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afterdawn.com > forums > digital audio > audio > wma or mp3, which is better and what is the difference?
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WMA or MP3, which is better and what is the difference?
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bearcreek
Junior Member
_ 		4. January 2005 @ 07:42 _ Link to this message    Send private message to this user   
Want to convert my cds to wma or mp3 and I am not sure which format to use. What are the differences and which are better. I am looking for the sound quality differences and number of songs per cd. The cds will be played in a car and home stereo. Is there a free software to convert the cds?
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diabolos
Suspended due to non-functional email address
_ 		4. January 2005 @ 19:21 _ Link to this message    Send private message to this user   
This topic has been answerd more times in this forum than any other question. I would search the forum post before asking this particular question!

I believe that Mp3, when encoding using the latest LAME library, is a much better lossy format than WMA but its really up to you. As far as music on CDs its all the same. Remember! You can only get 80 minutes of music on a standard Audio-CD no matter what your encoding scheme is.

Ced
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This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 4. January 2005 @ 19:22
bearcreek
Junior Member
_ 		5. January 2005 @ 03:46 _ Link to this message    Send private message to this user   
Thanks for the reply. I did search back about 8 pages and found nothing on the subject. Sorry for the repeat question. Thanks.
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shiroh
Account closed as per user's own request
_ 		5. January 2005 @ 06:27 _ Link to this message    Send private message to this user   
i think at low bitrate wma does sound better than mp3.
hold your horses.
what i meant by better, is that it sounds better than mp3 but doesn't sound acceptably good.

so for a cd quality encode i would suggest what diabolos did.
lame 3.96.1
i use dbpoweramp for my mp3 encodes. though most of my rips are using vorbis...

settings.
everything as source.
vbr no restriction, (meaning i set it from 32kbps to max 320kbps, letting the encoder choose)
max quality.
and don't disable bit resevoir
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diabolos
Suspended due to non-functional email address
_ 		5. January 2005 @ 07:20 _ Link to this message    Send private message to this user   
Mp3 Vs WMA:

Mp3 (LAME) works best at certain settings:

Constant Bir-Rate Stereo / Joint Stereo (CBR): 128 - 192 kbps

Variable Bit-Rate Stereo / Joint Stereo (VBR): 192 - 256 kbps (max)

Alot of people agree that 128 kbps is close to CD quality when using Mp3. Depending on how particulare you are about the sound quality of your music 128 lbps might offend your ears.

The makers of WMA boast that it can produce the same sound quality as Mp3 at half the bit-rate. If this is true then it would put CD quality for WMA at about 64 kbps. Although this has never been found to be true, mathematicly this is great if saving HD space is your main concern.

Mp3:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mp3#Quality_of_MP3_audio

WMA:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WMA

MPC:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPC_%28audio_compression_format%29

Link to software and codecs:
http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/127334

To be honest, the best lossy format around is MusePack (MPC)!
Ced
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This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 5. January 2005 @ 07:28
bearcreek
Junior Member
_ 		5. January 2005 @ 09:24 _ Link to this message    Send private message to this user   
Thanks for the replies. Very helpful info. So, if it is a pain to do, why do people put music into mp3 format? Sorry for the dumb questions, I am asking for a friend and neither of us has a clue. I thought you could just put your cds into mp3 or wma format and burn it to a disk. I was under the influence that you could put 200 mp3 songs (depending on the size of the songs) on a cd-r?
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This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 5. January 2005 @ 09:32
diabolos
Suspended due to non-functional email address
_ 		5. January 2005 @ 16:55 _ Link to this message    Send private message to this user   
All of that is true. Allot of people hate supporting Micro$oft. Mp3 also has no built-in DRM protection and is the most popular audio format seeing as its over 10 years old. With the right software creating Mp3s is easy and fun. You can fit many Mp3s on a CD-R giving you hours of music. The catch is that your hardware has to be able to play (read and decode) Mp3 files.

Step one: Import the track or entire CD to Mp3

Step two: Burn the Mp3 files to CD

Its that simple,
Ced
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This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 5. January 2005 @ 16:56
DogBomb
Senior Member
_ 		6. January 2005 @ 06:51 _ Link to this message    Send private message to this user   
I don't care what Microsoft says, I can definitely tell the difference between WMA and MP3 at the 128kpbs and below level. With WMA, you will hear a shrill and distortion similar to what you get when you turn up the treble. I think Apple's MP4 or AAC format and OGG are the 2 best formats, and you get twice the compression than with the outdated MP3 format. Trouble is finding portable players that support these formats.
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Nuke_m
Newbie
_ 		8. January 2005 @ 09:08 _ Link to this message    Send private message to this user   
This might help:

Used Audiograbber + Lame 1.32 [11-4-04] engine 3.96
CD Rip.wav 32,724kb
CD Rip-064.mp3 1,485kb
CD Rip-064.wma 1,505kb
CD Rip-064.mp3 1,485kb Blade [dreadful]
CD Rip-096.mp3 2,227kb
CD Rip-096.wma 2,248kb
CD Rip-128.mp3 2,969kb
CD Rip-128.wma 2,991kb

The Lame mp3's are all pretty good as is Fraunhofer, Blade sounds as if its recorded underwater.
I will use Blade as a party joke.
wma-8 is terrible at ALL settings, all clicks and noise.

Played on WinAmp 5.08 pro and a Creative Muvo TX 512mb

There is NO competition or short cuts, If you want "decent" sound, you need memory.
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