MP3 players forum: MP3 or WMA ?

MP3 uses a lossy compression algorithm that is designed to greatly reduce the amount of data required to represent audio recordings, yet still sound like faithful reproductions of the original uncompressed audio to most listeners. An ex. http://mp3knol.com digital file created using the mid-range bitrate setting of 128 kbit/s results in a file that is typically about 1/10th the size of the CD file created from the same audio source.

Thanks Jonathan and Bob - very helpful!

- Rod

NRen2K5 is right. Above 128kb Mp3 is a better quality codec than WMA. I'd say a 96kb WMA is about the same quality as a 128kb Mp3. Anything above 128kb it's best to use Mp3.

the file will be much bigger. if you are more concerned with the number of songs you can fit into a CD (or MP3/WMA player) rather than the quality of sound, i would vote for WMA instead of MP3. WMA sounds almost the same as MP3 enoded @128kb. remember that 128kbps is "Near-CD" quality so it should be good enough.

For the ABSOLUTE best quality, use WMA Lossless. Your recording will sound EXACTLY like the original--guaranteed. However, 1 CDR will only be able to hold about 2 albums AND, some players that can play wma's cannot play wma lossless. My DVD player plays everything--it is even DivX certified, but it will not play lossless wmas. I think it doesn't like the variable bitrate. It can handle wma up to 192kbps without any problem, and mp3s up to 320kbps. It will play an mp3 variable bitrate, but not a wma variable.
My 2 worth.

Good point.

If you intend to rip all your CDs, go all digital, and rid yourself of the whole CD thing, at some point you need to make a bit rate decision. When MP3 was the only choice, 128 being slightly above CD quality, was the compromise bit rate most folks finally went with; I did. So, having made the decision that 128 for MP3 is what you would go with if there were only MP3, lets move on NOW with our decision on which wins our favor MP3 or WMA.

WMA only needs 96 bit rate for comparable sound quality of a 128 bit MP3. So, based on this fact, if you choose to go with WMA 96 for all your files, you will save around half the disk space compared to the MP3 files at 128 that you would need to have comparable quality.

In this case, WMA wins hands down. Of course there are 49 dozen other scenarios that may tilt the decision to either side.

WMA 96 is equal to mp3 at 128 in sound quality, and is smaller in file size. WMA at 192 sounds as good as MP3 at 256. In ever test I have done wma has outpreformed mp3 the one advantage mp3 has is it's universal. but really above encoding rates of 192 it's damn hard to tell the difference (sometimes I have to watch the spectrum analyser to see the range of freq being reproduced) so mp3 and wma are pretty much the same (and for all those people who scream DRM, you dont have to encode with drm use the winamp encoder nstead of WMP). Plus with the huge hard drives hsipping with most computers space (except if you go lossless like FLAC or WMA lossless) isnt really an issue.

Two years ago, America's most popular computer magazine "PC Magazine" said that MP3 is the best audio format if its bitrate is high (128kbps). I'm sure that WMA is superior to MP3 if you consider its low-bitrate (less than 64kbps).

Therefore I admire MP3 for its audio quality, compatibility and stability. Besides 256kbps (stereo, NOT Joint-stereo or Mid-stereo) gives you great quality audio even if you listen with expensive equipments. At least, I don't recommend MP3@less than 160 kbps.

You're mistaken. In a properly working MP3 encoder, Joint Stereo is better than Stereo.

And if you're going to use such a high bitrate as 256kbps, why not just encode in VBR, or at 320kbps?

MP3s made with LAME are great. There is not audible difference between them and the original source when made with variable bitrate above -say- 192kbps.

musimath

Excellent feedback - thanks to all!
I'm going to spend my Saturday playing around with this stuff. My first experiment, and starting point, will be ripping tracks from my original CD collection, saving them as WMA's at windows media player "variable bit rate". I'll check how they sound and how many I can fit on a cd. If I don't like it and want to try other options as discussed in this forum I am now somewhat educated on the topic and will try the great ideas kindly offered.
That's why I grabbed some re-writeable cd's ! On to the experiment....

If you have the hard drive space or a DVD burner, consider ripping your CDs to FLAC first. This way, ID tag info is preserved when you later convert it to MP3, etc, and you get an exact copy of the original CD in about half the size.
The reason for ripping to FLAC first is because converting from one lossy format to another degrades sound quality, and converting from FLAC to a lossy format (MP3, WMA)is faster than re-ripping from the original CD. With all your CD's archived in FLAC, If you decide later that you'd rather have all your music in a different format, say ogg vorbis or WMA, you will save yourself a lot of time and trouble by not having to re-rip or re-edit ID3 tags.

Actually 128kbps is generally acknowledged as cd quality. I have a cd player that supports mp3, and an mp3 player. For my cd player I use Sonys Atrac3plus file format. The Atrac3plus utilizes optimal bit allocation to compress an mp3 or wma to one twentieth its original size while retailing all sound quality. Using this I can shove over 500 4 minute songs on 1 cd at 64kbps, or even more at 48kbps or lower. For my 256mb mp3 player I compress mp3s to 32kbps wma single channel(mono), which gives you twice the quality of 32kbps stereo. In this way I am able to fit 300 songs onto a 256mb mp3 player. This is fine, because if you can tell the difference between 160kbps, and 192kbps mp3, wma, or whatever in any normal listening envirnment, you should have your ears examined.

It all depends on the ear of the listener.
I've done audio tests with audio CDs and mp3s encoded all the way up to 320kbps. On my tests (and I made sure they were blind tests), I could always tell the CD audio from the mp3 file. The only time I couldn't tell the difference was between cd audio and wma lossless. To me, the compressed file sounds like a facsimile when compared to the original.