Live Beats WebRadioAAC? AAC+? OPUS? MP3? What are they??
What those little labels in the app actually mean
Open any station in Live Beats and you’ll see something like “MP3 128 kbps” or “AAC+ 48 kbps”. Most people don´t think too much about it. That’s fine. But those labels say a lot about how a station will sound and how much of your data plan it will eat.
So here is what they mean.
Two things worth knowing first
A codec is the method used to shrink audio. MP3, AAC and Opus are codecs. A container is the wrapper around it. Ogg is a container. Mixing those two up causes most of the confusion and we’ll sort it out below.
Then there’s lossy versus lossless. Lossy formats throw away sounds your ears are unlikely to miss, so the stream gets much smaller. Lossless formats keep everything. The sound comes back perfectly but the stream stays big.
Bitrate is the amount of data used every second, shown in kbps. More usually means better. But a newer codec at a low bitrate can beat an old one at a high bitrate, and that detail matters a lot here…
MP3
The old reliable. It showed up in the early 1990s and more or less taught the world to listen to digital music. Almost everything can play it. Phones, cars, speakers, browsers, that dusty player in a drawer.
The patents ran out in 2017 so anyone can use it freely now. The downside is age. It’s the least efficient codec in this guide. At 128 kbps it sounds fine for background listening. For really clean sound you’d want 192 or 320.
If a station wants to work on absolutely everything it picks MP3.
AAC
AAC was built to replace MP3 and arrived in the late 1990s. Same bitrate and better sound. Or the same sound for less data. Either way it’s a clear step up.
You probably use it daily without noticing. Apple Music uses it. So does a lot of YouTube audio. When a stream just says “AAC” it almost always means the standard version called AAC-LC.
AAC+
This is where the names get messy. AAC+ is also called HE-AAC or aacPlus. It’s AAC tuned for very low bitrates, and it pulls off two neat tricks.
The first is SBR. Instead of storing the highest frequencies, the player rebuilds them by guessing from the lower ones. That saves a huge amount of data. The second is parametric stereo, which arrives with the v2 version. It stores mostly one channel plus a small note about how the sound spreads left and right. The player fills in the rest.
The result sounds surprisingly decent at 32 to 64 kbps. MP3 falls apart down there. That’s why AAC+ turns up so often on streams meant for mobile. The catch is that the rebuilt highs are an educated guess. Raise the bitrate and plain AAC wins.
Opus
Opus is the youngest of the bunch. It arrived in 2012 and it’s open and free of royalties. It was designed to handle everything from phone calls to full music, which is why voice chat apps love it.
It shines at low and medium bitrates. Around 96 to 128 kbps many people can’t tell it from the original. Stations usually send it inside an Ogg wrapper and most modern Android phones play it without fuss. It’s still rare on radio next to MP3 and AAC though. That will probably change slowly.
Ogg is not a codec
Here’s the one that trips everybody up. Ogg is a container. It holds other things.
Most of the time “OGG” on a station means Ogg Vorbis. Vorbis is an open codec from around the year 2000 and it sounds a bit better than MP3 at the same bitrate. Opus has mostly overtaken it. But Ogg can also carry Opus and FLAC, which is why you see Ogg and Opus mentioned together so often. They aren’t rivals. One is the box and the other is what’s inside it.
FLAC
FLAC is lossless. It shrinks audio to about half its original size and when you play it back it matches the source exactly. Nothing is lost.
You pay for that in data. CD quality FLAC runs around 700 to 1,000 kbps, which is many times more than anything else here. Very few stations stream it. It only makes sense on fast Wi-Fi with decent headphones.
The quick comparison
| Format | Type | Usual radio bitrates | Data per hour | Short version |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MP3 | Lossy | 128 to 320 kbps | about 58 MB at 128 | Plays on everything |
| AAC | Lossy | 64 to 192 kbps | about 29 MB at 64 | A better MP3 |
| AAC+ | Lossy | 32 to 64 kbps | about 22 MB at 48 | Great on mobile data |
| Opus | Lossy | 32 to 128 kbps | about 29 MB at 64 | Most efficient |
| Ogg Vorbis | Lossy | 64 to 192 kbps | about 43 MB at 96 | Open alternative |
| FLAC | Lossless | 700 to 1,000 kbps | 300 to 450 MB | Perfect copy |
The data numbers are rough because real streams vary a little.
So which should you pick?
Usually the station decides for you. When there is a choice a simple rule works. On mobile data go for AAC+ or Opus at a low bitrate. On Wi-Fi almost anything at 128 kbps or higher is plenty. Got good headphones and a fast connection? Try a higher bitrate Opus or AAC. Or FLAC if the station has it.
One thing. Past roughly 128 kbps for AAC or 96 for Opus most people struggle to hear any difference in a blind test. Your headphones or your speakers matter more than the codec.
The short version
MP3 works everywhere. AAC is the better modern take. AAC+ squeezes hard for small bitrates. Opus is the most efficient newcomer. Ogg is just a wrapper, usually around Vorbis. FLAC is perfect and heavy.
Next time you see a codec label on a station you’ll know what it’s telling you.
/Christian