mp3 vs wma

[Garibaldi]

I have a flash mp3 player that also supports wma. What are your opinions on both and which would you recommend? Is there a quality difference between the 2 formats? I've heard that wma's can be compressed to roughly half the size of the same mp3, is this true? Is there quite a bit of quality loss though?
Thanks,
Garibaldi

[Kingnog]

http://www.mp3-tech.org/tests/wma9/ <--- decide for yourself

Oh yeah. The whole thing about WMA being "cd quality" at 64kbps (half of the supposed MP# "cd quality" setting of 128kbps, which also is nowhere near cd quality) is just very very good marketing. WMA at 64kbps sounds TERRIBLE (like an AM radio being played in a tin can...)

[bazooka]

I would take mp3 anyday.

[Kingnog]

Why's that, bazooka? At the same bitrate, WMA is superior...then again, it doesnt really matter when you get up to 192kbps-ish (my opinion, thats when i can't hear a difference)

[bazooka]

Why's that, bazooka? At the same bitrate, WMA is superior...then again, it doesnt really matter when you get up to 192kbps-ish (my opinion, thats when i can't hear a difference)

There is more mainstream support for mp3, and recently legally downloaded wma's have had spyware inserted into them.

[MOVIEGEEK]

WMA sounds better at <96kbps unless you use mp3PRO(Nero).

[steve2713]

I have a portable player that plays both MP3 and WMA as you do, and I typically use WMA, but it depends on how much you intend to compress your audio. They definitely each have their own unique compression artifacts (the stuff that makes your audio sound like shit ). I'd suggest that WMA does a better job below about 128kbs, and 128 and above I'd prefer MP3.

That stuff you hear about WMA being able to be compressed to half of MP3 at the same quality is simply not true though. Unless you don't have a clue what settings or compressor to use with MP3s, an MP3 at 128 will sound much better than a WMA file at 64kbs. I typically compress my WMA for my portable at between 80-100kbs VBR, and this gives me 'decent' sound quality (I'm usually using it in loud environments anyway, so I don't need perfect quality).

What you should do is just compress a few songs on your computer at different settings and play them back, only you can say what is acceptable quality for you.

I use dbpowerAMP, it is very easy to use, and has tons of settings to change and works with most any compressor available. For my WMA portables, I use WMA 9, VBR quality '50' or '75' usually.

[bazooka]

I am not really worried about space. I usually have my songs as wav files. If I have mp3's though, they are usually 192kbs and above.

[steve2713]

At the same bitrate, WMA is superior

That's very debatable and is more of a matter of personal preference. I'd say that for me, WMA is 'superior' over MP3 at about 112kbs and below. But once you get much higher in bitrate, I find WMA artifacts more distracting than MP3s artifacts, in particular if you use LAME and VBR. Even at about 160kbs, I find WMA to have noticeable artifacts, it has a kind of 'warbly' sound to it. A well compressed VBR MP3 at around 160 definitely sounds better to me than a WMA file at the same bitrate.

[Marty2003]

I have a 128MB mp3 player and I personally prefer wma's since I usually encode at 64kbps to try to get as many songs as possible on my player. 64kbps stereo mp3 is unbearable compared to the same in wma. I'm not a quality freak or anything and my music sounds fine on the little earbuds I use, so I guess it's just up to personal preference.

[Garibaldi]

Thanks for all the responses! Obviously there are 2 sides to the coin here, I'm going to try compressing some of my mp3s to wma and see what it sounds like. Any more insights you might have would be great!

Also I noticed when playing songs on my mp3 player that sometimes (its random) I will here a split-second popping noise during a song. Its happened a couple times now, is this an mp3 artifact? Is there some way I can correct this?

[bazooka]

Thanks for all the responses! Obviously there are 2 sides to the coin here, I'm going to try compressing some of my mp3s to wma and see what it sounds like. Any more insights you might have would be great!

Also I noticed when playing songs on my mp3 player that sometimes (its random) I will here a split-second popping noise during a song. Its happened a couple times now, is this an mp3 artifact? Is there some way I can correct this?

The only thing I can think of is rerip the song at a higher bitrate.

[MOVIEGEEK]

NO!..STOP!
I was comparing formats ripped from a CD,you shouldn't convert your MP3's to WMA because they are both lossy formats.I recommend converting from the original CD or WAV.As for the pop's I would try LAME 3.90.3(Dibrom) or 3.96.1
www.rarewares.org/mp3.html

[Garibaldi]

NO!..STOP!
I was comparing formats ripped from a CD,you shouldn't convert your MP3's to WMA because they are both lossy formats.I recommend converting from the original CD or WAV.As for the pop's I would try LAME 3.90.3 or 3.96.1

I'm not really concerned with the wav format and all that stuff that you can't actually hear. mp3's sound fine to me. With LAME (can I use BesweetGUI or something with that?) can I just reencode the mp3 or do I have to rerip it again?

The only thing I can think of is rerip the song at a higher bitrate.

They are at 160 already, encoded with itunes.

[steve2713]

The popping was probably just an artifact that occured during the encoding, you can't really correct it unless you edit the file in an audio editor and recompress the file, which will further degrade the quality.

What I should have made clearer in my previous post, was that WMA and OGG, for example, are optimized for lower bitrates and both will outperform MP3 at LOW bitrates. But as you get higher in bitrate, it's really a toss-up as to which of those 3 has 'superior' sound. I use MPC for storage on my computer and it is superior to ALL to my ears (and many others) at HIGH bitrates, which it was intended for, but does poorly at lower bitrates - it just depends how much you intend to compress your files.

BTW, you said you will be going from MP3s to WMA - since MP3 is a lossy format to begin with, you will have worse quality than if you'd gone straight from the source->WMA. If alot of your MP3s are 128kbs (very likely), then you should consider compressing to WMA from the original source, if you have it. It will make a big difference in that case. If you have higher quality MP3s such as 192kbs, it won't be so severe.

[bazooka]

They are at 160 already, encoded with itunes.

You may need to go higher.

I think I have mine set to rip at a rate of 320.

[MOVIEGEEK]

I recommend reripping the songs with CDex,etc using the recommended LAME.If your songs are downloaded I would leave them MP3.

[Garibaldi]

I'll try these suggestions tomorrow, its getting pretty late here now. Thanks again.

[solarfox]

My opinion? Just consider what WMA stands for:

Windows
Media
Audio

WMA is a creation of Microsoft. Therefore it is automatically suspect, and probably should be avoided whenever possible.

[lordsmurf]

I use WMA on a little player with headphones. Sounds okay that way. Not super great, but passable, as WMA is smaller filesize. More on the unit.

MP3 for a stereo, no contest.

[mats.hogberg]

very very good marketing.

- Only if you equal "very very good marketing" with "Blatant lies".

/Mats

[Poppa_Meth]

Listen closely to both types on the same song. I've heard fairly often that WMA has a harder sound to it where MP3 has a warmer softer sound. Its hard to explain but if you listen you'll hear what I'm talking about. MP3 just sounds richer to me and less mechanical.

[alsyed]

even if my player would support wma, i hate any windows media format. its made by M$ remember.

MP3 all the way - use 128kbit for general, 160kbit for better, and 192kbit for all your good stuff.

[JamieBecks23]

i have all my music at 128 mp3 and im happy with it

[mats.hogberg]

Even if I, like so many of us seem to do, try to stay clear of MS stuff as much as at all possible, this could be a much more giving discussion if we'd be openminded enough to set the manufacturers of the codecs in question aside...

/Mats

[andydd]

My Nokia 6230 phone supports the AAC format so I use that, although like others suggesting I tried various MP3s/AACs at diff bitrates and see how they sounded. I cant stand crappy sounding songs, but Ive found even at 96 kbps AAC files sound very high quaility, whereas I would never go that low using MP3, even Neros MP3 Pro sounded rubbish at that low bitrate.

[steve2713]

andydd, I agree some of those AAC codecs sound very good, as does OGG - both are better than WMA and certainly MP3 at low bitrates, but the problem is that not very many portable devices yet support either format. OGG has been a great format for several years now, but has been slow to get adopted by portable devices, unfortunately. OGG and AAC at 64kbs sounds FAR better than WMA, but WMA has been widely supported, being microsoft

[Garibaldi]

WMA is a creation of Microsoft. Therefore it is automatically suspect, and probably should be avoided whenever possible.

Good point. I'm an avid linux user so I hear you. I would use Ogg Vorbis but my player doesn't support it so that is out of the question.

Bazooka, you said that you encode your mp3's at 320, I've never heard of anyone doing it that high before. Why do you do that? Isn't 192 enough or is it still a little better higher?

Listen closely to both types on the same song. I've heard fairly often that WMA has a harder sound to it where MP3 has a warmer softer sound. Its hard to explain but if you listen you'll hear what I'm talking about. MP3 just sounds richer to me and less mechanical.

I'm going to give that a try.

[andydd]

Even more annoying is that there are different formats of AAC for example my Nokia uses a completely different type to that used by iPods and the two are not compatible !

[Soldier_Iraq]

mp3 is always better, WMA is simply weak. mp3 is alot clearer and better bass.