tripleflip

Hello Everyone!! I just ripped about 40 CD's into WMA at 128 quality. Burn 2 cd's, go into the car and to me it sounds awful. Now i Previously burned 2 cd's in mp3 at same 128 q and to me mp3 sounds better. I thought WMA has better compression then mp3 so in the end by using WMA at 128 i'd be getting better quality. Does the regular player in IS 250 with nav has a better playback capabilities then WMA? Im thinking of reripping all of the cd's which will take hours into 192 Mp3 format if you confirm this. Thank you and appriciate your input!

adc

I personally if can, will never want 128kbps quality for music.

(These values vary depending on audio data compression schemes)

4 kbit/s – minimum necessary for recognizable speech (using special-purpose speech codecs)
8 kbit/s – telephone quality
32 kbit/s – MW quality
96 kbit/s – FM quality
192 kbit/s – Nearly CD quality for a file compressed in the MP3 format
1,411 kbit/s – CD audio (at 16-bits for each channel and 44.1 kHz)

tripleflip

Thanks adc, but what about the questions i asked, wma vs mp3? playback in the cars system

kickin8

iTrader: (1)

I ripped mp3 with 128K and it sounds pretty good. will try 192 next time.

dont want to mess with anything that's related to M$ (unless I REALLY have to).....

tripleflip

Im reripping my library to mp3 in 192, will let you know my results. Using 3 comps to speed the process lol.

tmm0f5

I can't listen to anything less than 192k. I encode all my CDs at either 256 or 320. At this point storage space is no longer an issue. Hard Drives (and external USB drives) are so cheap that I just store all my music in a much higher bit rate.

Now I wish the Lexus would play FLACs and DVDs (I have a non-ML stereo). That way I could have multiple lossless CDs on a single disc.

All those years of doing live recording on 16/48 DAT and then 24/96 WAV made it near impossible for me to listen to badly compressed MP3s.

ben_r_

Never really noticed a difference between WMA and MP3. However I do think a 320K mp3 sounds much better than a bare minimum 128k.

RocketGuy3

iTrader: (1)

I don't really see why you would ever use wma unless you had no other choice because the software you were using would only record the tracks in that format...

If you have a choice, stick to mp3.

y2ks2k

I always record my MP3's at 384 kb/sec. When I play mp3's on my home THX 7.1 channel theater system, as you turn the volume up to window shattering levels, flaws in mp3's at 128KB become ear splittingly apparent. Hard drive space is cheap now, almost to the point where we should go back to .wav

jdoolitt

MP3 all the way. I encode at 192 kbps and the tunes are crystal clear. WMA? Look up the spec. Then note that the Windows Media Audio codec container format that Microsoft allows their WMA streams to be encapsulated on (ASF) -- support DRM. Look up Janus ... Yay -- you can some day "RENT" your music (that you may have alreaqdy paid for). ?? DRM is the 1000 lb gorilla that Microsoft has in the WMA closet...

combfilter

iTrader: (3)

later for wma that **** sucks, def. do mp3. Also, high bit rate doesn't always mean high quality. It's all in the codec you use. I suggest using cdex or EAC as a ripper , and def. use LAME 3.xx codec. VBR is going to give you the most bang for the buck. It will give you high bit rates where you need it and low where you don't. Keeping your file size resonable.

dong888

iTrader: (1)

I preferred 192 kbps, but most of my mp3 files are 128 kbps and some at 96 kbps. As far as quality-qwise, 96 is the lowest that I go and you can tell the difference between 96 and 192. 128 and 192 shows slightly some difference.

IS_Mine

Sorry but I have to disagree..

I think WMA @ 192 bits sounds MUCH better. But the majority of my music is WMA, when I covert to MP3 because of my IPOD I lose sound quality simply because MP3 is I guess more compressed. WMA all the way for me. I don't plan on trading my music and you can remove the *sharing* issues of .WMAs.

vraa

iTrader: (2)

WMA @ 192kbit will sound better than mp3 @ 192kbit, but I'm not going to recompress all my crap.

Remember it's all about source. If you are reconverting something, it'll sound awful NO MATTER WHAT.

If you've got the original source, then convert it to the highest mp3 quality you can (320kbit) for best results.

Otherwise, rip in lossless AAC.

Edit: For those who are going to chime in and say that there's no discernable difference after 160kbit mp3s, ****.

tmm0f5

It's more likely because you are going from a lossy compression to a lossy compression. The second file has no chance of sounding better. You just compressed something that was already compressed.