1. This is an 2008 article. Per Guidelines you should put years in the Title.
2. MP3 has improved a lot over its lifetime. LAME was already used for default by year 2000. When people say MP3 was good enough, they refer to MP3 encoded with LAME. ( Rant: When we people learn the codec, encoder and the encoded results are different things? 2023 and I see this mistakes everywhere still )
3. Even iTunes AAC has seen lots improvement since 2008. Especially in the 256Kbps+ Range.
4. And when AAC is mentioned. That is AAC-LC ( Or AAC Main Profile which isn't all that different ). AAC-LC ( Low Complexity ) has been declared as Patent free by RedHat. There is no reason to use MP3 today.
5. The definition of "CD-quality" alike went from MP3 128Kbps to now AAC 256Kbps. And arguably that is true for consumer market. Even Hydrogen audio has repeated these test multiple times.
6. I still prefer the codec MPC, Musepack (https://www.musepack.net). Sorry I just had to write it out. Sadly it never gained any traction.
7. If we have to be picky about frequency range, may be CD itself isn't good enough and we could use SACD?
8. Lossless is making a come back. Storage and Bandwidth cost continues to fall. ( Arguably not true for NAND, but let's ignore that part for now )
9. It is ironic when Lossless could gain and be used mainstream, Wireless earphones are replacing traditional earphones. Meaning your music will be re-encoded before it is sent to your earphone. And No. Most Android or iPhone dont have AAC pass through. i.e Your AAC encoded files will still be re-encoded before sending it your bluetooth earphone.
Hmm. We scold people for breaking guidelines but we don't scold them for not following conventions. We expect commenters to know the guidelines but we don't expect them to know the conventions. Seems different to me!
Back in the early 2000's when I was getting into ripping my collection I didn't have enough space for FLAC so I surveyed the options and Musepack seemed like the obvious lossy codec winner. I still have that collection of .mpc's somewhere.
I think its worth repeating that "cd quality" is a term of art being used here that does not necessarily mean the audio has the quality of a cd (and, as they emphasize, in fact does not). I would dispute that any new standard has taken the helm of "cd quality" - my experience is that such a phrase is never used in describing quality of lossy compression. Most music downloads are either described by their bitrate (so that the listener is left to figure out what these mean), or by labels like "low", "medium", and "high" quality (with the listener left to distinguish whether those are accurate descriptors).
2. MP3 has improved a lot over its lifetime. LAME was already used for default by year 2000. When people say MP3 was good enough, they refer to MP3 encoded with LAME. ( Rant: When we people learn the codec, encoder and the encoded results are different things? 2023 and I see this mistakes everywhere still )
3. Even iTunes AAC has seen lots improvement since 2008. Especially in the 256Kbps+ Range.
4. And when AAC is mentioned. That is AAC-LC ( Or AAC Main Profile which isn't all that different ). AAC-LC ( Low Complexity ) has been declared as Patent free by RedHat. There is no reason to use MP3 today.
5. The definition of "CD-quality" alike went from MP3 128Kbps to now AAC 256Kbps. And arguably that is true for consumer market. Even Hydrogen audio has repeated these test multiple times.
6. I still prefer the codec MPC, Musepack (https://www.musepack.net). Sorry I just had to write it out. Sadly it never gained any traction.
7. If we have to be picky about frequency range, may be CD itself isn't good enough and we could use SACD?
8. Lossless is making a come back. Storage and Bandwidth cost continues to fall. ( Arguably not true for NAND, but let's ignore that part for now )
9. It is ironic when Lossless could gain and be used mainstream, Wireless earphones are replacing traditional earphones. Meaning your music will be re-encoded before it is sent to your earphone. And No. Most Android or iPhone dont have AAC pass through. i.e Your AAC encoded files will still be re-encoded before sending it your bluetooth earphone.