AC3 vs. MP3 at the same bitrate

[wallywalters]

Is there a consensus as to which of these two codecs generally sounds better at 128 kbps and 192 kbps (2-channel)?

I've searched Google extensively, and opinions vary.

[guns1inger]

Is there a consensus - no.

My view : AC3 at 192 kbps. MP3 butchers the stereo field. I have never bothered with AC3 at 128 kbps - never saw the point

[chowmein]

Interesting question, I think ac3 sounds better than mp3. I only encode mp3 at 320, but ac3 sounds good to me at 192 or 224 whatever. I'm probably talking bollocks tho'. Maybe they're exactly the same.

[El Heggunte]

According to me

AC3 --- "best" = 224kbps
MP2 --- "best" = 320kbps
MP3 --- "best" = 256kbps
AAC --- "best" = 192kbps
DTS --- "best" = 512kbps

[poisondeathray]

According to me , if you had to choose between something at 128kb/s -- AAC HE or AAC HE+PS

[lordsmurf]

AC3 files generally have a wider dynamic range.
I don't remember if that's inherent to the format, or a choice of usage.
Generally speaking, MP3 is flatter, especially as you squish the bitrates down too much. (i.e. sub-192k stereo)