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MP3 vs WMA

A

asianguy80

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Oct 22, 2003
Messages
1,225
Would there be a noticeable difference in sound quality if I were to use WMA's @ 128kbps vs. and MP3 @ 128kbps? Which is better? I know the WMA files are smaller IIRC. I plan to xfer these songs onto an mp3 player. Any comments and suggestions are welcomed.
 
As the above poster said, it depends primarily on your ears. But also in your soundcard and your speakers.

WMA9@128kbps should be higher quality than MP3@128kbps in theory.

But also, I can't tell a difference between MP3@128 and MP3@192 or even 320 in my headphones. But I sure as hell can tell a difference with my computer speakers and car system between 128 and 192. Its all subjective. Experiement for yourself.
 
I encode all my files with WMA9 Pro. I like 24bit VBR Quality 90 44khz Stereo as the best setting I have found for my system/ears
 
oh yea sorry i forgot about this post i put here i plan on using a Samsung YP-MT6Z mp3 player. I'm not partial to apple so don't suggest it. ;)

what program can encode vorbis?
 
what about the aacPlus codec that was introduced with Winamp 5.1. I heard it was amazing at low, low bitrates
 
aacplus blows them all away from my listening per bitrate. 24kbps aacplus sounds virtually identical to 128kbps mp3 to my ears.
 
FLAC is such a pain to support. Their libraries always need fixing. I personally use WavPack for lossless.
 
Chastity said:
FLAC is such a pain to support. Their libraries always need fixing. I personally use WavPack for lossless.
Click to expand...
What sort of problems have you experienced?
 
Talk to DEATH (Peter of FB2K) about library bugs in FLAC. Prepare for a rant. FB2K has quite a few workarounds involving seeking, etc.
 
wee96 said:
aacplus blows them all away from my listening per bitrate. 24kbps aacplus sounds virtually identical to 128kbps mp3 to my ears.
Click to expand...

then your ears are broken. Badly, badly, badly broken. Either that or your speakers / headphones stink. Yeah, it's all subjective and yadda yadda yadda, but absolutely _any_ codec at 24kbps sounds like poop (except for plain voice).
 
AdamW said:
then your ears are broken. Badly, badly, badly broken. Either that or your speakers / headphones stink. Yeah, it's all subjective and yadda yadda yadda, but absolutely _any_ codec at 24kbps sounds like poop (except for plain voice).
Click to expand...
Ahem. Mind if I step in on this?

Here's a file that has been encoded at 32kbps PS AAC, otherwise known as aacPlus v2 You let me know how "crappy" it sounds.
 
That stream actually sounds OK, it's obviously quite lacking in higher frequencies, but there's no bubbling or ringing like you'd get with mp3 or whatever.
 
Yeah that 24 bit rate file is missing some of the finer points of the music. This is also a very easy track to replicate. Let me here it with some synthesized bass, high hat, and male lyricist at the same time. It is usually much easier to see the difficiencies of the codec at that bit rate

Sorry those of use with rather nice audio setups are not going to suggest the lossy formats, especially not at such low bit rates.
 
Too bad all of my music was pre-encoded into 128bit MP3 or sometimes a little better. I'm out of luck :/.
 
threedd97 said:
Too bad all of my music was pre-encoded into 128bit MP3 or sometimes a little better. I'm out of luck :/.
Click to expand...
Paying for hi-fi originals is a bitch, ain't it?
 
I'm not whiping my orifices with green pieces of paper, so you hit the nail dead on :D.
 
Svperstar said:
.APE

http://www.monkeysaudio.com/
Click to expand...
APE has been slow to update, so we at FB2K no longer endorse it. We suggest WavPack as an alternative.

here's a fun quote discussing 4.01b:

<Vicki> ogm... Monkey came out with an update
<Vicki> heh, now supports hyperthreading
<DEATH> uninteresting
<DEATH> if he unfucked his commandline exe, you'd get parallel encoding with fb2k
<DEATH> but noooo
 
MP3 ftw. LAME 3.90.3 --alt-preset standard (VBR with targetted ABR of 192).

Never had any problems with FLAC. MP3 is only to burn to disc for portable discman.

Edit: Okay, ABR in the above isn't really the right way to say it. VBR is VBR. ABR is different. I guess the 'standard' VBR encoding targets a general average bitrate of 192, but ABR is a different algorithm altogether.
 
AdamW said:
then your ears are broken. Badly, badly, badly broken. Either that or your speakers / headphones stink. Yeah, it's all subjective and yadda yadda yadda, but absolutely _any_ codec at 24kbps sounds like poop (except for plain voice).
Click to expand...

What? Sorry I couldnt hear you.




:p
 
btw, it's true that aacplus _is_ mighty impressive at low bitrates in comparative terms - it definitely sounds better than any other codec I've heard in the 24-128 range. At 64k it _is_ very close to 128k MP3 - the highs are weird, but then I hate mp3 highs too, so there's not much difference. But 24 is just too low for even a good codec - aacplus does sound _good_ down there, but not up to 128k mp3 level, definitely not 128k vorbis.
 
Chastity said:
APE has been slow to update, so we at FB2K no longer endorse it. We suggest WavPack as an alternative.
Click to expand...

APE does everything I need it to do. However, now that I know you guys on the Foobar forums don't recommend it I am converting my entire lossless library to WavPack. Thanks.
 
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