Want to convert my cds to wma or mp3 and I am not sure which format to use. What are the differences and which are better. I am looking for the sound quality differences and number of songs per cd. The cds will be played in a car and home stereo. Is there a free software to convert the cds?
This topic has been answerd more times in this forum than any other question. I would search the forum post before asking this particular question! I believe that Mp3, when encoding using the latest LAME library, is a much better lossy format than WMA but its really up to you. As far as music on CDs its all the same. Remember! You can only get 80 minutes of music on a standard Audio-CD no matter what your encoding scheme is. Ced
Thanks for the reply. I did search back about 8 pages and found nothing on the subject. Sorry for the repeat question. Thanks.
i think at low bitrate wma does sound better than mp3. hold your horses. what i meant by better, is that it sounds better than mp3 but doesn't sound acceptably good. so for a cd quality encode i would suggest what diabolos did. lame 3.96.1 i use dbpoweramp for my mp3 encodes. though most of my rips are using vorbis... settings. everything as source. vbr no restriction, (meaning i set it from 32kbps to max 320kbps, letting the encoder choose) max quality. and don't disable bit resevoir
Mp3 Vs WMA: Mp3 (LAME) works best at certain settings: Constant Bir-Rate Stereo / Joint Stereo (CBR): 128 - 192 kbps Variable Bit-Rate Stereo / Joint Stereo (VBR): 192 - 256 kbps (max) Alot of people agree that 128 kbps is close to CD quality when using Mp3. Depending on how particulare you are about the sound quality of your music 128 lbps might offend your ears. The makers of WMA boast that it can produce the same sound quality as Mp3 at half the bit-rate. If this is true then it would put CD quality for WMA at about 64 kbps. Although this has never been found to be true, mathematicly this is great if saving HD space is your main concern. Mp3: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mp3#Quality_of_MP3_audio WMA: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WMA MPC: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPC_(audio_compression_format) Link to software and codecs: http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/127334 To be honest, the best lossy format around is MusePack (MPC)! Ced
Thanks for the replies. Very helpful info. So, if it is a pain to do, why do people put music into mp3 format? Sorry for the dumb questions, I am asking for a friend and neither of us has a clue. I thought you could just put your cds into mp3 or wma format and burn it to a disk. I was under the influence that you could put 200 mp3 songs (depending on the size of the songs) on a cd-r?
All of that is true. Allot of people hate supporting Micro$oft. Mp3 also has no built-in DRM protection and is the most popular audio format seeing as its over 10 years old. With the right software creating Mp3s is easy and fun. You can fit many Mp3s on a CD-R giving you hours of music. The catch is that your hardware has to be able to play (read and decode) Mp3 files. Step one: Import the track or entire CD to Mp3 Step two: Burn the Mp3 files to CD Its that simple, Ced
I don't care what Microsoft says, I can definitely tell the difference between WMA and MP3 at the 128kpbs and below level. With WMA, you will hear a shrill and distortion similar to what you get when you turn up the treble. I think Apple's MP4 or AAC format and OGG are the 2 best formats, and you get twice the compression than with the outdated MP3 format. Trouble is finding portable players that support these formats.
This might help: Used Audiograbber + Lame 1.32 [11-4-04] engine 3.96 CD Rip.wav 32,724kb CD Rip-064.mp3 1,485kb CD Rip-064.wma 1,505kb CD Rip-064.mp3 1,485kb Blade [dreadful] CD Rip-096.mp3 2,227kb CD Rip-096.wma 2,248kb CD Rip-128.mp3 2,969kb CD Rip-128.wma 2,991kb The Lame mp3's are all pretty good as is Fraunhofer, Blade sounds as if its recorded underwater. I will use Blade as a party joke. wma-8 is terrible at ALL settings, all clicks and noise. Played on WinAmp 5.08 pro and a Creative Muvo TX 512mb There is NO competition or short cuts, If you want "decent" sound, you need memory.
