We have always used the lifelong MP3 format to store and share music, at least the vast majority. MP3 as we all know in a lossy audio compression format that saves a lot of space compared to uncompressed PCM audio (As in audio CDs).
But MP3 is not the only one, in fact, it is I think, the oldest format that is currently used today, as good audio formats with loss.
Other formats that came out later are:
* .WMA, * .AAC and * .OGG.
Recently the team xiph.org creator of OGG Vorbis has developed another audio format that I will also briefly talk about: * .OPUS
MP3 was developed by the MPEG foundation in 1994, and the biggest problem it presented was that this format had a patent for which MPEG should be paid for its use (or something like that). This was the reason why for example later the Xiph.org Foundation created the OGG Vorbis open audio format.
Today, the problem of MP3 is no longer the patent (Nowadays people use MP3 with total freedom) but since it is the oldest audio format of those in the comparison, it is the one that generally has the lowest effectiveness.
The effectiveness of one format or another also depends on bitrate among others. For example. The AAC format that uses iTunes at 192 kbps is the best compression format at this bitrate, above MP3 and OGG, but only from this bitrate.
In general, and in my opinion, at 128 kbps which is the most used bit rate and below, the best format is OGG.
The advantage of AAC (In addition to its effectiveness from 192 kbps) for what it uses itunes, is the possibility of including copyright data protection (copying).
However, at low bitrates it can be even worse than MP3.
MP3 and WMA, are in general and for my taste the worst. WMA, which seems to be a little better than MP3, was the second most used audio format in the previous decade (2000-2009). Many discmans and MP3 players were compatible with WMA, today this format is almost never used, it could be said that it has been replaced by AAC (Thanks to the popularity of Itunes).
OGG Vorbis, despite its very low popularity among people, is a very good compression format, and best of all, it is open.
Its high compression quality and open format makes it one of the favorite formats in video game developers, for example: OGG is the format chosen for the music of the GTA videogame saga, including GTA San Andreas.
OGG is also the audio format used in Spotify.
OPUS is the new audio format developed by Xiph.org as a format designed for streaming audio. It is an audio format that combines SILK (skype) codecs for spoken audio and CELT for music (CELT was the audio codec that Xiph.org was developing as a successor to Vorbis). This format is barely a couple of years old, and although it has great efficiency, it is totally focused on streaming and low latency. A great disadvantage of this format despite its effectiveness, is that the sample rate is fixed at 48000 Hz, making if for example we want to convert an audio file to 44100 hz (As in an audio CD and most MP3s) at this new frequency rate, it would have to be rescaled.
I know that it is very difficult to distinguish the quality in songs at 128 kbps, so as proof to compare the effectiveness of the different formats, I attach the song of Bon Jovi – Living on a prayer at 64 kbps in MP3, AAC, OGG formats and OPUS. All occupy almost the same, about 1.80 Mb.
To do this I will convert an original MP3 file at 160 kbps also attached, so the final quality if we converted directly from CD would be a little better maybe.
You can see the comparison yourself. In my opinion the best formats to this bitrate are in order: OPUS, OGG, MP3, AAC. Download at the top.
Did you expect this sound quality from OGG and OPUS in a file of only 1.80 mb?
