WMA 192 kbps vs WMA VBR 240-355 kbps Options

[JasonWilley]

besides the obvious file size differences, what will be the differences in sound quality and performance when ripping music with windows media player 12?

will the sound be the best lossy file at the highest vbr settings compaired to wma 192

cheers

This post has been edited by greynol: Oct 13 2010, 00:45

Reason for edit: Standard font, please.

[pdq]

While the higher bitrate should theoretically be of higher quality, for most people and most music the difference will probably be inaudible.

Having said that, VBR is almost always the most efficient way to get the highest quality.

Beyond that you would need to do your own testing to see how they sound to you on your own equipment.

This post has been edited by greynol: Oct 13 2010, 00:44

Reason for edit: Removed unnecessary quotation of the initial post.

[Juha]

WMA 192kbps ... what 'bout it as WMA Pro 24-bit resolution.

Juha

[JasonWilley]

i always thought wma pro was 16 bit

[pdq]

i always thought wma pro was 16 bit

And I always thought that lossy encodings had no bit depth?

[lvqcl]

I wonder why WMA STD encoder cannot correctly encode 60.wv in VBR mode...

[JasonWilley]

i cant hear any obvious differences so would i be better of with normal wma 192

[pdq]

i cant hear any obvious differences so would i be better of with normal wma 192

If you are asking between WMA standard vs. WMA pro, WMA standard has much more universal support.

[JasonWilley]

i know but am asking interms of pure sound quality between wma and wma vbr at highest settings

[greynol]

If you cannot ABX then there is no difference in terms of "pure sound quality."

[JasonWilley]

i dont know what abx is or meens

[Ouroboros]

Try the HA WIKI, or Google, or Wikipedia........

[dhromed]

i dont know what abx is or meens

ABX is a methodology to determine difference and/or superiority between two audio samples. Details here.

Lossy compression has no real objective measure of quality whereby you can scan a file and say for certain that X has greater quality than Y. You can assume that, for example, a 320kbps MP3 is of better quality than a 192kbps one, but you can only verify it by listening.

In other words, if you cannot hear a difference, then there is none, and it would make no sense to pick one compression type over another.

[pdq]

i dont know what abx is or meens

Oh come on! You've been a member for seven months and you didn't know the meaning of ABX?

[dhromed]

Oh come on! You've been a member for seven months and you didn't know the meaning of ABX?

Join date only loosely correlates with lurkingtensity, in my experience.

[2Bdecided]

we not all geeks you know

No, but if you can reach Hydrogenaudio, then you can probably reach Google too.

And though I'm sure you didn't mean to, if someone wanted to seriously troll Hydrogenaudio, they'd probably start the way you are doing. ABX testing is the way we separate real improvements from imaginary bullshit - which is largely the point of this forum.

Cheers,
David.

[db1989]

Never mind the fact that the Terms of Service—which you implicitly agreed to abide by upon registering, and thus probably ought to skim over—explicitly feature information on what ABX testing is and why it is important.

[Ouroboros]

In what sense does reading about ABX require you to be a geek, or require you to have a science degree? If, for example, you were being asked to understand how MP3 encoders use DCT then that might be a reasonable response, but there's nothing "geeky" about structured listening tests - as you have discovered if you'd done any reading as suggested. Also, you have already stated "i cant hear any obvious differences" (your lack of capitalisation and punctuation has been preserved losslessly in that quotation), so you are obviously happy to do a listening test, and ABX is just a formal method of making sure that your comparative listening tests are free from bias.

[Zarggg]

i dont know what abx is or meens

Oh come on! You've been a member for seven months and you didn't know the meaning of ABX?

I joined the forum back in 2004, but didn't REALLY start lurking/responding until sometime in 2008.

[dhromed]

we not all geeks you know

No, but...

The deleted posts make this thread something of a talking-to-my-imaginary-friend one.

In any case, I think Jason's question has been adequately answered. Perhaps relative to his level of commitment and base knowledge, HA does require a "science degree". Structured testing is science, after all.

[hellokeith]

I wonder why WMA STD encoder cannot correctly encode 60.wv in VBR mode...

sounds identical to me, can you describe the issue?

For the OP topic, I am more of a fan of Windows Media Encoder and its command line vbs add-on than trying to rip/convert with WMP. That said, 192 kbps and higher is generally* where any lossy codec becomes transparent to the source.

[saratoga]

WMA Standard supports 24 bit audio FWIW. No idea if the MS encoder is particularly good at it (probably makes no difference anyway).

[lvqcl]

sounds identical to me, can you describe the issue?

I was talking about WMA STD quality-based VBR, not 2-pass & bitrate-based...

[pdq]

WMA Standard supports 24 bit audio FWIW. No idea if the MS encoder is particularly good at it (probably makes no difference anyway).

I have no idea what you mean by that, since lossy-encoded files have no inherent bit depth. Do you mean that the encoder accepts 24 bit PCM files as input?

[hellokeith]

sounds identical to me, can you describe the issue?

I was talking about WMA STD quality-based VBR, not 2-pass & bitrate-based...

Hrmm well I ran it through WME on the default Quality VBR:

CODE

Audio encoding mode:    Quality VBR

Audience:     Quality-based
Audio codec:    Windows Media Audio 9
Audio format:    VBR Quality 98, 44 kHz, stereo VBR

and it still sounds identical to me. Maybe you are using a 3rd-party encoder with some issue?