There are so many different audio formats and players that work with the PortableApps Platform... and I'm not quite sure which I should choose! How exactly do all the different player apps compare; and, especially compared to proprietary formats like mp3s, what differences are there between the multiple free formats that are supported by them?
New: System Informer (Apr 21, 2024), Platform 29.5 (Apr 24, 2024)
1,000+ portable packages, 1.1 billion downloads
Please donate today
Visit the Community page
Join our forums
Subscribe to our email newsletter
Subscribe with RSS
Follow us on Facebook
Follow us on LinkedIn
Follow us on Twitter
Follow us on Mastodon
Follow us on BlueSky
Best lossy format is AAC. Best lossless is either FLAC or Monkey's Audio (depends on your needs). If you want only 100% free (as in speech) codecs, use Vorbis for lossy or FLAC for lossless.
My personal favorite player is foobar2000, but it's generally a matter of preference rather than one being better than another.
Vintage!
I definitely wouldn't suggest AAC as most players don't support it. MP3 is the de facto standard and, with the proper encoder (LAME for example) and VBR settings, is pretty much indistinguishable from uncompressed.
As you mentioned, OGG is a great alternative that is 100% free and can best both MP3 and AAC with the proper settings and encoder. It isn't supported by most hardware audio players, though.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
Hardware players maybe, but any decent software player supports it. MP3 is outdated and is still popular because AAC and Ogg have yet to be widely known and supported, especially among hardware players.
I highly doubt any Ogg encoder would beat Nero's AAC encoder. Feel free to prove me wrong and I'll switch, but AFAIK, Ogg is still not as good as AAC.
Vintage!
I think it's widely known that MP3 is no longer the best audio compression technique (and hasn't been for some time). However, just as VHS was inferior to BetaMax, and Sony's MiniDisc was probably one of the best recordable mediums on the planet ever, it all comes down to money and marketing.
MP3's have been pushed in everybody's faces and now even the uncoolest of "rents" know what an MP3 is. It's just so ubiquitous that it's going to take something pretty darn amazing to make it go away.
Not all software players support it. AAC decoding can't be done without a license, which is why many free and open source software players do not support it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Audio_Coding#Licensing_and_patents
I'm pretty sure the Songbird folks pay for a license (so Songbird supports it). The CoolPlayer developers don't, so CoolPlayer+ Portable doesn't (it does play MP3, OGG and FLAC). [There is a third-party AAC plugin for CoolPlayer that isn't open source and is of questionable legality.]
Most people just have a format they like without having tested it themselves. If you've done ABX testing yourself double-blind, then I'll take you at your word. Most ABX testing I've seen shows people preferring OGG when the bitrates are identical and around the typical of 180-192:
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=36465
The problem is some encoders tend to cheat and up the bitrate a bit from what they should be. And unless you're comparing apples to apples (ie, the exact same or very, very close bitrates) then one has an advantage.
When using very high bitrates, most people can't tell the difference.
Most audiophiles use FLAC (or uncompressed audio), which is the best if you have no worries about space.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
Open-source programs like VLC, MPlayer and XMMS have no problem with AAC since they use FAAD2 to decode, which is licensed under the GPL. ffdshow uses FAAD2 as well, making all DirectShow-based players able to decode AAC. AFAIK, almost all freeware players support it too. I think problems arise when extensions are used (I don't have problems with HE-AAC decoded via FAAD2, but I'm not sure about HE-AACv2).
That test link you gave is to a post that is nearly 4½ years old (last edit is August 31, 2005). Honestly, I haven't done much testing or research with Ogg, but encoders (for all formats) have improved a lot since then, so I'm not going to trust those results.
I think we can agree on FLAC for lossless. Its speed and compatibility give it the edge over its only real competitor, Monkey's Audio, for most people. I see no point to uncompressed audio when FLAC is so readily available and can almost always provide a significant reduction in size.
Vintage!
While the code is licensed under the GPL, that doesn't mean they aren't still protected by patents (which are being infringed by them in most countries). So while FAAD2 is free and open source, it's technically illegal to distribute it in the US, most of Europe, etc, and if you're gonna put it in a product and sell it... or a free product that you make ad revenue off of, you're probably gonna get sued.
I doubt the encoders have changed too much as a ton of research and tweaking done on them in the early 00s before that survey. I don't know of any huge strides in any of those encoders since then. The formats remain unchanged. If you do another ABX, I think you'll find similar results.
Either way the point is basically moot today as you're gonna be encoding them at 200+ VBR at which point they're all indistinguishable. In which case your best choice is MP3 for ubiquity (it works on absolutely every software and hardware device and probably always will) or OGG for freedom (no patents or licensing issues, all open source happiness).
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
How has VideoLAN been able to do it? VLC binaries with AAC support are available for download on servers in the US.
Not everyone encodes at such a high bitrate. I personally take advantage of the fact that AAC does a very good job at around 130kbps (I encode with Nero's encoder at -q 0.4 for music, which is usually around that bitrate). Even at -q 0.3, it does extremely well.
You can argue for Ogg because it's patent and restriction-free and because of its efficiency (I make no comment on its efficiency against AAC, but I'm sure it's better than MP3), but I see absolutely no reason to favor MP3 for reasons other than compatibility with hardware players. There are plenty of free (some as in beer, some as in speech) players for Windows, Mac and Linux that support AAC and Ogg. Support for AAC in hardware players is growing (I love that my PSP plays AAC!), so MP3 is losing ground.
Vintage!
They just haven't been called on it.
AAC requires a license for decoders and encoders in software and hardware whether free or not. MP3 does as well, but Fraunhofer basically decided to let it slide on the software side for decoding (though encoding requires it... which is why LAME is illegal in most countries). They do still require hardware decoders to have a license.
But generally, if it's a software decoder and is free, none of them care because it creates a larger market for their format. They raise a stink when it's an encoder, even free, because it competes with licensees (see LAME).
Personally, I still have most of my stuff in MP3. It's encoded VBR at high enough bitrate that it is basically indistinguishable from the uncompressed files even with my Grados. It works with everything. And size isn't an issue in terms of 4MB for a song vs 5MB for me anyway.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
XMPlay (Portable) for a lightweight audio player. Songbird (Portable) for a full jukebox experience with built in web browser. Both applications have a healthy range of skins as well.
Hope that helps
PortableApps.com Advocate
Another shout out for XMPlay play and MP3s. Has one of the best decoders/sound engines I've heard, better than Winamp or anything else you can throw at it. If you don't need the full media manager experience of SongBird, then XMPlay should be it. Also, It plays approximately about a bazillion different audio formats.
XMPlay is my 2nd favorite player. To me, it's like a light version of foobar2000. It does its main job very well, but doesn't have a lot of fancy features like fb2k (which of course makes it very lightweight).
Vintage!
for players I use VLC as it plays almost everything.
The best camera you can have is the one that you have when you need it. So you can have this nice SLR at home, but if you have a disposable 35mm camera and a UFO lands right in front of you, and aliens are coming out, guess which camera you're going to prefer? The one taking the pictures, which is that disposable in your hand -- not the SLR you can't reach before the aliens leave.
I've been ripping my CDs to Mp3 for years. And not even with the best settings. For the longest time, just 128k CBR. Nothing fancy. Sounds good enough for my ears. And everything plays them.
For me to adopt a new standard, I would have to re-rip the CDs I still have. I lost a lot when I moved, so a lot of them are going to stay in Mp3 format anyway. Then I would need a player that supports the new format. Because there isn't a media player worth mentioning that can't play Mp3s. Unless it's a regular old CD player, but many of those now support Mp3. I'm even seeing car stereos with SD slots and/or USB ports for Mp3 playback on SD cards and flash drives. None of these devices support OGG or AAC, so whatever their advantages, the disadvantage is limited playback.
I have about a dozen albums in WMA on my Xbox 360, but I don't care about that, because that's the only device that can play them. Maybe if I plug a Zune up to it, I can move stuff back and forth (I don't know) but that's different, that's just some music I specifically put on my 360 when my computer was down.
As for the best media player, my favorite is still Winamp 2.91.
Best lossless format, when ignoring hardware-support in media-players, is
http://www.wavpack.com/
It has the best compression-ratio and supports "hybrid files"
where you make a small, lossy file about the size of a mp3 and a "correction-file"
containing all the music mp3 doesn't think the human ear can hear .
The best player is any player that plays the file-types you use and has a UI
that doesn't make you cry.
The best playback-device is anything that can be rock-boxed so you can play
music in a format that doesn't make the MAFIAA rich every time it's used .
There's no such things like "best" when we are talking about media players and/or media formats. Pick the one which is the best for your very own needs.
If you're an audiophile-like person, I would suggest some uncompressed format, like vanilla wave or FLAC - be prepared for the storage requirements (600..700 MB's per album in wave, 200..300 MB's per album in FLAC.
If you're just listening music for fun or for work (like me), some lossy format should be enough, like MP3's encoded with variable bitrate.
I you're using Mac, you are probably obsessed with iTunes or something similar, like Songbird. Personally I'm using foobar2000, good enough for me, or XMPlay.