MP3 is still the standard lossy audio format. Plays on everything, patent-free. OK sound quality (some stuff falls apart even at 320 if you have golden ears).
It’s actually still a bit tedious on the Apple ecosystem. On the web (Safari) you have to wrap it in a WEBM or CAF container, and on iOS it’s similar. That’s a lossless process, but it’s still not the OPUS container
true, but the complexity is greatly reduced between a caf container and (since Safari 17.5) a webm encumbered opus: the provider can offer 1 webm file to all platforms.
Especially in podcasts where it's just voice the savings in storage and traffic are significant. My own listening preference is 32kbits opus at ~1/4th size of the original 128kbits mp3.
To me it seems OPUS is transparent at much lower than 120.
32 is more than enough for books/podcasts, 96 is more than enough for music. I doubt above-96 makes much sense for OPUS - I'd use FLAC if I needed better quality.
I was astounded by how iffy my ability to even ABX tracks at 96 kbps in Opus was. I can't imagine needing anything else for music listening, although obviously I keep FLAC copies around as backups.
