Report on WMA vs. MP3

By Zeeman Haus

The biggest question when formatting newly recorded audio is the WMA/MP3 question. As a musician and former home recorder, this question always bothered me a little bit. So the biggest question really is what are the advantages and disadvantages of both? The second biggest question is what software is available out there for both? We'll answer both for you.

The WMA attractiveness comes from Microsoft's claim that this format is the most accurate audio format available to date. The Windows Media Audio (WMA) format is definitely bulky enough to back up this claim. Recordings of the same clip in WMA format will nearly always be larger than those of MP3s. Microsoft has tried to make up for this my having the WMA format play at a higher bitrate than MP3s. That is- make it go faster. A lot of people still aren't convinced.

MP3, MPEG3 or Moving Pictures Experts Group-Layer 3 all describe the audio format we all use in our MP3 players. The biggest advantage that MP3 has over WMA at this point has got to be in the file size. MP3 formatting of a recorded piece involves the elimination of the bits that the human ear cannot hear anyway. This can greatly reduce the file size, though Microsoft claims this degrades the quality.

At the same bitrate WMAs will sound better than MP3s, but some of this depends on source as well. For example, if you have something you ripped form a CD you own and- for personal use, have uploaded it onto your music player (legal disclaimer). If it was a bad rip, it's going to be more noticeable in MP3 format than in WMA. But overall you'd have a pretty special ear to tell the difference.

MP3 files are smaller by an average of 1/3 and that is an advantage to the format. On the smaller hard drives that came with the original digital music players, MP3 files were preferred because you could store more of them on a device. Now, this wouldn't seem like as big of a deal, but consumers have grown used to MP3s and they have become the portable music standard. WMAs are used on computers and in a lot of games for Windows where hard drive space and processing speed are not really issues.

Most "MP3 players" will play WMAs as well, that's not a huge issue there. The biggest issue is whether or not you want to deal with slightly less space by having WMAs over MP3s. Considering, like we said, the quality difference on a player is so small, it really doesn't matter. The main thing is being able to keep track of one format. Picking one and sticking with it is best.

If you have some WMAs and want to do a WMA to MP3 conversion, then feel free. There are all kinds of software packages that will enable you to do that. And you can even convert MP3s to WMAs, but I don't know why you'd want to. Just remember, like everything else in life, when you make a copy of a copy, it's never as good as the previous copy.

On the whole when you compare WMA to MP3 format, MP3 serves a much bigger audience and fulfills their needs just fine. While WMA format is in a lot of ways more flexible for the home record maker, the difference in playback between the two in nominal. It was a 4 to 5 split decision but when we went to the cards, MP3 won. - 32518

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