For all those that discount WMA as a "garbage" codec, read no further.

I've been encoding with a lot of WMA 9 2 Pass 192 VBR lately (standard, not Pro). The player of choice for these audio encodings is a 40 GB Nomad Zen Xtra with Sennheiser PX100 phones.

I find the sound quality quite good (no official comments on technical sound quality posted by me!), but have this nagging sensation that I'm sacrificing quality from WMA VBR 98 1 pass given the DRAMATIC difference in file size (192 ABR vs. 320+ ABR with VBR 98). Does anyone else with better hearing than mine have an opinion or test on this? I'm wondering if its the 2nd pass that makes this setting much more efficient than the 1 pass VBR setting that better allocates bit distribution, or if I am sacrificing a lot of sound quality.

Any help is appreciated.

BTW, I've owned an Ipod, Karma, and Zen Xtra. I now only own the Xtra. In my opinion, it is the best sounding player of the lot using MP3 LAME APS as a common codec amongst the 3. Anyone considering one receives the recommendation from me. Although you can't go wrong with the iPod (AAC) or Karma (OGG) either.


www.dBPowerAMP rocks!!!

Also, does anyone know if VBR Quality 98 means that the codec is capturing 98% of the sound??? Or is it just a number? The VBR progressions begin at 98, which is just below lossless and proceed backwards from there.

Q 98 just means a higher bitrate. It doesn't say anything about the absolute quality (and how could it?.

2 pass is for ripping movies or something like that. It doesn't improve quality, it just allows you to closely control the VBR bitrate (like if you need exactly 100MB of audio to go with a 600MB WMV9 video on a 700MB CDR).

I thought I was barely losing quality by converting my classical music collection the way you did. But I absolutely hated the sound of 192 VBR 2-Pass. I found it added unwelcome boominess.

Doing an ABX test is a Good Thing™.