MP3 vs. AAC - Which is better?

[Park Seward]

Here is a link for some listening tests done by Gunnar Van Vliet to compare the two compressed formats.

http://recordstorereview.com/misc/aacmp3.shtml

[Slim Shady]

Hey Park, I didn't try your link, but I did recently do an extensive listening test with me and 3 friends comparing the 2 formats. We all agreed that AAC beats the pants off of MP3 files at the same bit rate. Even MP3/320 files have a muddy, collapsed quality to them, wheras the only noticable difference we heard from AAC/320 and AIFF source was that the AAC seemed to be a bit louder (they must be using a bit of dynamic compression in their codec). The differences were most noticable on classical music, mainly things like choral works where there is a lot of airy reverb contrasted with strong sibilant vocal sounds. AAC 192 actually sounded pretty good on most Pop/Rock/Rap material, with just a slight collapsing of the stereo field and a tiny tiny high end roll-off. The 128 AAC that the iTunes store uses though is really not worth 99 cents - if they moved it up to 192kbps, I would consider using it, but 128 exhibits too many artifacts to be considered money worthy in my opinion.

Anyone else tried a comparison yet?

[jimlongo]

I've done comparisons at 128 and 192 and while you can always pick out the AIFF file under critical listening I have yet to hear anything as bad as some of these reviewers can hear.
For my casual listening requirements I am ripping at 192AAC whereas I was using 192mp3 previously. I will pay 99cents for 128AAC and I'm sure as things progress the bitrate will get higher.

imo AAC does sound better than mp3, although I have only used iTunes for encoding and not gone to the trouble that this record store owner has.

I guess the fact that he owns a record store wouldn't be clouding his opinion any?

[KamaSutra77]

im ripping two batches of AAC for my own CD's. A set @ 96 for the "b" side material. And a set @ 128 for my favorties. I didnt find a big difference between native aiff and 96 through in-ear style ipod earphones. I hope to get about 6 thousands songs on my ipod.

[clockface]

Has anyone here compared AAC to LAME encoded MP3's? There's a lot of talk about this on the Apple forums, most people there favor LAME. I've compared a few different variations of LAME and AAC, but haven't noticed much of a difference between the two at comparable bit rates. Any other opinions on the two?