Sound Quality

[Branch FM]

Hi All

Right I came across an internet station a few weeks ago and noticed the stream was 64k but it sounded like it was 128k It was a true 64k stream but why did this sound so good to be 64k?

If I can find the link to this station I will post it in the replies.

Thanks A
Christian Radio Station

 

[Support]

It could have been in 64kbps AAC format rather than Mp3. AAC provides a higher quality than Mp3 does at the same bitrate. So for example, a 64kbps AAC stream would sound more like a 128kbps Mp3 stream.

 

[Branch FM]

really...so my next question would be. why arn`t we all in ACC rather mp3?

 

[Support]

Mp3 is just generally more user friendly I guess. Some players do not always play nicely with the AAC format, particularly some flash based players.

 

[LG73]

I have two Internet Radio stations. Each one has 2 different bit-rate streams including 64k HE-AACv1 and 180k AAC. I have Flash players for the 64k HE-AACv1 streams and they seem to work well in modern browsers. I've been told by some listeners that the 64k streams sound better than 128k mp3 streams and are very close in quality to the 180k AAC streams.

When I started doing Internet Radio back in Feb 2000 I ran 128k mp3 stereo and it was nice but I noticed issues with limited high-frequency response and weird artifacts in the audio with some program material. It was also useless for mobile listening back then with GPRS connections.

I think mp3 has gone past its "best before date" and isn't a great streaming choice anymore. I haven't found any modern players on any modern platforms that can't play AAC and HE-AAC streams but it's possible some still exist. AAC is a format that continues to develop and improve over time. The newest variant is called xHE-AAC and I've heard very nice sounding demos of 12k xHE-AAC stereo streams. I once test streamed in 8k mp3 stereo and it sounded like the stream was originating from Jupiter! Even at 16k mp3 stereo sounded awful back then and still does.

HE-AACv1 has been a part of the MPEG-4 standard since 2003 so finding a compatible player is pretty easy. For Flash players one cool trick is to use the Icecast-KH streaming server which successfully tricks a Flash player into thinking it's connecting to a Flash server.

Flash probably won't be around too much longer. Getting HTML5 streaming to work with mp3 is a challenge but it's pretty easy with AAC and HE-AAC.

So my answer to your question "why aren't we all in AAC instead of MP3?" would be "there is no good answer, we should all be streaming in AAC formats."


Cheers,
Philip

P.S. If you want to check out my 64k streams, the stations are at http://www.lg73.ca/ and http://www.maxradio.ca/.

 

[Support]

Getting HTML5 streaming to work with mp3 is a challenge but it's pretty easy with AAC and HE-AAC.

We use a HTML5 player here in our directories as the main player which works perfectly with Mp3. Funnily enough though the AAC formats do not always work well with it in some versions of Internet Explorer and Firefox, yet it works fine in Chrome, the new Edge browser and Safari.

 

[General Lighting]

just tried the AAC links on both your sites and I get a blanco page (no player) on Firefox; IE comes up with a player but "invalid source".

Maybe there is some odd difference between browsers in Canada/US and Europe due to patents(?) but this is exactly what all us Europeans are running up against; no matter what you try to put in a AAC stream into the HTML5 player it doesn't work using basic HTML code (which is presumably the whole idea) - whereas MP3 streams do.

This is most likely the main reason why MP3 is holding out for radio streaming - not everyone wants to (or is able to) install a separate app for listening to each radio station they wish to monitor.

Flash probably won't be around too much longer. Getting HTML5 streaming to work with mp3 is a challenge but it's pretty easy with AAC and HE-AAC.

So my answer to your question "why aren't we all in AAC instead of MP3?" would be "there is no good answer, we should all be streaming in AAC formats."


Cheers,
Philip

P.S. If you want to check out my 64k streams, the stations are at http://www.lg73.ca/ and http://www.maxradio.ca/.

 

[Support]

just tried the AAC links on both your sites and I get a blanco page (no player) on Firefox; IE comes up with a player but "invalid source".

Exactly the same here, although I can see the player in Firefox it still does not play. IE also throws up the "Invalid Source" error.

It works fine in Chrome though.

 

[LG73]

Exactly the same here, although I can see the player in Firefox it still does not play. IE also throws up the "Invalid Source" error.

It works fine in Chrome though.

I think what I meant to say before is that I've had no compatibility problems with the 64k HE-AAC streams in Flash Player. The HTML5 player links I setup are only compatible at this time with Safari and Chrome (both desktop and mobile versions). I haven't made any effort to get the players working in Firefox, IE or Edge. I suspect there is a way.

The real future for web players is HLS (HTML5 Live Streaming) which I hope to be able to implement in the near future. My interim solution is a fairly primitive HTML5 player linking to an Icecast stream. With a proper HLS setup there is no Icecast or Shoutcast required. Instead the stream is sent directly from the web server in what is referred to as HLS Direct.

The StreamS Live Encoder from Modulation Index works with Apache, IIS, NGiNX, LightTPD and other modern web servers. Safari in OS X is the first browser to fully support HLS streams. There is a Flash HLS player being developed. StreamS Hi-fi Radio in iOS and iTunes 12.3 in OS X and Windows can play HLS Direct streams.

StreamS Live Encoder supports xHE-AAC, the newest and most efficient AAC streaming format. xHE-AAC is currently the standard for Digital Radio Mondiale, an open standard for digital broadcasting over SW, AM (DRM) and FM (DRM+) channels. xHE-AAC is an evolved version of HE-AACv2 with better quality and also contains an optimized speech codec. The xHE-AAC encoder is smart enough to automatically pick the best encoding (either speech or music optimized) based on program content and does so continuously as the content is streamed.

xHE-AAC decoders are backwards compatible with HE-AAC and AAC so 1 xHE-AAC player should suffice for listening to any AAC based streams. As far as I know xHE-AAC encoding is not backwards compatible so the only way to listen to xHE-AAC streams is with an xHE-AAC player. That makes it too bleeding edge for now as a primary stream but cool to experiment with at very low bit-rates.

I think we're getting close to a day when we can have a web player that "just works" in all modern browsers, sounds great and doesn't cost our listeners a ton of bandwidth usage!


Cheers,
Philip

 

[Support]

Interesting. Thanks for your input Philip.