Apple AAC

Current AAC encoders (most to least recommended)
1	Apple AAC M/W
2	FhG AAC (Winamp) W
3	Fraunhofer FDK AAC S/L/M/W
4	Nero AAC L/W
5	FFmpeg 3.0+ AAC encoder S/L/M/W
6	FAAC S/L/M/W
7	Libav (pre-3.0 FFmpeg) AAC encoder S/L/M/W
S Source code available; L Linux; M macOS; W Windows
List of AAC encoders

QuickTime AAC is an AAC codec developed by Apple Inc. and included in Apple's media framework, QuickTime. QuickTime is used in iTunes, Safari web browser, and other Apple products. It is known to be one of the highest quality medium-bitrate CBR and VBR LC AAC encoders.

The encoder does consistently well in Hydrogenaudio listening tests.

afconvert

Apple's Mac OSX includes a command-line utility for transcoding audio files that employs this encoder when encoding to AAC.

Usage:

afconvert [options] <infile> <outfile>

Options:

-f --file <string>

File format. Several; use 'm4af' for '.m4a' file or 'adts' for raw '.aac' file.

-d --data <string>

Data format. Several; use 'aac'.

-b --bitrate <n>

Bitrate in bits per second.

-s --strategy <0,1,2>

0 for CBR, 1 for ABR, 2 for VBR

-q --quality <0-127>

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QAAC

qaac

Developer(s)	nu774
Release information
Initial release	{{{released}}}
Stable release	?
Preview release
Compatibility
Operating system	Windows
Additional information
Use	Encoder
License	Various
Website	github/qaac

QAAC is an open-source wrapper for QuickTime's AAC and ALAC encoders that allow them to be used directly in applications that don't otherwise use QuickTime. It exists only for Windows.

• QAAC documentation

External links

• Apple's Quicktime Website