Hydrogenaudio Forums > 192 WMA to ?mp3

tonysunshine

Nov 29 2005, 19:29

Hey, I'm new here, was referred from head-fi.org. I spent about an hour doing searches and reading threads and I just got more confused so I figured I would ask my question in a new topic. I want to convert parts of my music collection, in 192 KBPS WMA, to mp3. My question is, what is the equivalent bitrate in mp3 and should I do it in VBR, CBR, or ABR? The reason I'm asking is because I read somewhere that WMA is higher quality than mp3, so 192 WMA does not equal 192 mp3, but I'm not sure. I read the recommended LAME settings sticky but it didnt make anysense. Why isnt there a VBR recommended setting? Isnt VBR the highest quality?

Thanks

Lyx

Nov 29 2005, 19:43

QUOTE (tonysunshine @ Nov 29 2005, 07:29 PM)

I want to convert parts of my music collection, in 192 KBPS WMA, to mp3.

Don't do it unless you absolutely need to. You will *always* loose soundquality be converting from lossy -> lossy. Also, see the FAQ MP3/transcoding.

QUOTE (tonysunshine @ Nov 29 2005, 07:29 PM)

My question is, what is the equivalent bitrate in mp3 and should I do it in VBR, CBR, or ABR?

You could go with plain simple (but high quality) LAME -V2. VBR is almost always higher (and more constant) quality then CBR (the only exception, 320kbit).

QUOTE

The reason I'm asking is because I read somewhere that WMA is higher quality than mp3

Only at very low bitrates (i.e. 64kbit). At higher bitrates, it is not better, possibly even worse.

QUOTE

Why isnt there a VBR recommended setting? Isnt VBR the highest quality?

In the past, there was.... but unfortunatelly, recommendation-practices have changed a bit to be more "proper"(and at the same time IMHO less useful to newbies).

To make it short... for normal music listening, V2 is transparent almost always even to listeners who are trained to notice artifacts. V4 is transparent in most cases to "untrained" listeners. V3 is something in-between.

- Lyx

[JAZ]

Nov 29 2005, 19:50

QUOTE (tonysunshine @ Nov 29 2005, 07:29 PM)

Hey, I'm new here, was referred from head-fi.org. I spent about an hour doing searches and reading threads and I just got more confused so I figured I would ask my question in a new topic. I want to convert parts of my music collection, in 192 KBPS WMA, to mp3. My question is, what is the equivalent bitrate in mp3 and should I do it in VBR, CBR, or ABR? The reason I'm asking is because I read somewhere that WMA is higher quality than mp3, so 192 WMA does not equal 192 mp3, but I'm not sure. I read the recommended LAME settings sticky but it didnt make anysense. Why isnt there a VBR recommended setting? Isnt VBR the highest quality?

Thanks

Are you sure you picked the correct thread? The recommendations for MP3 are here:

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....showtopic=28124

QUOTE

High Quality: HiFi, home or quiet listening
-V 3 --vbr-new (~175 kbps), -V 2 --vbr-new (~190 kbps), -V 1 --vbr-new (~210 kbps) or -V 0 --vbr-new (~230 kbps) are recommended.
These settings will produce transparent encoding (transparent = most people cannot distinguish the mp3 from the original in an ABX blindtest).
Audible differences between these presets exist, but are extremely marginal.

Also, I would like to make you notice that "WMA Standard" (the usual wma file) is not of higher quality than MP3. That is mostly propaganda.

This thread compares it at 128kbps : http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....showtopic=21904

This thread compares it at 64kbps : http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....showtopic=35438

In this second test, MP3 loses, but it is quite accepted that MP3 is not designed for such low bitrates, and WMA is not the best either.