Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) is an audio coding standard for lossy digital audio compression. Designed to be the successor of the MP3 format, AAC generally achieves higher sound quality than MP3 at the same bit rate.
AAC has been standardized by ISO and IEC as part of the MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 specifications.Part of AAC, HE-AAC (“AAC+”), is part of MPEG-4 Audio and adopted into digital radio standards DAB+ and Digital Radio Mondiale, and mobile television standards DVB-H and ATSC-M/H.
AAC supports inclusion of 48 full-bandwidth (up to 96 kHz) audio channels in one stream plus 16 low frequency effects (LFE, limited to 120 Hz) channels, up to 16 “coupling” or dialog channels, and up to 16 data streams. The quality for stereo is satisfactory to modest requirements at 96 kbit/s in joint stereo mode; however, hi-fi transparency demands data rates of at least 128 kbit/s (VBR). Tests of MPEG-4 audio have shown that AAC meets the requirements referred to as “transparent” for the ITU at 128 kbit/s for stereo, and 320 kbit/s for 5.1 audio. AAC uses only a modified discrete cosine transform (MDCT) algorithm, giving it higher compression efficiency than MP3, which uses a hybrid coding algorithm that is part MDCT and part FFT.
AAC is the default or standard audio format for iPhone, iPod, iPad, Nintendo DSi, Nintendo 3DS, iTunes, DivX Plus Web Player, PlayStation 3 and various Nokia Series 40 phones. It is supported on PlayStation Vita, Wii, Sony Walkman MP3 series and later, Android and BlackBerry. AAC is also supported by manufacturers of in-dash car audio systems
AAC is a file format for storing digital audio. It’s commonly used for storing music on the Internet, PCs and portable music players and phones.
It is similar to MP3, but it was designed to be its successor and offers better quality and smaller file sizes. It also supports DRM, which enforces copyright.
AAC+ and AAC++ are newer versions of the standard.
