hi everyone
please can you help, ive recently converted all my mp3's to wma using the plus addition in windows xp. the problem ive got is that it converted my mp3's to a joke of a low quality (most are 96kbps or lower). how can i take them back up to what they were before in the good days when they were great sounding mp3's??
any help much appreciated :)
Depending on your mp3's bitrate (typically between 128 - 192 kbps CBR ) you should encode a WMA file of a quality no less than 96 kbps (CBR, stereo). For WMA, I recommend encoding using a variable bitrate (VBR) scheme at no less than 96 kbps (you shouldn't really limit your maximum when using a VBR scheme). Using dBPowerAMP this would be about the same as "Quality 50, at 44.1 khz, Stereo."
Why are you converting all your Mp3s to WMA? Ogg Vorbis is a better open-source audio format that is rapidly growing in popularity. Plus its DRM -less.
The main issue here is that your trying to convert from a compressed format to another compressed format. While it is possible it is never a good thing to do with lossy audio formats. No matter what qualtiy you set it on you are going to get undesired results. It may sound good but play funny, little things like that. Its always better to go from the original source to a lossless format (FLAC, Monkeys Audio, WMA lossless) or WAV format and from there create the compressed file you want (when possible, of course).
