wma vs mp3

[MrPG]

I ripped a track from a cd to wma(64kbps) and mp3(192kbps) the wma file was 2megs @ 4minutes.. the mp3 was 7megs @ 4minutes. I listened to both tracks in winamp and media player @ random and tried to see if I could tell the which was which and I couldn't. Am I seriously tone deaf or is there very little difference in quallity between these formats. I just found it amazing because of the difference in size... 2megs as compared to 7megs.. and no obvious loss in listening quality...

 

[bigrash]

I think almost everyone in this forum will tell you that there is a difference, although I can't tell them apart. IMO wma's are cool cause they're smaller and I can fit about 300 songs in my Riovolt

 

[Elledan]

WMA is a better format than MP3, yet Ogg Vorbis is even better.

 

[DaveSimmons]

<< .. and no obvious loss in listening quality... >>

out of curiousity, what were you listening on, phones (cheap or expensive), PC speakers, shelf system, or a real stereo system with good speakers?

I'm not implying you're wrong or tone-deaf, just that listening quality that's the same on $20 headphones or so-so PC speakers might have very noticeable differences on real stereo speakers.

Also, some songs compress better than others -- in my experience 192kbps is 99% CD-quality on many songs but more like 90% on others. Since drive space is cheap I'm thinking of playing it safe and just using 256 kbps for my MP3 jukebox PC when I finish upgrading it since I can still fit my collection on two 80 GB's

 

[PliotronX]

Does it matter as long as you can't tell the difference?

Audio quality is subjective, so we can all argue till the cows come home, but it still wouldn't change the fact that you can't hear any difference. However, if you are inexperienced with lossy audio compression like MP3 or WMA, I will have to warn you that down the line, if you get better sound equipment, you will begin to hear the difference, and it will grow on you.

 

[cuteybunny]

64kbps does not sound good as 128kbps, there is a noticeable different if you have quality sound card and quality speaker or amps. with cheap onboard or cheap stereo system you wont notice anything at all even with 32kbps 22kherz stereo.l

 

[contra53]

look into mp3pro, it is the way to go, all the benefits of the mp3 format and half the size. look into it at mp3prozone.com

 

[MrPG]

As far as soun equipment I've got a pretty oK setup, on 1 machine a p3 1ghz sound blaster live 5.1 gamer x with cambridge fps1500s and on my main system a athlon tbird 1.4 a turtle beach santa cruz with altech lansing ada880.

So i think sound equipment is good enough, and as for 64kbps being higher quality than 128kbps, thats obvious. when encoding in wma, 64kbps is referenced as CD-quality.... as far as how they get that equation, i don't know


I totally crank the music up, no too high but high enough to clearly hear all the background music and sound effects, and sharpness and clearity of the different instruments and I didn't hear any obviously difference, no crackling, dullness, etc....

 

[Nothinman]

WMA is a Microsoft creation and comes with all the licensing and patent restrictions everything they produce does and it's Windows only, MP3 is better but still has some issues but they "fixed" that with MP3Pro which is just as bad as WMA, Ogg has no such restrictions and is really the only free one.

But if you don't care about the licensing or what corporation runs your music, use what your ears like.

 

[MrPG]

yea.. mp3pro huh.... i'll check out this ogg. I was justed amazed at the difference in size... 2megs@64kbps compared to 7megs@194kbps.. a difference like that I asumed the wma would sound like i was listening to the track via a cell phone or something, but as i said, I didn't hear any OBVIOUS difference.


Pretty cool I think. damn those licensing nutts @ ms.