Lasse Penttinen
24 May 2004 12:42
Open source projects put commercial products into shame in the recent 128kbps multi format listening test. The surprise winner of the test is an up-tuned version of the OGG Vorbis codec. The result clearly shows that the format has potential, if someone just bothers to have a good look at it. Musepack continues to show impressive performance, even though it is considered perform optimally when slightly higher bitrates are used.
Apple iTunes is possibly the best AAC implementation available, but LAME MP3 encoder still managed to give a hard time in the competition! This shows that MP3 as a format is far from being outdated and that the LAME project has been doing some excellent work in pushing the old codec further.
Atrac3 by the consumer electronic giant Sony was just crushed in this comparison. Sony has originally developed the Atrac codecs for the MiniDisc players. Microsoft's WMA scored the second lowest points in this test and one has to wonder why anyone should use this format.