Hi,

I've gotten a lot of Windows Media 10 Pro 64 kbit/s files. I have these songs in mp3 and lossless also, but the low bitrate makes it possible for me to get a lots of music my phone. Even if MS has said that low bitrate wma sounds good it has not been the case. Even I've been able to hear the lack of detail. However, these files encoded with Windows Media 10 Pro sounds amazingly good. I can for the life of me not hear any difference between my higher bitrate mp3s and these files. I even have a problem hearing a difference between these files and lossless encoded files of the same track.

Does anyone here know if maybe MS has gotten something right? What's so different about Windows Media 10 Pro and 9? There must be some major changes because the results are very different!

I know that this may not be the place to expect any sort of MS approval for anything, but I am hoping someone with a clue can work around the general MS skepticism and maybe shed some light on this

//C

WMA Pro is a totally different codec from WMA (standard).
While WMA standard has a poor quality it is known that WMA Pro's quality is very good. The quality at low bitrate was established in a former listening test published here.
For a mobile device with restricted memory it's certainly a good solution.

Thanks! I will look for the listening test. However, I always do my own tests since it's my ears which needs convincing in the end anyway!

It's good to know that 10 Pro is a new codec all together. And yes, it sounds quite good on my phone with my Shure headphones. Much better than any wma I have ever heard.

//C

The down side is that not many portable devices support WMA Pro.

I know I'm not in the majority, but of all the codec's I've used, regular WMA sounds the best to me at 128kb. For some reason, the sound has a rich live sound that I like. Reading these forums, most people recognize WMA as inferior to Mp3 etc. Even if WMA doesn't sound exactly like the original, it has a character of sound I like whether it is manufactured or not. If you go hear live music, where you sit in the auditorium probably affects the sound more. I think it all comes down to what sounds the best to you, regardless of the technical measurements, etc. Maybe WMA has a slight boost in one of the frequency ranges that makes it sound good to me.

You should try an ABC- test.

No offence, Kenny, but most of us are aiming to make our low bitrate music as indistinguishable as possible from the original sources.

My Blackberry 8800 does, but only CBR, not VBR for 10 Pro. Don't understand why, but that's the way it is.

//C