Musepack detail information

Posted by	DoMiN8ToR
Posted on	31/03/2008
Manufacturer	Musepack
Product	Musepack
Description	Musepack is an audio compression format with a strong emphasis on high quality. On this site you can find player and encoders
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MPC (Musepack) is a lossy (as opposed to lossless) audio compression format, somewhat like MP3. It's basically a format that has been 'tuned' particularly for audio 'transparency' compared to the original audio at decent bitrates, in other words it's main intended use is offering near perfect audio reproduction in a lossy format. Compared to lossless compression, file sizes are very small and yet you can get near perfect reproduction of the original audio.

Different audio compression formats are better for different purposes, for example .MPC would be a poor choice for low bitrate purposes, for that there are other compression formats that are designed more towards low bitrates at the cost of some quality at small file sizes such as .WMA, .OGG, .AAC. But .MPC can do a better job at equal bitrates vs. most other formats in the bitrate range of around 150-200kbps.

Not many formats can claim nearly perfect copies of the original audio at those bitrates, many formats cannot even match MPC regardless of how high of a bitrate is used as most are not designed for audio transparency but rather they are tuned for 'good' quality at low bitrates instead. I've been using .MPC for 4 years or so for a large amount of the music on my computer, and, short of using very space-consuming lossless compression, I have yet to find a better format when it comes to creating near-perfect copies. There are some other formats that come close or may match it at this point, .ogg is another very good format for one. MPC is not a format for everyone though, as support is basically nonexistant other than playback on a computer.