MP3 vs AAC vs FLAC vs CD

John Atkinson, the longtime editor of Stereophile magazine, wrote an interesting piece comparing MP3 vs AAC vs FLAC vs CD. John is known for providing spectral analysis to the equipment that gets reviewed in the pages of the magazine, which shows the coloration given to the sound coming from a specific piece of equipment. In that vein, he takes a look at how the encoding of CD sound into MP3, AAC, and FLAC compares.

He can quickly assert that FLAC, Apple Lossless, and Windows Media Lossless are all mathematically and sonically identical to the original recording on the CD. The simple point of the article is that lossy formats such as MP3 and AAC have problems with the reproduction of the music. The noise floor is much higher, and there are various sweeps of noise that wasn’t there before.

If you look at the graphs on the second page of the article, you’ll see though, that of the lossy formats, the best of breed is 320 Kbps AAC. I wrote last month that I couldn’t hear the difference between 320 Kbps AAC files and the CD, and John Atkinson basically agrees.

So the best formats to use are the lossless ones, in case you were wondering, but if space is an issue, then use 320 Kbps AAC. MP3 comes from the MPEG-1 codec and AAC comes from the MPEG-4 codec, so the takeaway lesson is avoid MP3 if possible, even 320 Kbps MP3. It simply doesn’t compare.

Of course, you could also buy a turntable, and forget the digital jargon.