MP3 versus WMA
“Der Gnom”, Modest P. Mussorgsky _2,264KB MP3 128 *** _3,397KB MP3 192 ***** _5,663KB MP3 320 ***** 24,979KB WAV 14k ***** _2,294KB WMA 128 *** _3,440KB WMA 192 **** _2,445KB WMA VBR ***
“Plateau”, The Orb
_11,993KB MP3 128 *** _18,001KB MP3 192 **** _30,019KB MP3 320 *** 132,477KB WAV 14k **** _12,098KB WMA 128 *** _18,121KB WMA 192 **** _14,768KB WMA VBR ****
“Heart of the Sunrise”, Yes
_10,717KB MP3 128 *** _16,087KB MP3 192 *** _26,827KB MP3 320 *** 118,393KB WAV 14k ***** _10,803KB WMA 128 **** _16,172KB WMA 192 **** _14,755KB WMA VBR ****
Now, that I have to re-create my music library by ripping ALL my CD’s (about 700) again, because my computer was stolen (as I promised to some of you, I will detail that in another post “soon” to come), I decided to do a blind hearing test of the possible encoding options I have. There is all this discussion on the Internet about different bitrates and how ear(th)-shattering dramatic the differenceis, but I had a hard time hearing differences and, after the test, was convinced that these were random results. While I rated, it felt more like deciding the difference between light beige and eggshell and the final one star difference was as much based on subconsciously wavering guesses than on randomly clicking. To my surprise, though, I did identify the lowest bitrate (lowest quality) encodings, but anything above 128k was the same to me. I guess my ears are not as musically fine tuned as I thought. 8-) I decided only to test the MP3 and WMA codecs used in Microsoft’s Windows Media Player. Ogg Vorbis and AAC and Klaus’ Kool Wavlet Zinger codec didn’t really appeal to me, as they are not as widely available as the above two. Here are the results:
“The Gnome”, Modest P. Mussorgsky _2,264KB MP3 128 *** _3,397KB MP3 192 ***** _5,663KB MP3 320 ***** 24,979KB WAV 14k ***** _2,294KB WMA 128 *** _3,440KB WMA 192 **** _2,445KB WMA VBR ***
“Plateau”, The Orb
_11,993KB MP3 128 *** _18,001KB MP3 192 **** _30,019KB MP3 320 *** 132,477KB WAV 14k **** _12,098KB WMA 128 *** _18,121KB WMA 192 **** _14,768KB WMA VBR ****
“Heart of the Sunrise”, Yes
_10,717KB MP3 128 *** _16,087KB MP3 192 *** _26,827KB MP3 320 *** 118,393KB WAV 14k ***** _10,803KB WMA 128 **** _16,172KB WMA 192 **** _14,755KB WMA VBR ****
As you can see, the compression advantage of WMA isn’t as great as Microsoft wants you to think it is. I did not use a special open-source MP3 encoder with a bucket full of cryptic options. I used the plain Jane encoder that comes with Windows Media Player 10, which AFAIK is the good ol’ Fraunhofer codec. The slight disadvantage that MP3 got with the Yes song, was evened out by the Gnome, and in my humble non-professional self-professed amateur opinion, I cannot hear any differences between WMA and MP3 (and sometimes not even WAV!). So the Quality difference is for all my private purposes and intents non-existent. The usability (no DRM) and availability is important to me, though. I’m using Media Player as my library organizer and my iAudio plays WMA, but I wanted to be sure and keep my options open and thus decided to use MP3 with a 192 kbit encoding bitrate. My old library used to be MP3 128, but with my new 400 GB HD, the size difference is not too relevant.
As an aside: I use a FM Transmitter to play my mp3’s on the car stereo. When synchronizing to the player, I convert MP3 files to WMA 64k (because I use the built-in Sync feature that only goes to WMA) and find the audio quality sufficient with all the driving noises.