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MP3 or WMA: Which is better?

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Having just bought a Creative Nomad II MP3 player that supports both MP3 and WMA I've been doing testing of the WMA format all day on my stock Creative headphones and Altec Lansing ACS56 Digital speakers to see what comparisons and losses/benefits there were in between encoders. Keep in mind I am using admittedly crappy speakers/headphones on admittedly undiscerning ears.

These are MS's claims with WMA 8:

Bit rate (Kbps) . . . . . . . Actual rate (Kbps) . . . . Description
28 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 . . . . . . . . . . . . . FM radio mono
28 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 . . . . . . . . . . . . . FM radio stereo
56 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 . . . . . . . . . . . . . Audio only, 56K modem
48 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 . . . . . . . . . . . . . Near CD quality
64 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 . . . . . . . . . . . . . CD quality
96 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96 . . . . . . . . . . . . . CD audiophile quality
128 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128 . . . . . . . . . . . . CD audiophile quality

Tests:
A) Kenny G - The Moment (self-ripped)
1) LAME VBR, 32-256kbps.
2) WMA 8.00.00.343, 96kbps.
3) WMA 8.00.00.343, 64kbps.

#1 and #2 sounded identical, even through blind testing. #3 seemed to be less razor sharp than the other two. When you factor in file size, the win went to #2: WMA 96kbps.


B) Ja Rule - Always On Time (download)
1) Unknown encoder, CBR 192kbps.
2) WMA 8.00.00.343, 96kbps. Converted to a WAV from MP3, then to WMA.
3) WMA 8.00.00.343, 64kbps. Converted to a WAV from MP3, then to WMA.

#1 and #2 sound identical. Lyrics in #3 seem, again, less sharp. Huge filesize decrease in #2 makes WMA come out on top again.


C) Kajiura Yuki - Canta Per Me (download)
1) Unknown encoder, CBR 160kbps.
2) WMA 8.00.00.343, 96kbps. Converted to a WAV from MP3, then to WMA.
3) WMA 8.00.00.343, 64kbps. Converted to a WAV from MP3, then to WMA.

#2 was slightly noticeable during blind tests for a decrease in sharpness from #1, but nothing to claw at your own eyeballs about. #3 was pretty distinctly inferior.

So there you have it, my rather useless test cases that no real audiophile would base any conclusions upon. For me though, I'll for now on be expanding MP3s to WAVs, then encoding to WMA for playback on my Nomad II when I head out.

Night all. 🙂
 
<FONT size=3><FONT size=2>"I'll for now on be expanding MP3s to WAVs, then encoding to WMA for playback on my Nomad II when I head out."</FONT>


BAUAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA reencoding a lossy format to another lossy format ROFL LMOPAAJAJKAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHA

hey chickenhead, i totally agree with your views....Fvck WMA.</FONT>
 


<< I love america and the freedoms i have. So why do you hate America and freedom? >>



That's the funniest thing i've heard all my life. And as for M$ accomplishment, the world would be better without M$.
 
See, NuclearFusi0n1, agreeing with chickenhead just shows me you're just another #1-hating moron. What's funny is you'd probably lie on your stomach in front of Billy boy for a chance at a job at MS.

Try thinking for a second while I rehash these two points:

1. Doing a CD --> LAME VBR 64-256 kbps MP3 rip and a CD --> WMA 64kbps yielded the exact same quality as heard on my home speakers, to myself.
2. The quality of the headphones one uses on the go means I can't hear any sound degradation by re-ripping to WMA, whereas doing so yields much smaller file size.

You kids who hate MS for sport are truly pathetic. Grow the hell up.
 
WMA at 64 = LAME at 256? Not a chance. However, if it's sufficient for you that's fine.

Anyways, I encode EVERYTHING at 256 Fraunhofer, with normal stereo, CBR. The quality is stellar. I have encoded about 25 GBs worth of stuff now - several hundred CDs. I have two copies on two different hard drives, but I want to get a DVD-R soon to archive these. CD-R just doesn't cut it anymore.

The reason I use Fraunhofer is because the world's best MP3 management software, iTunes 2, uses Fraunhofer. I'd consider using LAME if the GUIs were better, but so far iTunes has no equal.

Oh and if you encode your MP3s at ANY resolution using joint stereo, it's gonna sound odd. If you're encoding at 160 or less, it's probably best to use joint stereo but that's one of the reasons I advise against using 160 or less, unless space is a big issue.

All the other formats, including WMA, are non-starters for me at the moment, since they don't have widespread support. Indeed, by the time they do, I'd probably have enough storage to consider doing full .wav or .aiff extractions, making the point moot.

As for compatibility, it seems the MOST compatible format is MP3 64-192 CBR. My Apex DVD/MP3 player locks up sometimes if you drop below 64, and there are several portable players out there that don't work properly over 192. The next step up is 32-256 (or even 320), CBR or VBR. Some players support WMA, but that's not widespead, and support for other formats is pretty much non-existent. MP3 is essentially the only true cross-platform universal format so far.
 
I prefer WMA because of the current software out there. I've yet to find a program that encodes mp3 so that they sound good on both my computer and mp3 players. I suspect it may be a hardware issue or something similar, but I find that the only software which is really "usable" in terms of user interface tends to create artifacts and popping noises occasionally. I find that windows media player is extremely intuitive as a user interface, and the WMAs it creates are completely devoid of noticeable problems for me.

Though WMA is not "fully supported" widely, there are an awful lot of devices that support wma files. This leads me to believe that, if by some cataclysmic event, ms does go under, most likely you will still be able to create new wma files and use old ones on other OS's because the companies / people making the software would be stupid to leave customers out of the water just because of an open source bias.

However, if I could find a good mp3 encoder that I like which works properly, I'd go for it in a second.
 


<< I prefer WMA because of the current software out there. I've yet to find a program that encodes mp3 so that they sound good on both my computer and mp3 players. I suspect it may be a hardware issue or something similar, but I find that the only software which is really "usable" in terms of user interface tends to create artifacts and popping noises occasionally. I find that windows media player is extremely intuitive as a user interface, and the WMAs it creates are completely devoid of noticeable problems for me.

Though WMA is not "fully supported" widely, there are an awful lot of devices that support wma files. This leads me to believe that, if by some cataclysmic event, ms does go under, most likely you will still be able to create new wma files and use old ones on other OS's because the companies / people making the software would be stupid to leave customers out of the water just because of an open source bias.

However, if I could find a good mp3 encoder that I like which works properly, I'd go for it in a second. >>


What software are you using to encode MP3, and what are your settings. If you're getting popping it is possible it may be your hardware, but then again if you're using the same drive to rip the CDs for WMP and MP3, then obviously, it's not a pure hardware issue. A properly encoded MP3 however, should have NO popping noises at any bit rate.
 
my experience shows that WMA sounds crappy (annoying ringing sounds) when you go from 128mp3 to 96kb wma. I heard that if you're going from CD directly to 96 wma, it should be fine. So far have never tried it...
 


<<

<<

<< why do you invest soo much emotionally in a company you dont like? >>



I invest emotionally in corporate agnosticism when it comes to data encoding and data storage.

I don't like Real Audio either. Once Real goes bankrupt, all Real Audio will become unplayable on future OS'es.

If Sun or IBM made a closed source audio codec, I would be against them as well.

This is just common sense. Why do you lack common sense? >>



lol, i work for microsoft, ive always wanted to work here, i am very proud of what they have accomplished for the world in general. It basically comes down to these points, I like capatalism, i think America is great because of it, Microsoft is the epitomy of capatalisim, I love america and the freedoms i have. So why do you hate America and freedom?

(how do you like non-sequiter arguments thrown back at you?) >>


HAH....you work for MS, that explains it all...

i really dont understand all of the people supporting MS here...they screw you time and time again, and you just take it up the ass with no complaints. everyone bitched about XP's activation, but XP is still very widespread, i am going to laugh when you guys are buying MS computers because windows wont run on anything else....so much love, for a company that has you bent over....i really dont understand it. i guess it just further illustrates my sentiments that 99% of people are total clueless morons...
 
i like mp3, with advances made with lame sound quality/size are definetly acceptable, average of abotu 170-180kbs per song. its what i've been using for years, what all my friends have, cross platform compatibility, no copy protection whatsoever, no way in hell that ms could crack down or make your life less pleasant, mp3 portable players are now cranking up the storage size(ipod =5GB nomad=20GB) so size doesn't matter all that much, car players use mp3.. blah. i'm not about to reencode my entire collection of cds and redownload some songs all to switch to some format owned by one company or just incompatible with many things. i don't have the money to own a little tech slave to do that kinda bs yet.
 
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