Which To Use: Audio CDs or WMA/MP3 CDs?

[Jason Dunn]

Someone asked this question in a newsgroup, and I thought my resulting answer might shed some light on the subject for those of you who have been wondering the same thing. The person in question has a stereo that can play WMA files, and he was wondering if he should be burning regular audio CDs or data CDs with WMA or MP3s on them. Here's his question:

"Has anyone compared the sound quality of a ripped CD to the sound quality of the same file converted to MP3 or WMA? Which is better or do they sound about the same?"

It's all about the bit rate, but WMA has a better sound model, so a 128 kbps WMA will sound as good as a 160 kbps MP3, and because 128 kbps is less data per second, the resulting file will be smaller - meaning you can fit more songs on a single CD. If your device is designed for WMA files, use those instead of MP3s.

In terms of bit rate, here's what I'd suggest: rip the same song at three different bit rates: 128 kbps, 96 kbps, and 64 kbps. Pick a song that's indicative of what you'd be listening to most often, and lean towards a more complicated song with a variety of different sounds. Put it in your player, but it at the volume you'd normally listen at (or perhaps a bit louder), then see which one sounds the best to you.

If they all sound the same, you can use 64 kbps and cram a lot more songs onto one CD. If they all sound bad do you, try ripping at a higher bit-rate like 160 kbps or 192 kbps. If those still sound bad to you, you have exceptional hearing and should stick to regular, full 1024 bit-rate CDs. :-)

[Filip Norrgard]

If they all sound the same, you can use 64 kbps and cram a lot more songs onto one CD. If they all sound bad do you, try ripping at a higher bit-rate like 160 kbps or 192 kbps. If those still sound bad to you, you have exceptional hearing and should stick to regular, full 1024 bit-rate CDs. :-)
I previously used to have Windows Media Player to convert music for my Pocket PC into 64 kbps, and the music I like to listen to was good to listen to in bad headphones. However, after investing in some better headphones, I found out that I don't really like the way 64 kbps sounds. It was much too "metallic" on the bass and high treble side for me to be able to enjoy it. Now I'm a regular user of 128 kbps, with the more electronica-like music while some rock music can still make it through at 64 kbps. I suspect that the quality of WMA copies depends on how "polyphonic" the music is that you are ripping.

So, I believe that WMA at 128 kbps is generally a-OK (until I get the 5 GB compact flash card :twisted:).

[Felix Torres]

No real argument here.
But I'd add two more nuggets of data:

1- Where and how you listen to the music matters. Unless your car is a Lexus or Rolls, engine and road noise will obscure most of the nuances of the music so you might as well go with the 64Kbps WMA files. Similarly, the quality of the speaker of headphones will have an impact; there is no sense in wasting space and bandwidth if you're using cheap computer speakers to listen to the music.

2- The type of music matters. Some types of music (classical, for one) it is best to compress at no less than 128 Kps WMA, why others will not suffer even at 16Kbps (Rap and Salsa, for example). :twisted:

Then too, there is the matter of available storage space; in the near future this question will be a moot point once we get cheap 100Gb jukeboxes that support lossless codecs.

As to the original question of burning data disks with compressed files, I'd suggest finding out what the naming and directory structure restrictions are for the player hardware (unless it supports HiMat) *before* doing any extensive ripping or they're likely to face a large file renaming problem.

(Yup, I've been there myself).

[Jason Dunn]

However, after investing in some better headphones, I found out that I don't really like the way 64 kbps sounds. It was much too "metallic" on the bass and high treble side for me to be able to enjoy it.

No argument from me there! :-) I personally only rip at 160 kbps WMA, but in this instance I was placing my bet that something between 64 kbps and 128 kbps would be good for him. :-)

[ctmagnus]

Anyone notice that "multiple song tracks" (Sarah McLachlan, Fumbling Towards Ecstasy, Fumbling Towards Ecstasy and Dido, Life For Rent, See The Sun are two examples) can be problematic with VBR at lower bitrates (mushy or flat sounding)? This may be due to the fact that one of the songs uses less data than the other(s).

The solution is simply to rerip the track using a higher vbr bitrate. Or use cheap headphones :) For PPC listening I generally use WMA VBR at one notch to the left of the middle (ripping in WMP on the desktop) but some songs don't sound as good this way with higher-end headphones.