AAC or MP3

[Peter Gutbrod]

Apple features AAC obviously, but that might be not because of better
quality/compression but because they need a DRM capable file format for
their Music Store.

Slim Devices recommends to use high quality MP3 for their
Slimserver/Squeezebox, as AAC needs much more bandwidth and/or CPU time on
the server to stream de-/recompressed AAC to the client ( Squeezebox or
Soundbridge).

Well, Roku managed to uncompress AAC in the Soundbridge, so there is no
drawback with AAC in compare to MP3 like with Slimserver. What format do
you (Roku or users) prefer to use with the Soundbridge, and why?

Let me start with an argument pro MP3:

Most (all?) MP3-CD/DVD player cannot read AAC files. To make a MP3 CD you
have to convert your selected AAC files to MP3, burn the CD and delete the
MP3 (or have f.e. TOAST make the conversion). That takes much more time and
is not as easy as just burning a CD in iTunes from MP3 tracks.

Peter

[Matt Thomas]

Post by Peter Gutbrod
Most (all?) MP3-CD/DVD player cannot read AAC files. To make a MP3 CD you
have to convert your selected AAC files to MP3, burn the CD and delete the
MP3 (or have f.e. TOAST make the conversion). That takes much more time and
is not as easy as just burning a CD in iTunes from MP3 tracks.

Let me counter with an argument pro AAC:

After ripping my 600+ CDs into Apple Lossless, I find that I can convert
them to AAC at a lesser bitrate than I could at MP3. (1/6 .vs. 1/5 of
the bitrate of the Apple Lossless source. Over my collection, this mean
29GB for AAC and 33GB for MP3. While 4GB may not seem important, to an
iPod user it certainly is.