« Return to: Easy as MP3
| CODEC | Tested bit rate (kilobits per second): 64 | Tested bit rate (kilobits per second): 96 | Tested bit rate (kilobits per second): 128 | Tested bit rate (kilobits per second): 192 | Tested bit rate (kilobits per second): 256 |
| AAC | 3.4 | 4.6 | 4.8 | N/A | N/A |
| MP3 | 2.2 | N/A | 4.7 | 4.8 | 4.9 |
| RealAudio1 | 4.1 | N/A | 4.8 | 4.9 | 4.8 |
| WMA | 3.6 | 4.1 | 4.1 | N/A | N/A |
1 The RealAudio codec supports slightly different bit rates: 64, 96, 132, 176, and 264 kbps.
How We Tested: We compressed four samples of music and then asked 30 people to rate the compressed version against the uncompressed. The clips were rated on a scale of 1 to 5, in which 1 meant the compression artifacts were very annoying and 5 meant the compressed and uncompressed versions were indistinguishable. The scores are averages of the judges' ratings.