# WMA compared to MP3...



## Zman1764 (Jun 2, 2005)

Almost my entire music library is WMA format. I might eventually get an Ipod (only because of the vast amount of accessories available for it), and if I do, I'll need to convert all my music to either AAC or MP3 format (and AAC is NOT happening).

If I converted all my 192K WMA music to 192K MP3, would I hear any difference in sound? Will the files become bigger if they are formatted in MP3?


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## thecoalman (Mar 6, 2006)

Zman1764 said:


> If I converted all my 192K WMA music to 192K MP3, would I hear any difference in sound?


Probably, anytime you go from one format to another quality loss is inevitable especially when using lossy formats like WMA and MP3. Having said that it probably won't be noticeable.



> Will the files become bigger if they are formatted in MP3?


No a 1 minute 192kbps file is going to be the same filesize regardless of format. The difference lies in the how well the codecs work. WMA is superior to MP3 especially when you are using really low datarates. The downside to using WMA is it is not supported by a lot of devices.


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## Zman1764 (Jun 2, 2005)

any other opinions?


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## Couriant (Mar 26, 2002)

Why not go to AAC?

WMA is starting to becoming universal in players but since you won't do ACC then you're only option is MP3. Now the bitrate will be the key factor in the size. From what I remember the sizes in 192Kbps is relatively teh same size for both WMA and MP3... but that's from a few files i tested.


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## kaaos (Jan 10, 2006)

Zman1764 said:


> any other opinions?


if you have the time, space and the original cds i would reencode all files to 320kbs mp3. or go to wav which is the best audio format out there.


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## dugq (Jul 16, 2004)

Personally I wouldn't use wav, instead you could store the original cd tracks in a lossless format, such as flac. Its the same quality as wav but less space. You can then reencode from the lossless files to whatever format you like whenever you want (no doubt there will be a better standard than mp3 sooner or later) without the quality loss when reencoding from lossy to lossy (e.g from wma to mp3). Lossless does use more storage space so it really depends on how much music you have and how much storage space.


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## kaaos (Jan 10, 2006)

i do laptop djing and i use "wav" only and if i have to use mp3 i use 320kbs. i do notice the difference between wav and mp3. not that the average person would and also not saying if you play 10 songs wav and 10 flac mp3 i could tell you which was mp3 vs wav. im just saying that wav is the best sound vs mp3. you can notice the difference in a big club sound system a lot more. deeper bass and higher highs


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## dugq (Jul 16, 2004)

Sure, wav v mp3 may have a difference, but flac is the same data as the wav just compressed, so no difference in quality.


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## Moby (Mar 19, 2002)

dugq, how much smaller than wav, or bigger than mp3/wma is a flac file roughly? Say a 100mb wav file would be a 10mb 128 bitrate mp3, how big would the flac file be?


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## DarqueMist (Jan 16, 2001)

kaaos said:


> i do laptop djing and i use "wav" only and if i have to use mp3 i use 320kbs. i do notice the difference between wav and mp3. not that the average person would and also not saying if you play 10 songs wav and 10 flac mp3 i could tell you which was mp3 vs wav. im just saying that wav is the best sound vs mp3. you can notice the difference in a big club sound system a lot more. deeper bass and higher highs


No true audiophile would ever say you get quality sound out of they typical "big club" sound system. They tend to lean way to heavy on the bass (although for good reason since most people in clubs are looking to dance) at the expense of the midrange and treble. At present for my home system I'm using a NAD amplifier with Mission speakers, not terribly high end but both components have very good reputations. When listening to MP3s I hear the biggest increase in sound quality going from 128 to 192, a marginal improvement in the high end going to 256 and I personally hear no difference at all from there up, and doubt there are many people other than trained musicians that can tell the difference between 256 and 320. To put it bluntly 320 is just overkill, you don't need it. As far as wav goes if you are going to go with a lossless format why not go flac?

To the original posters question. Don't worry about converting from wma to mp3 or aac unless you have a particularly discerning ear and reasonably high end audio playback equipment. If you are getting an iPod you will most likely end up using iTunes to look after loading media on to it and when you import your songs into iTunes you will be presented with the option to convert your wma files to aac (which would be my choice) or mp3 (here I would choose a high quality variable bitrate as opposed to 192, 256 or a space stealing 320kbps).

oh yeah, it will actually create a new file for you not write over your original so if you are unhappy with the quality you can try something else.


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## dugq (Jul 16, 2004)

Moby said:


> dugq, how much smaller than wav, or bigger than mp3/wma is a flac file roughly? Say a 100mb wav file would be a 10mb 128 bitrate mp3, how big would the flac file be?


It varies a lot, most of the time it would be about 60-70mb, but with some music, especially classical, it can go down below 30mb.


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## kaaos (Jan 10, 2006)

DarqueMist said:


> No true audiophile would ever say you get quality sound out of they typical "big club" sound system. They tend to lean way to heavy on the bass (although for good reason since most people in clubs are looking to dance) at the expense of the midrange and treble. At present for my home system I'm using a NAD amplifier with Mission speakers, not terribly high end but both components have very good reputations. When listening to MP3s I hear the biggest increase in sound quality going from 128 to 192, a marginal improvement in the high end going to 256 and I personally hear no difference at all from there up, and doubt there are many people other than trained musicians that can tell the difference between 256 and 320. To put it bluntly 320 is just overkill, you don't need it. As far as wav goes if you are going to go with a lossless format why not go flac?
> 
> To the original posters question. Don't worry about converting from wma to mp3 or aac unless you have a particularly discerning ear and reasonably high end audio playback equipment. If you are getting an iPod you will most likely end up using iTunes to look after loading media on to it and when you import your songs into iTunes you will be presented with the option to convert your wma files to aac (which would be my choice) or mp3 (here I would choose a high quality variable bitrate as opposed to 192, 256 or a space stealing 320kbps).
> 
> oh yeah, it will actually create a new file for you not write over your original so if you are unhappy with the quality you can try something else.


i can hear the diff between 192 and 320 but like i said it would have to be in a big sound system. 320 might be overkill but i have 1tb to spare and not even close to 50% used

for the original poster, rip a test mp3 at 192 then one at 320 then make a choice as to which is cleaner. it all boils down to preference


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## Digidave (Jun 5, 2005)

I see a lot of people giving opinions here. But, I haven't seen a clearcut answer to the original post. When converting from one lossy file to another lossy file, there will always be a loss in quality nomatter what you do. So, the ideal solution would be to rerip everything. Now , this isn't always possible. You may have downloaded the music or just borrowed a friends CD to copy. In this case reencoding is the only solution, to get an mp3.

To the original posters question. Don't worry about converting from wma to mp3 or aac unless you have a particularly discerning ear and reasonably high end audio playback equipment. 

This part is very true!!

If you are getting an iPod you will most likely end up using iTunes to look after loading media on to it and when you import your songs into iTunes you will be presented with the option to convert your wma files to aac (which would be my choice) or mp3 (here I would choose a high quality variable bitrate as opposed to 192, 256 or a space stealing 320kbps).

This part is completly wrong.(No offence) You're giving the impression that if you take a wma file encoded at 192kbps & convert it to an mp3 file & set the encoder to a higher bitrate, that you will end up with a better quality mp3 file. This isn't possible. When you reencode any 192kbps file you will never have anything more than a 192kbps file. No matter what you do. The only way to get a better quality file is to add back some of the information that originally was taken out to do the original compression. This, I'm sorry to say, just isn't possible. As they say, You can't get a Filet Mignon from a can of S**T.


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## thecoalman (Mar 6, 2006)

Digidave said:


> This part is completly wrong.(No offence) You're giving the impression that if you take a wma file encoded at 192kbps & convert it to an mp3 file & set the encoder to a higher bitrate, that you will end up with a better quality mp3 file. :


Higher qulaity you will not get but by using a higher bitrate you'll be able to preserve the original quality better when going from one lossy format to another.


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## Digidave (Jun 5, 2005)

thecoalman said:


> Higher qulaity you will not get but by using a higher bitrate you'll be able to preserve the original quality better when going from one lossy format to another.


You know, I've always figured this was the case, but I never really knew for sure. I wonder if anybody has ever done it (Reencoding) with a bunch of different higher bitrates. Just to see if it really makes a difference, for one, & to see if reencoding a 192kbps file with the encoder set to 320kbps would be better than if it were set at 256kbps. It certainly seems natural that it would. But I would be curious to see some analysis of the files after the reencoding.

Sorry, a little off subject, but my curiousity is getting the best of me.


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## thecoalman (Mar 6, 2006)

Digidave said:


> .... It certainly seems natural that it would. But I would be curious to see some analysis of the files after the reencoding.


Can't say I've done any comparisons with audio but I have with video. Ideally if you want to edit something like MPEG extensively yopu want to uncompress it to a near lossless format using the huffy codec for AVI's, do your edits and reencode back to mpeg. I'd imagine if you went from WMA>WAV>MP3 you'd get a nearly identical sound.... I could be wrong though... may even be better to go directly to a high bitrate MP3....


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## DarqueMist (Jan 16, 2001)

thanks for responding for me coalman, my reason for choosing aac would be to minimize the loss, I know there would be degredation of quality going from lossy to lossy format.
and no offence taken digidave, I reread what I wrote and could see how my poor choice of words left the impression you got


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## DarqueMist (Jan 16, 2001)

thecoalman said:


> I'd imagine if you went from WMA>WAV>MP3 you'd get a nearly identical sound.... I could be wrong though... may even be better to go directly to a high bitrate MP3....


I've tried editing songs in a similar fashion, although from mp3 > wav > mp3 and ended up with some very noticeable differences in quality.


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## Zman1764 (Jun 2, 2005)

See, I listen to hard rock, screamo, and hardcore music... its alot of data for the songs so doing at 320 would be a freaking hog to my hard drive (theres only like 40 gigs left on it, and 320 is like twice the quality that I have it set to now)
I keep most of my music at 192 WMA format... If someone emails me a song (or i record one using total recorder), its usually at 128, and theres nothing i can really do about it....
I'd probably use MP3 192, since its not as much of a space hog, but its still got decent quality...


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## Moby (Mar 19, 2002)

dugq said:


> It varies a lot, most of the time it would be about 60-70mb, but with some music, especially classical, it can go down below 30mb.


Ta :up:


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