I had a question for the experts here.

If one *had* (bear with me...) to rip using WMP 11, which encoders would be better to rip with for sound quality:

Fraunhofer MP3 (which I think WMP 11 is using) or WMA VBR 135-215 setting.

Thank you for your help

We need more information. You have not specified the bitrate for Fraunhofer, and it is not clear whether you are talking about WMA standard or WMA pro.

For the same bitrate I would expect WMA std. to win.

96 kbps and below wma thrashes mp3.
128 kbps and above, if your hearing is average (no special affinity for pre-echo, metallic artifacts, >16 KHz signals), you probably can't hear anything different.

If you're gonna use the MP3 option, max out the bitrate to 320kbps as there aren't that many independent tests of WMP's built in encoder.

on wmp11, there is no setting for wma pro vbr

Sorry...I have never used wmp11.

From what I hear, wma pro is significantly better that wma standard.

Yeah, but hardware support sucks, and the advantage (as with most codecs nowadays) usually only shows up at low bitrates.

hi... i'm not an expert but from my experience with wma, i think that fhg should be a better choice.
i'm mostly enjoy my music on my walkman mp3 player..... and i have tried the wma vbr with 128kbps and 160kbps average bitrate....
they sound.. well, quite ok but sometimes on some song especially with pianos or saxophones or high notes
and freq. they don't do really good and there is audible 'ringing' at some part too....
the sound details were not satisfying too....
for portable audio player, i don't think wma with high bitrate (be it cbr or vbr)
is worthy to be used since it'll drain the battery faster without giving the maximum quality satisfaction.
but i may agree that wma at below 96kbps is better than mp3.... (but not equal to cd quality...)

now, i only use fhg encoder (196kbps average vbr) for my fav. songs....
it's because the audio quality produced is better, more clarity and more details compared to wma...
sounds really nice with my walkman....
besides, there's no audible problems with fhg such ringing, artifacts or whatever...
(well, I haven't heard yet..)

I've been using the fhg encoder in the latest jetaudio 7 to encode my songs and rip my cds....
I think it is even better than the lame 3.98. encoder which i've also used before.....
why don't you try it too?
i think it would do better than wmp....
you can download the jetaudio 7 basic from its homepage....
>> www.cowon.com


those above is just my opinion and experience from what i've been through....
hope it'll help.....

I must admit I am an FhG fanatic, but man, this hazumi-san beats me hands down!