I’m really stoked to see that Newgrounds finally added support for AAC audio in the audio portal. The next track that I will upload will surely see the light in this format.

For those who don’t know what makes AAC special: it’s basically a more efficient audio codec than mp3, meaning that the retention of quality is better at the same bit rates. The iTunes Store sells music at 256 kbps, and it sounds better than mp3 at 320 kbps. They are typically wrapped into .m4a container files.

AAC also allows up to 320 kbps (if you use the iTunes encoder, which is by far the best iteration of the codec) and it’s capable of giving a full frequency spectrum range representation up to the Nyquist limit. Especially VBR mode, which allows for more flexible use of bit rate, produces results which are pretty much indistinguishable from a CD quality master.

I’m glad to finally see this feature added to Newgrounds. I had made a post about this some years ago, and it seems that they have finally incorporated it into this platform. My prayers have been answered!