[FrostKiwi]

YouTube presents audio in 2 forms under various bitrates and formats. AAC and OPUS. The Opus track @128kbps (even better than the sometimes available AAC @160kbps) is the highest quality and can be downloaded and played back by demuxing its WebM container to .opus or using a player which understands the WebM container.

This is what I prefer: Downloading original OPUS audio, demuxing to .opus, without reconversions using a bash oneliner. Highest Quality you can get from YouTube.

Appreciate the minimalistic UI, no frills. 170 MB for a YouTube MP3 Downloader seems a bit steep though.

[CharlesW]

> The Opus track @128kbps (even better than the sometimes available AAC @160kbps) is the highest quality…

Opus has an advantage over AAC-LC (not HE variants) at lower bitrates, but by 128 kbps Opus loses any efficiency advantage. AAC-LC is going to give you slightly better quality and far broader device compatibility.

https://hydrogenaud.io/index.php/topic,120166.0.html?PHPSESS...

[Repulsion9513]

I remux into ogg which still supports Opus but seemed to have wider player support. Great way to get tracks that don't seem to be available anywhere other than streaming.

[xk3]

Matroska Audio (.mka) is also a nice choice

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matroska

[brnt]

.opus _is_ an Ogg container, just with another filename.

[Repulsion9513]

Hmm, maybe whatever I was running into problems with just doesn't recognize the extension then. Sadly I don't remember what it was. Coulda been Plex, which wouldn't surprise me.

[brnt]

A lazy indexer could skip just based on filename, and a well implemented and current (although... Opus is a decade old now?) player would properly detect the Opus stream inside the .ogg file and decode properly.