Play m4a files on Windows 7

stephen barncard stephenREVOLUTION2 at barncard.com
Sat Aug 13 20:40:31 EDT 2016


OK  hold on a minute. I sense some inaccurate reporting here.... time for
me to step in...

if one is comparing m4a to mp3, we have  apples and oranges here. Comparing
by rate numbers doesn't take into consideration the efficiency of m4a.
It's not just for 'audiophiles' - that's a misconception. It's an
improvement across the board, that can be used flexibly for many
applications.

1.  m4a codecs come in flavors.  What m4a *codec* are you using? "Low
Complexity or LC" creates the smallest, most compatible files.
2.  m4a LC can use half the bit rate compared to mp3 for the same quality:
 64k m4a LC compares or betters quality of 128k mp3
3.  when it comes to converting, copying from one lossy format to another
will ALWAYS degrade the audio, as opposed to WAV or AIF

I've been working with audio compression for the web since the mid-90s, and
have been in personal contact with one of the guys that invented the
algorithms ...

btw the Fraunhofer institute holds the patents on both mp3 and m4a ....

sqb




On Sat, Aug 13, 2016 at 4:03 PM, Sannyasin Brahmanathaswami <
brahma at hindu.org> wrote:

> We have had this m4a vs mp3 discussion in house for years… the m4a man
> typically is an audiophile that uses settings that are entirely unnecessary
> for average listener (we do a lot of voice)… sure, if it were orchestral
> music… but it's not.  I go ahead and produce an MP3 file of the same file
> with a *smaller* file size than the m4a file(s) and no one can tell the
> difference.
>
> BR
>



Stephen Barncard - Sebastopol Ca. USA -
mixstream.org



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