lekguan 0 Report post Posted September 8, 2003 How does the sound quality of MP3 compared to WMA. Apparently, if i'm not wrong, WMA sounds better than MP3 of the same bitrate at low bitrate (128Kbps). Wha about higher bitrate, or even at the highest (320Kbps)? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
huangyong 0 Report post Posted September 9, 2003 I am not really sure, but let me share my experience with you how i play with both format. i used encode a song into 2 format(highest quality), then play it in winamp. While, i open a monitor program (forgot which program already) to monitor the processor, ram usage and harddisk read and write process. then i notice somehting WMA actually use more processing power than mp3 (i am not sure, if wrong somebody pls correct me, it was 1year++ ago) and while playing mp3, the program keep reading data from harddisk, constantly; when playing WMA, the graph showed that the program read a big chunk of data then stop reading for a moment, and this read and stop process continued on. i personally preferred highest quality variable bit WMA. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
lekguan 0 Report post Posted September 9, 2003 hmm about variable, i tried variable on MP3, while it sounded much better for the same file size CBR at low bitrate, it sounded not as good when you reach around 192kbps or more. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
adhoc 0 Report post Posted September 9, 2003 i believe i've read somewhere that the highest quality wma cannot compare to 320 cbr mp3 fraunhofer/lame. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Absolute0 0 Report post Posted September 9, 2003 Best to head over to Hydrogenaudio for all the answers. It has been discussed umpteen times there, I believe. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
eccentric 0 Report post Posted September 10, 2003 I would encode everythingin ogg vobis, except dat mp3 is the industry standard format and there's not much support for it yet. WMA is just a really troublesome moving around cos of microsoft's irritating lisensing limitations. I just convert all wma my to mp3 via easy cd-da 6. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
lekguan 0 Report post Posted September 10, 2003 yeah from hydrogenaudio i saw top mp3 vs top WMA mp3 is much better. eccentric, If I rip CD of course I use lossless compression, but now I'm talking about using it with MP3 player.... The best format I've heard on MP3 player is AAC... next is MP3... OGG still not supported. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Absolute0 0 Report post Posted September 10, 2003 (edited) Ogg is great at lower bitrates, but not really so at higher bitrates. If file size is a concern, ogg may be a good choice, but the lack of hardware support is it's greatest disadvantage. Ogg is not lossless btw. Hardware support for AAC is also quite limited, not many mp3 players support that except for the iPod, the latest Nokia jukebox-style phone and a few others, but not industry leaders like iRiver and Creative. Edited September 10, 2003 by Absolute0 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
