Opus and AAC explained
Opus is the current state of the art for lossy audio, and the codec behind most voice calls you make over the internet. It performs well across an unusually wide range, from 6 kbps speech to transparent music.
AAC is the successor to MP3 and is the default audio codec for MP4 video, Apple Music and YouTube. At the same bitrate it generally sounds noticeably better than MP3.
- Where Opus files come from
- Voice and video calls, modern podcast pipelines and WebRTC.
- Where AAC is used
- Streaming services, video soundtracks and Apple devices.