“MP3 is dead” missed the real, much better story. MP3 is supported by everything, everywhere, and is now patent-free.

marco.org “MP3 is dead” missed the real, much better story – Marco.org

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"MP3 is dead" missed the real, much better story (2017)

marco.org /2017/05/15/mp3-isnt-dead

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Much like GIFs, MP3s will never go away.
Sure there are better alternatives, but widespread adoption over decades now is hard to gloss over.
- Not being encumbered by patents is a huge advantage for MP3s going forward, and the reality is that MP3 is good enough for vast majority of situations. The improvements newer formats like AAC bring are not worth the trouble of being chained to a proprietary format.
  
  There's always Opus.
  
  AAC-LC is patent free too nowadays (not HE-AAC, but that's mainly useful for low-bitrate stuff).
- Same with H264. I still have trouble getting H265 videos to play on all devices, so it's easier to stay with 264.
  
  Pretty much everything plays AAC though (unless it's some cheap mp3 player)
- So long as people use high bitrates, I'm fine with that.
  
  What is considered a high bitrate? There isn't much reason to go higher than 320 kb/s on an mp3.
  
  Basically it goes a little like this... I bounce out a song as a WAV, and then convert it to a 320 MP3 using iTunes. iTunes compresses very well (imo), and so if you compare that WAV with that 320, they will sound practically identical. I then take that 320 and Convert it to 128 in iTunes. The sound is STILL practically identical. (Because it is a good 128.) There may be a little rolloff around 8-10k (super high end) but it's more of a "sound change" than a "degradation". This conception that 128's are drastically inferior to 320's mostly comes from 1. people reading bullshit on the internet, & 2. people downloading BAD 128's!!!! Seriously. Not every WAV is equal, not every 320 is equal. I could take something at 92 KBPS and rebounce it as a WAV. does that make it a lossless audio file? Fuck no. Who knows how many times it' been downconverted/upconverted etc. Just because you downloaded a rip on /xtrill and its a 128 and it sounds bad doesn't mean 128's sound bad. Just because the apple I bought was rotten doesn't mean all apples taste awful. Basically if I listen to a song and it sounds good, I will play it. People knock me for playing 128's and I'm just like... If I can't tell the difference, then neither can you. And the bit about playing it on big systems and it sounding like shit is also a load of crap. TL;DR: If it sounds good on good headphones, play it. (That said, anything below 128 and you will notice audio quality deteriorate VERY quickly.)
- As someone who grew up with mp3 and is currently replacing it with opus, o7
  (IK theres flac, but bruh...storage is expensive and my equipment isn't like state of the art)
  
  I did the same. Faced a problem where mp3 and opus replaygain tags follow different spec (replaygain calculators for some reason use R128_ tags for opus files for some reason) and some players don't support it yet. Apart from that there haven't been issues.
- And MP3s are perfectly adequate for most applications.

The duration of software patents is completely absurd and in a just society would immediately be halved. That said, at any possible point I have totally ditched this ancient technology in favor of the vastly superior Opus.
Edit: just noticed this was published in 2017, which makes much more sense with my understanding of when mp3 was developed.
- "Halved?" No. There should not be software patents. They are good for nothing.
  
  You can theoretically extend that logic to any patent. However this only works in a world that's not profit-centric.
- I would totally switch to OPUS as soon as it supports embedding album art.
  
  ~~What's the use case for that? Would mkv solve your need?~~
  What you ask for already exists.
  https://opus-codec.org/docs/opus-tools/opusenc.html
  
  Iirc that's an issue with ffmpeg. Opus itself can do that. I also stumbled upon that once.

Maybe apps will finally feel free to bundle LAME instead of forcing you to download it externally!
- I downloaded Audacity on a friends Windows PC yesterday, and it allowed me to export MP3 without asking for any other steps!
  From Audacity's website:
  FAQ:Installing the LAME MP3 Encoder
  The software patent on LAME encoding library has expired, so now the LAME library for MP3 export is built-in with Audacity for Windows and Mac. Linux users will still need to download and install the free and recommended LAME third-party encoder to export MP3 files from Audacity.
  Linux users should use the following instructions to download and install the free and recommended LAME third-party encoder to export MP3 files with Audacity.
  Windows: LAME is now built-in with Audacity for Windows.
  Mac: LAME is now built-in with Audacity for Mac.
  Linux/Unix: See the LAME installation section on Installing and updating Audacity on Linux.
- Oh man, I remember my early struggles with EAC as a teen.

flac is my standard go to anyway. If I need to move music to a more limited storage medium, flac->mp3 is where it's at.
- This is mostly how I operate, too. Keep it in FLAC so I always have something to go back to.
  But if I ever need a USB stick to play in the car, I'm just going MP3 and not thinking twice about it. I know every car that plays from USB is going to play MP3 just fine.

Remember, 320 kbps is the only mp3 format you are allowed to use. 256kbps if you really really have too, but dont go below that or I will personally hunt you and lecture you on audio quality until you can only listen to uncompressed audio. Dont make me do it.

I use M4A but I'm not sure if it matters much.

MP3 is my go-to when traveling. Especially if I don't have mobile data or Wi-Fi

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