WMA vs MP3

I played around with WMA a couple of years ago. I settled on ripping everything to 192kbps MP3. You can argue minutae between the two - WMA will get you to a slightly smaller file, but not enough to make a huge difference. I can't tell the difference in sound quality between the two at that bit rate (WMA at 128 sounds slightly better to me, though) Besides, not all devices have WMA support, but EVERYTHING plays MP3. 192 is a good compromise for me, it's close enough to CD quality except for music that has a huge dynamic range, like classical.

WMP rips to MP3 just fine and does a decent job tagging the files.

 

If you have a lot of hard drive space copy them as .wav files. That's the best you can get

If you have to "compress" them, do at least 192K mp3's. Higher bit rates sound a lot better, and 320 is really good for an mp3. Also, don't use iTunes to convert the files, it sucks for that.

 

I use at least 192kbps mp3s, but now I'm starting to realize the difference. Perhaps it's the fact that I pay a lot more attention to the music now, but I'm going to rerip my collection slowly again but this time do it all in apple lossless. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Lossless ) Just because iTunes does it so easily.

I have about 300gb of mp3's right now, it'll take a long time. I'm going to be buying a lot of those 1tb Seagate drives when they come out.

 

Then what do you suggest (that's a free download) ??

 

Or better yet, FLAC.

 

I use FreeRIP MP3

 

MP3 format is the most supported format and can be played on EVERY music player. WMA can not.

I ripped my entire CD collection (500+) using iTunes and Apple lossless format, which is a 2:1 compression that does not lose any sound quality over CD. I use this format to stream to my Roku Soundbridges connected to my stereos, so I get CD quality but easy access to all my music. I then used a Windows tool called dbpowerAMP which batch converts Apple Lossless to MP3 using LAME, the best MP3 encoder out there. I use mid quality VBR encoding settings, which gives files sizes comparable to 160 to 192 bps, but better sound quality. I use MP3 format for portable players (mainly iPods and iPhone). I basically have a directory with all the lossless files and a directory with mp3 files. Luckily, I work for a data storage company!

It's a lot of work, but I take my music seriously!

-steve

 

Thats what i was going to say

 

I don't know guys. I use Roxio's Audio Central. It sounds great IMO. Not sure you can find it for free. This FLAC looks interesting though. ?I just saw you can download studio masters from Linn Records in FLAC format! Wow, that's 24bit/88.2! That's the format I used to mix records in. Very cool

vraa,
glad your starting to hear the difference! Someday we'll move you up to the difference between a cd and Vinyl

 

What I mean is, if iTunes is junk for converting to MP3, what is a free download that is better, and why is it better ? iTunes sounds fine for me, but in the comfort of my home, I still listen to vinyl, through a 30 yr old Yamaha system, which I think is pretty nice.
My wife wants me to junk it all so she can buy something 'with a remote control and a multi-disc CD changer', I said 'NO'.

 

If you're using iTunes, you have the ability to do lossless encoding with it.

In this day of massive harddrives, I strongly suggest it.
Lossless means that whatever data it can get from the cd, it doesn't discard any of it.

MP3 is not lossless. That means when you encode it at 128kbps (average, which IMO is way too low), you are stuck with that quality forever.
If you encode it at 192kbps, it'll sound good, but it'll sound that way forever. Whatever you've lost in the music to compress that much is gone *forever*. I can't emphasize that enough.

So what happens when say you give your music to your kids, or get a better sound system, or being able to discern sounds better. Well, you'll have to hope you have the original full source because you can't encode an mp3 to a higher bitrate (you physically can, but you don't gain any thing).

So just take the extra harddrive space now to rip in lossless. That way whenever you listen to your music, you can be sure the difference in sound is in the speakers and your ears, not the source

For those more interested - even within lossless and lossy formats are various formats and within the formats themselves there are variations. Taking mp3 for example, you can have a ton of differently encoded .mp3 files that meet the standard. There are a ton of presets too, usually you want one which has had the least modifications (I think Alt-preset-standard).

If you're on Windows use http://cdexos.sourceforge.net/?q=download
It's the best audio ripping tool )

If you're on Mac (or use iTunes on Windows) read this
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93118
And learn how to change to Apple Lossless.

 

Yes, iTunes will copy as either "Apple Lossless Codec" or "Wave". I highly recommend copying as wave files as those are the same files on cd's. My whole collection is copied as wave files. They use anywhere from 500 to 750mb each. The nice thing is when I burn them to a cd, it's the same as the original. I do this so I don't ruin the original cd's listening to them in the car and whatnot.

If you insist on converting the files to a lossless codec for saving of space, don't use iTunes

I'll make a couple of comparative samples later today and post them.

 

Sonically, there is absolutely no difference between uncompressed .wav files and lossless encoded files (Apple, FLAC, etc). Lossless compressed files take up half the space. They can easily be burnt back to a CD to make an EXACT copy of the original, or they can be transcoded to another lossless format without any loss in quality (Apple to FLAC, for instance). There is nothing to lose by using a lossless format, and more to gain (disk space).

-steve

 

I'm moving everything over to flac.
I started with Dream Theater

All I have to say is *wow*