audacity vs audition for mp3 -> ogg conversion

[muruba]

I am converting mp3 to ogg and the size of the final file:

Original MP3: 900 kb

Adobe Audition OGG - 2.5 MB
Audacity OGG - 1.1 MB

By using default settings

I would expect commercial product Audition would give me better results than free Audacity and I was wrong!

Cheers

[Steve Elliott]

Audacity rocks.

[RonTek]

Yes, Audacity can do the same and might be better.

[col]

I would expect commercial product Audition would give me better results than free Audacity and I was wrong!

It probably does give a better result... a better audio quality result.
Smaller files will always have a lower quality output, it just depends of whether the quality difference is noticeable/acceptable or not compared to a bigger file.

Compression is a highly scientific area ( well... comparing the compressed result to an uncompressed original is highly scientific ) and a compressed result depends on the codec and its settings as opposed to the application that's using the codec.

My point being is that Audacity may use different 'defaults' compared to Adobe Audition. It would be very interesting to know if they are the same 

Also compressing an already compressed file will only make things worse in terms of quality. You should really only compress the original uncompressed file, but like I say... it's all subjective to as whether the result is acceptable or not compared with the original.

[TomToad]

Ultimately, the size is determined by the bit rate used.  When using a fixed bit rate, size will be exactly the same with the same bit rate regardless of compressor used.  If you are using a variable bit rate, the size could end up different depending on how and where the compressor triggers rate changes.  More than likely, Adobe has those settings set to favor quality over size, and Audacity puts less emphasis on quality to favor a smaller size.

[markcwm]

Yes Audacity is awesome, it even let's you batch convert files. I haven't used Audition but I am currently using Audacity for mp3 to mp3 conversion. I'd like to know what bitrate the OP used.

I did notice a slight difference in filesize between Linux Audacity and Windows Audacity (when the same bitrate was used) but only a tiny bit. There is an option in Windows Audacity not found in Linux, force to mono, this does decrease filesize but not by half like you might expect but by about 5%. When it comes to bitrate mode there is variable, average and constant and the best is average because it doesn't affect quality like constant, and filesize for variable is too high. With bitrate I found I could drop it to 56k without any noticeable difference to quality and bitrate had the biggest impact on filesize. I also tried lowering sample rate from 44k to 22k but it only reduced filesize by about 1% so not really worth the time.