Ive heard that not all encoders/codecs give equal quality results. Which encoder/codec is best?
While there is no way to arrive at an absolute answer to “which is the best” the contributors the a.b.s.m.* groups at this time mostly use LAME. There are many places online where you can read technical discussions. Hydrogen audio is one, but the purpose of this document is not to tell you what to do but rather to help you decide what you want to do. In the end, all you can do is either trust your ears or go along with the consensus. There does seem to be more of a clear cut agreement as to which codecs not to use. NOTE: Some people (and many journalists) will rank MP3 encoders based solely on their speed. In the a.b.s.m.* groups, audio-quality at reasonable size is by far the most important factor. When you hear or read information regarding “the best encoder” you should try to determine what factors are being taken into consideration. The quest for the ‘perfect encoder’ seems to be never ending. It seems that certain encoders are better suited for certain types of music and not so mu
http://www.mp3bench.com compares the speed and quality of the different codecs. Even though there are many “encoders” available, some use the same codecs. There is a new encoder available which appears to be producing some stunning results. A quick summary of some basic encoder differences. Some are very fast and some are very slow. As you might expect, the slower ones produce a higher quality MP3. The fastest encoders drop all sound information that occurs above 16kHz. The slowest (and highest quality encoders) are producing results that are nearly identical to the original sound file, apparently all the way up to 22kHz!!
