Sound Quality - WMA9 VBR 320k vs. LAME MP3 320k

[vulcanman]

My DVD player can read WMA9 VBR (320kbps) or MP3 at 320kbps.

I need to rip my rock collection to DVDs for convenience. Which of the two is recommended. I compared them on a few tracks and could not tell the difference .. but am sure there are experts out here who will beg to differ 🙂

Please recommend.

 

[nismotigerwvu]

At that high of a bit rate you'll be hard pressed to find a difference between any of the major formats. There is a difference, but under any reasonable circumstance you won't be able to find it.

 

[QueBert]

I recommend MP3, not for a sound quality difference but MP3 is supported everywhere. I seem WMA support in most devices now, and you said your DVD plays both. But, what if down the road you by another device that plays mp3's but not WMA? Sure you could burn the disc again. I like MP3 because you never have to worry about it working in a device.

 

[htne]

Originally posted by: QueBert
I recommend MP3, not for a sound quality difference but MP3 is supported everywhere. I seem WMA support in most devices now, and you said your DVD plays both. But, what if down the road you by another device that plays mp3's but not WMA? Sure you could burn the disc again. I like MP3 because you never have to worry about it working in a device.

Agreed.

 

[oynaz]

BTW, mp3 supports VBR now, which is definitely recommended.

 

[Gigantopithecus]

If you can tell the difference between them, you aren't listening to your music loud enough. 😉

 

[AnitaPeterson]

Originally posted by: htne

Originally posted by: QueBert
I recommend MP3, not for a sound quality difference but MP3 is supported everywhere. I seem WMA support in most devices now, and you said your DVD plays both. But, what if down the road you by another device that plays mp3's but not WMA? Sure you could burn the disc again. I like MP3 because you never have to worry about it working in a device.

Agreed.

Agree as well!

 

[potato28]

Originally posted by: AnitaPeterson

Originally posted by: htne

Originally posted by: QueBert
I recommend MP3, not for a sound quality difference but MP3 is supported everywhere. I seem WMA support in most devices now, and you said your DVD plays both. But, what if down the road you by another device that plays mp3's but not WMA? Sure you could burn the disc again. I like MP3 because you never have to worry about it working in a device.

Agreed.

Agree as well!

Agreed for a third time, also for the open source of going to other OS's too.

 

[Knowname]

mp3 if you use headphones, wma if, you know, you're in bed with Microsoft...

 

[QueBert]

I speak from personal experience, years ago before portable players were even on the market. I decided to rip my entire collection of CDs which was around 300 to mp3. But I thought I would be cool and different and support an open source format. So the result was over 5,000 OGG files. They sounded good, but a few years passed, portable mp3 players started to surface and what do you know, they were playable on next to none of them. It can be a real hassle to work with other formats, so regardless if you get slightly better sound or compression out of it don't do it. When I re-ripped all my CDs *again* to MP3 I think the idea really hit home to go with what's the most popular.

 

[0roo0roo]

yup waste of time to deal with wma files.
if someone can actually pass a double blind audio test at 320kbps...they probably can hear earthworms moving beneath their feet.

 

[Gooberlx2]

Originally posted by: QueBert
I speak from personal experience, years ago before portable players were even on the market. I decided to rip my entire collection of CDs which was around 300 to mp3. But I thought I would be cool and different and support an open source format. So the result was over 5,000 OGG files. They sounded good, but a few years passed, portable mp3 players started to surface and what do you know, they were playable on next to none of them. It can be a real hassle to work with other formats, so regardless if you get slightly better sound or compression out of it don't do it. When I re-ripped all my CDs *again* to MP3 I think the idea really hit home to go with what's the most popular.

That's why ripped all my stuff to WMAlossless. WMA is well supported except by Apple's devices, and in the case of something not being supported, it's a simple trick to transcode without loss of quality...rather than re-ripping each CD manually.

 

[LeetestUnleet]

Or there's always FLAC (or other lossless formats, but FLAC is free and easy to use IMHO - also, unlike WMAlossless, is cross-platform). Rip a copy of everything to FLAC to your hard drive, then transcode from FLAC to MP3 or whatever as necessary if you absolutely need to.

 

[theprodigalrebel]

Use MP3 but 320kbps CBR is outdated and no longer recommended. Use Quality (VBR) with the 'extreme' preset (-V 0), considered overkill by most. Your files will be under 250kbps and, theoretically, should sound better than 320kbps CBR.

You save space and you have the final word on quality mp3. Win-win!

 

[LittleNemoNES]

Originally posted by: LeetestUnleet
Or there's always FLAC (or other lossless formats, but FLAC is free and easy to use IMHO - also, unlike WMAlossless, is cross-platform). Rip a copy of everything to FLAC to your hard drive, then transcode from FLAC to MP3 or whatever as necessary if you absolutely need to.

BINGO!

This is what I have done. I ripped everything with FLAC on the fastest compression, converted copies onto a folder named My Music MP3 using 320 VBR. THen when my PC had free time, I maxed out the compression for the FLAC files.