Hello, this is my first post here, so please be gentle

I run Windows XP SP1 and have Windows Media Player 9, Cool Edit Pro 2 and Nero Burning ROM 6. I have about 60 store bought audio CDs and also have a RioVolt SP150 CD/MP3/WMA hybrid portable player.

Currently I have ripped all my favorite songs from my CDs as 128 Kbps MP3's onto my computer through Music Match Jukebox. Since I've removed MMJB (which is a post in itself: it's privacy, stability and poor sound issues) and want to re-rip all of my music.

I basically put all my ripped music as MP3 CDs on CDR's (2 of them), put a CD in my RioVolt, and then hook it up to my car stereo.

I'd like to know which has the best quality and best file size at the same settings: MP3 or WMA. I'll be using VBR this time, unless CBR is better (quality/file size).

Any suggestions or comments are welcome.

read a bit in the topics before question a basic thing like this. determine one or two hours of your time, since a lot of people have asked this before and it is answered a lot in this community. don´t be lazy please...
read the FAQ, the WIKI.

in your case try out for yourself. as you are listening in noisy environment (car, u will not hear much difference). the safe way is using lame 3.90.3 with preset standard since u are using cdrs and have lot of space...

it all depends on what file size VBR you want to go with

180 to 224 VBR file size go with MP3 --alt preset standard, if thats too big go with WMA

I think WMA performs better at lower bitrates then MP3 listed above

Ctrl Alt Del. I bought an mp3/wma car cd player a few months back. I can tell you that your best bet is to use EAC and lame 3.90.3 using --alt-preset standard.

On average you will be able to fit 6-11 albums on to a 700mb cd, and the quality is truly transparent.

I wouldnt advise using wma because (as far as I'm aware) most hardware currently on the market won't accept version 9 and any previous version will not hold a candle to lame A.P.S

Hope this helped

Hi Ctrl Alt Del & welcome,
I have a muvo 64 mb, so I must stay pretty low with bitrate;
anyway, I personally prefer mp3 over wma.

I use mainly lame 3.90.3 with --alt-preset 128
or
cooledit mp3 plugin vbr 40, high quality, with IS, narrowind and M/S

bye

I'd stick with MP3 out of concern for compatibilty with any portable player you might get in the future. At least until you find a compelling reason to do something differently...

At least on 128kps it does

I prefer -aps. Using CDs there is really no point in trading quality for more files (even if in a car you are unlikely to tell the diference).

That test included the WMA 9 PRO codec which, as stated above, is not supported by most (any?) hardware players at the moment (in-dash included).

I personally use ABR format in LAME to encode my files at 128kbits ABR. I tried WMA and if you have good/excellent car speakers WMA will annoy the hell outta yah. LAME on the other hand won't as much, I haven't tested WMA VBR as I don't have it installed on my computer. I might try it later cause my goal for cars is to fit as much songs as possible on once CD, therefore minimising the amount of CDs you need to carry.

Regards

AgentMil

I've tried both in the car. I can hear differences between the two but will not state them here. Opinions on sound are not tolerated in this forum. Especially if you have anything good to say about WMA.

I will say, if you use WMP9, you are better off with WMA. There are several decent music sites that allow users to download WMA files to WMP9 for $0.99 per song - similar to the itunes store. Otherwise, MP3 with APS setting is your best bet. As for compatability, MP3 is always the safest choice. However in your case, it sounds like your car player is WMA compliant so not an issue. Further, every new portable player on the market plays WMA except the ipod.

Make a CD of each type and see what you prefer. Then rip the rest to that format. Enjoy your music!

BTW - I just bought Nero 6 as well. Nice choice it is awesome! WMP9 has a Nero plug-in as well. Check out the WMP plug-ins page.

I agree. If MP3 Lossy is your choice, the best is LAME for encoding (use extreme or standard, depending on your space available), and if you choose to look further, you should look into EAC for ripping.


Cheers! and good luck

I gotta go along with the Lame 3.90.3 --alt-preset standard crowd.

Dex

Oh yeah, and I mainly use them in my car Alpine unit that has both mp3 and wma support.

My $0.02...

I used LAME MP3 --alt-preset standard for a while, then --alt-preset insane (no logical reason, mostly just wasted storage capacity for the warm fuzzies). Overall I was satisfied with --alt-preset standard except for one thing...no gapless playback (outside of PC players). Not a big deal for most people, but if enough of your favorite music "runs together" in track changes, then it may be an issue. I can't remember if WMA is natively gapless or not. I tried a few WMA files in my car a while back, but I don't remember listening for gaps. If it is gapless, that would be a mark in its favor for someone like me. Then again, I consider M$ as becoming more like "big brother" every day (with DRM and what not), like someone's watching over my shoulder. If I used WMA, I'd fear that one day my music players might say "To play this song, please deposit $0.50...now."

So, overall, my vote would go to MP3 (LAME --alt-preset standard) out of those two options. I know your RioVolt can do VBR (because my father has one), but if I was limited to CBR and still had plenty of space (a CD-R or HDD) I'd probably go LAME --preset cbr 192. If I had to go with CBR and had limited capacity (e.g., 128MB flash cards) I'd go with LAME --preset cbr 128 (as I use on my portable CBR-only MP3 players).

(For reference, I don't use either format currently. On my car system's HDD ~98% of my music is encoded in Ogg Vorbis, and ~2% is in FLAC.)

I'm curious, does anyone know of a way to get LAME to work with Windows Media Player? I have yet to get any defect rips from my CD drive (have listened to all my ripped music) so I don't think I need EAC for ripping, and to get LAME to work with WMP9 would just make my life a little easier.

It is gapless. along with OGG and MPC - a HUGE plus for these codecs.



No. It uses an MP3 encoder of a name I can't remember AND it costs $15. I would only use WMP if I was using WMA as my codec of choice. One nice feature of WMP is to encode your CDs to WMA lossless for archival on your hard drive or a CD-R. WMP transcodes these files to WMA 128 on the fly for portable use.

If you want a great all around music tool - check out www.dBPowerAMP.com. Or Foobar 2K. Along with Nero, all of your music needs wil lbe met.

If you are less advanced user - chhose dBPowerAMP over Foobar.

I say go with anything not owned and controlled by Microsoft, be it MP3, Ogg, AAC, whatever else your car stereo, home stereo, portable player will support. WMA must go.

I used to do MP3 alt-preset-extreme, but I'm going to AAC, probably 224, with the iPod spinning the tunes.

Someone a while back pointed out three available MP3 plug-ins for WMP. But I only know of one personally, the one I used: Intervideo X-Pack (can't remember what I paid, but it was close to $15 I believe).

It uses Fraunhofer for MP3.

Why? Just because you do not like the company? Do you know 'big companies' are behind MP3Pro and AAC as well? If you think the codec is terrible, that's a valid reason (although recent listening tests have concluded otherwise). Not liking MS is not a good reason to not use WMA.

Personally, I prefer Apple to MS as a corporation. But as long as MS keeps attempting to develop a quality digital audio file, I'll support it. Just as I support OGG, MP3, AAc, etc.

Right now WMA is the best option for gapless playback on portable units. OGG has almost no support and MPC has none.

I would like to see nothing more than widespread MPC support. Digital bliss! Reality - it aint happenin'.

If EAC is too "techie" to you, you might want to try CDex.

It comes bundled with LAME already, and can also tag your mp3s online using freedb.

On most systems, you will only need to go to the options, select "LAME" and "--alt-preset standard", choose paranoia as ripping method.

Then, in the future you will just need to insert a CD, automatically get artist and titles using cddb, select the tracks you want to rip, and press the rip button, thats it.

- Lyx

From the list of recommended lame settings thread:



I use it all the time, works like a charm and conserves a lot of bits on metal & rock music (e.g. my Rammstein album avg's 225 kbps without -Y and 181 with ).

no, because MS tries to control your PC all the time, XP activation Office XP activation, DRM, etc, and because Ms is killing all competition on the PC, what it did to Netscape with IE, it then did (or is doing?) to ICQ with MSM, etc ... need more reasons?

you should check out the posts about rio karma, and iriver supporting ogg ...

Microsoft has a stranglehold on every other aspect of personal computing, do we want them to have a stranglehold on digital music sales too?

I don't know why Apple is the only service going with AAC. BuyMusic.com went with WMA, as will MusicMatch/Dell's online music service. Quality between the two formats at equivalent bit rates was shown in the recent listening tests here (I believe) to be neck and neck. So why are these companies choosing to go with Microsoft's format rather than what most would consider the more open-market-friendly AAC? Financial incentives? Classic Microsoft arm twisting?

If quality and file size are equivalent, I don't see any reason for choosing WMA over AAC. Sorry for the slight deviation off topic (the original post isn't about an AAC-compatible player, after all...)

I have no problem using EAC or anything else because it's too techie, I just want to install the least amount of software and save some hard drive space.

And what is gapless?

eac is pretty small. hard disc space shouldn't be a factor here, really. wmp does not let you encode anything but wma in its copy feature. typical ms format pushing...

gapless means that there is no gap introduced between the tracks like it is with mp3

This is very annoying when listening to live concerts, albums where the songs run together (i.e. Dark Side Of The Moon) or mixes (trance, etc.). Otherwise, its irrelevant.

AAC and MP3 have mandatory gaps. MPC, OGG, and WMA do not.

WMP9 will encode MP3 is you purchase ($10) a MP3 encoder.

http://windowsmedia.com/9series/Personaliz...ugins#MP3Create

If you want something that is easier to configure than EAC, I can suggest dbpoweramp. It uses lame by default.

The reason I was asking if LAME could work for WMP9 is because I like most of the features that WMP9 has. (Don't be fooled though, I completely disagree with DRM and some of the privacy issues in WMP, but 9 lets you turn them off).