SoundCloud traded frequencies above 17 kHz for cleaner AAC streams
The 2025 encoder swap made spectrograms look worse at 256 kbps, while SoundCloud left its testing methodology undisclosed.
By Ryan Merket · Published
Primary source: SoundCloud Backstage Blog
Why it matters
SoundCloud is choosing perceptual quality over a full-looking spectrogram. That choice affects creator uploads at scale and exposes how little codec marketing reveals about audible tradeoffs.
SoundCloud, the audio platform Alexander Ljung and Eric Wahlforss built to make recordings easier for musicians to share, replaced its decade-old AAC encoder in 2025 with one that deliberately rolls off frequencies around 17 kHz. In a June 18th, 2026 engineering post, SoundCloud software engineer Joe Reid explained why removing data can produce a better-sounding…
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