So aparently, after hours of research, OPUS seems to be the best lossy compression method for storing audio. I am aware that you can export opus in Audacity already, but the maximum quality is 256kbps, when in reality opus’ max quality is 510kbps.
Also, when you put the mouse in “export” it shows “Export as MP3/WAV/OGG Vorbis” and “Export as” (The last one being the one where you can select other export options such as FLAC and of course, Opus), however I want to Export as FLAC and Opus (Which means that I have to constantly click “export as” and change to FLAC and Ogg Opus and viceversa).
I would really appreciate if the maximum quality available for exporting opus is 510kbps and also if you could customize the “Export” menu to add and remove quick options (For example, remove “Export as MP3” and instead add “Export as Ogg Opus”).
You need to log feature requests on Muse’s GitHub issues log:
You need a GitHub account to do this - but these are free.
Peter
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Opus is nearing transparency at 96 kbit/s and is considered fully transparent at 192 kbit/s. What do you need 510 for?
Regarding the export flow, we’ll be reworking that in the near future.
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I just want to have my music at max quality while being compressed (FLAC files takes too much storage for me, that’s why I’m looking for the best lossy compression mode).
Thanks, I’ll give it a try.
Once it’s transparent (sounds identical to the uncompressed original in a blind listening test) there can be no “improvement”. Or if two different bitrates sound the same we can’t say the higher bitrate version is “better”. With lossy compression, every byte is altered and the only practical- reasonable way to determine quality is by listening.
Some people look at spectrums or use other technical analysis but a “pretty picture” (what you see) doesn’t always correlate very well with what you hear. If you hear a defect, sometimes a spectrum can show you why it sounds bad but with lossy compression but compression artifacts that you hear usually don’t show-up visually.
I don’t know about Opus but with MP3 you can usually get to the point where it’s transparent so a higher bitrate can’t improve it.
Or you can get to a point where a higher bitrate doesn’t reduce or eliminate the audio compression artifacts. There are certain limitations of the MP3 format itself that you can’t get-around.
Or sometimes people change compression settings to get a better looking spectrum ( don’t know if you wan tweak Opus like that). But lossy compression is always throwing -away information (hopefully information you can’t hear) and you can end-up throwing away something you can hear in exchange for something you can see.
A “CD quality” FLAC file is usually around 700kbps, so not much larger than a 510kbps lossy file. (High resolution files will be proportionally higher bitrate and larger).
With lossy compress, a higher resolution original doesn’t necessarily make a higher bitrate compressed file.