert, more portions of the data are lost so the quality isn't going to be as good as from where it came from.
@contrasutra: thanks for the explanation, as you can see I was a bit misinformed about this.
@ihartmacz: I have learned a lot from contrasutra's corrections, so I don't mind it at all. Besides, I ask someone to enlighten me :canadian:
@GameBoyzGB: sorry, I didn't mean to convert my MP1 Layer-III ( ) audio files to AAC/MP4, but to choose this format as my default from now on. My bad.
Does not exist a little controversy about this? In one hand, Apple and AOL are trying to impulse this audio format stating that it is a step forward in quality/compression rate but, on the other hand, I remember an article at Macnn said AAC was nor as wonderful as it seemed...
GameBoyzGB - Not strictly true, there do exist lossless compression algorithms, but these aren't usually very popular with non-audiophiles because of the amount of extra space they take compared with lossy compression - the benifits gained aren't often worth the price (in space used) that you pay.
Two fairly commonly known lossless formats are Windows Media 9 Lossless (look in the "Format" dropdown of the "Copy Music" tab of Windows Media Player 9), and FLAC. Both are mathematically lossless, and therefore can replicate the quality of the original source audio (data transmission/recording errors notwithstanding).
To be honest, the difference between AAC and MP3, in terms of size is noticeable, but we're talking about a couple of megabytes, max, here... As for quality, the maximum quality of MP3/AAC is near enough to the original source in most cases that professional audio testing peoples can't tell the difference for listening-only purposes...
At the end of the day, it's whatever floats your boat. I, personally, use MP3 because I like Windows Media Player as a player, but prefer something like CDex as a ripper in terms of speed and ease of use.
The main advantage of AAC over MP3, however, is that AAC is based on a widely available, free standard, whereas MP3 is owned by someone (I forget who, at the moment), and so the owners of the patents for the MP3 encoding algorithm could (like they have repeatedly threatened) make people pay to use the MP3 format. This won't happen with AAC, though...
Ok, now I'll shut up.
Its ok Ender, most people thought that AAC was simply a better MP3, because thats all Apple has been saying. Its not you I was mad at,but more at Apple's propaganda.
Stevie is mostly right, both formats, with high enough bitrates can replicate cds to an indistinguishable difference.
But you are wrong in saying AAC is open. Its just as closed as MP3. Apple and a few other large companies (Sony I believe) own the patents to it.
The only real competitive open audio format is of course, OGG, which is one of the reasons I use it.
You guys should also listen to FLAC, I encoded some of my stuff in that, and it sounds amazing, and the file size isnt that bad (compared to wav). Still isn't good for your whole collection though.
Sorry contra, my bad...
I agree with regards to FLAC - t'is awesome.
I'm thinking about building a FLAC plugin for WMP (unless anyone knows of one that's currently out there ) so that I can use my favourite player with the best damn' music... And it's an excuse for me to use the WMP9 SDK for something other than a virtual doorstop...
Then I'll be re-ripping and encoding all of my music into FLAC format... Oh joy! I really do love ripping 600 CDs of music. Honest 
Stevie, I knew about those. As you can see in my previous statement, I said "almost all". The word "almost" definitely doesn't mean everything. I just didn't want to go into details then. 
GameboyzGB, my bad... I was only reading half-heartedly, and so didn't take note of the "almost all".
:bow:
Like in another topic i stated,
I have "Hail to the Thief" (Radiohead's new CD) wich i listened 12 times already on AAC and about 20 times on MP3 when it was not out there....
Well the mp3 were in 192kbs and the AAC in 128kbs, since i also happen to be a audiophile, infected by my dad...
It f*ck*n rocks on a set of B&W 820 speakers the mp3 is glued to your speakers where the AAC indead enters the room and leaves your speakers.
AAC is the way to go from here (MP3)
Cheers!
Actually, I've been researching and learning about AAC for a while now, because I got the new iPod. I'm not heavily into the coding of it all and the layering, but I do know the main stuff about AAC.
Basically AAC kicks MP3 ass in terms of quality and size. I do have good listening ears and I could not tell the difference between the original wave and aac encoded at 192kbps. They say 128kbps aac is indistiguishable from the original also. I have not done actual audio tests myself, but the iTunes Music Store music sounds pretty good, so it probably pretty close. When you talk about matching uncompressed quality to an mp3, you have to really pump up the bit rate. I can tell the difference between an mp3 encoded at 256kbps and the original uncompressed wave. Its astounding how much better quality AAC is compared to mp3. I say if you have a music library of mp3, definitly make the switch.
Its not just for Macs at all. There are some generic encoders out there. Pystel is one of them. If you have such a large library that you dont feel like re-encoding from the original uncompressed audio, I still strongly suggest converting your mp3 library to aac, because you wont get better sound quality, you will save heeps of space by simply converting your mp3's to aac's at a lower bit rate. For instance if you have a library of mp3's encoded at 192 or 256, you can convert them to aac and encode them at 128kbps and still attain the same quality you did with your mp3's converted at much higher bit rates.
But, hey, its up to you. You may not want to make the leap into the future of audio compression yet. But, I'm telling you, AAC is where its at and where its going.
Does AAC do variable Bitrate and 5 channel sound? I dont know, but VBR is the best way to do things in any format. It provides the EXACT same quality as normal bitrate, but it eats up much less space.
I still encourage any non-macers to try OGG along w/ AAC and see which one you like, its not all black and white like the Appleets make it seem.
Nero did a wonderfull job converting my Mp3s at 192 Kbs to 256 Kbs AAC.
I wanna hack the Aac DLL so i cansave as aac or m4a not mp4, i dont like the extention mp4
Yeah, Windows relies on File extensions too much, that why I love the wonderful world of linux. It doesnt matter what I name my file, its always identifiable.
Not to be anal, but why did you convert your mp3s to aac? You only get a WORSE file, NEVER a better one. As people have said, its a lossy format, so bits are actually being deleted, converting doesnt magically add these bits back, it just removed even more.
Sorry, im in a bad mood for apple propoganda.
@constrasutra :boob_shake: Nero takes up killer recources... It does sound awesome though, but you made a good point... Ill have to record from my CDs..
I dont think Windows relies on extentions as much as we think.. I mean you drag ive draged files w/out extentions into WMP before and it played..
It does sound awesome though
Sorry to be anal, but are you refering to your converted Music. Because this is the propoganda ive been ranting about. You are only getting worse Audio, not better. You only think it sounds better b/c of the surrounding propoganda, but in reality, I guarantee its worse.
If you were reffering to aac files ripped from CD, ignore me, im an idiot.
You're right, some files it doesnt matter about the extension, but others it does. For example a .bat, .ini and .txt can all have the exact same text, but can function in very different ways. In contrast, in linux I can write a shell script, and then dump it into a .txt , .ini, .script or whatever I want, and the file will still perform the same function. This way is better, because it allows automation, and doesn't rely on the (stupid) human to know what a file is.
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