Hello,

I'm containg some real HD audio albums and I wan't a back-up on my own system. My soundcard is 24/196 compatible, so it should fit.

I've done a rip from Vanessa Paradis and convert it via Cooledit pro 2 to mp3 and WMA. Both files were encoded with the best encoders around the globe. One hour of HDaudio consumes 4 minutes to store to WMA 24-bit 440kbps and the equal time to store it in MP3 at 320kbps with no joint stereo. just 2 seperate channels of 160kbps. I don't cheat!

128kbps MP3: Crying, this sucks real hard on my headphone (terrible)
160kbps MP3: Sounds reasonable, but far from normal. Is not Hi-Fi.
192kbps MP3: Sounds moderate, but some guitarsolo's fail utterly and hard
256kbps MP3: Good, but far from perfect. I could hear the artafects still (but still sounds good).
320kbps MP3: Good, but like the other bitrates it fails hard on the solo of Lenny Kravitz. MP3 can't make it good.
440kbps WMA 24-bit 88200Hz versie: WMA 10 Professional: Better work. The solo's won't fail at all and the music sounds good. I can't hear any difference and if you want to hear some differences you should have very expensive equipment of audiodevices.

MP3? Don'tuse it if you have good audio sources, use WMA lossless eg or use WMA 16-bit 44.1Khz with 320kbps. WMA is better than MP3 at highest bitrates.

Does anybody here done a equal test or?
I want to share experiences.

Most people use 128kbps MP3, since it small, ok quality, and more devices support MP3 than WMA. I won't argue that WMA may be better than MP3, since WMA is a newer format anyway. However, if ultimate quality and not size is the objective, then ripping cd's to wav is the best option.

1. WMA isn't much better than mp3.
2. Most portable music players don't support WMA PRO (especially, when they've bit resolution bigger than 16 bit, and sampling frequency bigger than 48000hz)
3. You won't gain any quality, by converting to 24bit from CD (which is 16bit)
4. Same thing about sampling frequency (CD is 44000hz), converting to more than this won't help too

So...remember Bigger doesn't mean better.

MP3 is not that bad, especially, when you use good MP3 encoder (I recommend LAME), use Variable BitRate, and use good quality presets.
In WMA you don't have to choose between quality and speed, in MP3 encoders you have choice between speed and quality, so it depends more on switches you use than on bitrate...
I can make an MP3 with average bitrate about 160 which sounds better than 224 kbps MP3.
But if you really want to use WMA, the best choice would be 2-pass encoding.
Some commercial software (like DBpowerAmp) can do this.



If you want real high quality choose a lossless format like WavPack, or there is one real good lossy format called Musepack.

BTW guys, I thing, the best choice to talk and READ about that would be HydrogenAudio forum...

Thanx

I've choosen for 320kbps MP3.

128kbps: I can clearly hear the music is not warm and full.

320kbps is the highest bitrate available for MP3 and I can choose to use *.flac, *.ape and WMA lossless.
If I have a MP3 player I can simply convert it to 320 kbps mp3.

Test

Can't get out these edit buttons

Yet again:

All music I ripped is from original media so I'm very critical about quality. Your plan to rip the music again in a lossless format sounds good. These files stored on the harddisk could easeally be downconverted to MP3 when using on a MP3 player.

May I hook in on a positive manner?

The samples are real HD audio and I refuse to convert it to 16-bit. Some samples were indeed from a 16-bit 44.1KHz source, but what is the trick?

First Cooledit samples it up to 32-bit. No qualitygain, but here it comes:
Most producers has clip the audio and compress it beyond 44.1 KHz sample boundairy. When using the 6th order filter (only in the full Cooledit) I process that music again and at this time Cooledit threat it as 32-bit so the sample are far more secure. After this workaround the audio gains more dynamic (bitdepth issue) and the smaple frequentie will never exceed 44.1Khz, so be it.

Yhen I'm using Cooledit Pro to save it as 440 kbps 44.1 KHz 24-bit. When compairing between the 2 songs (yes, I'm very adiodaptive) then the WMA sounds better, more warm like a bulbtrap or as the goold old LP.

You should listen this on a very high classe audiosystem and this one sounds insane. The solo of Lenny Cravits on the Vanessa Paradis CD is no more thumbled as on 320kbps MP3 with the latest LAME at Insane setting. WMA 440kbps 44.1 KHz 24-bit wins far from the 320 kbps. I've not discovered some artefact in these files.

The conversion:
Simple as a little child can do this.
1. Convert the WMA files to MP3 en store these MP3's on CD or your musicplayer (Ipod, eg) en leave the WMA files on the system and use these as archive.
Remastering an Album could improve the believing of listening intens! Don't do this without conversion to 32-bit, you f*** the sound up.

Why Lenny Cravits? This best man uses AAD recording (Analog recorded, Analog mastered and Digital resampling and on this one some things fails utterly. Most things could be undone in Cooledit and doing this at 32-bit give the least qualityloss or a huge quality boost. His acoutic guitar is the best test for MP3 and on every setting MP3's fail utterly, sorry. MP3 is nice for ADD or DDD recordings and 320kbps is far too less when emphasis comes in and noise shapings. MP3 is the worst candidate of emphasis and noise and vocals. It needs simple a higher bitrate. Not my invention btw.

Yes, sorry, but size matters most when playing seriously with audio Even OGG at 511 kbps can't defeat the WMA file, because Vorbis samples it down to 16-bit with very brute and a slow way.

PS: Your soundcars must support real HD audio to play these files!

WMA ( Windowe Media Audio ) has bee around forever. However in terms of size output that is the only reason why you could ever want to use the WMA file type.

MP3 is todays and is the only standard to audio aside from "Doulby Stereo" AC3 format that is commonly used in DVD's. Mp3 is the most basic you have out there. Also while Mp3 is the basic just encoding it without no changes will give practically the same sound.

However you said Real HD?????? If this is a newer format and thus might be better?? or then again just the same old RA ( real Audio format ) regaurdless of what change there will be loss. I would just use a direct Real to X converter that you can drop on top of.

Regaurdless of what you save it as there will be loss, or file increase, or reduction. I would look into the GCN ( Gamecube Nintendo ) format. The GCN
use this format to store big sound files ( like MP3 ) in a smaller format. It has been out for awhile and people use it to store music. But you can only play it in Winamp and other players if you have the right file. There is also a looping problem ( since this type was made to go on forever as with most game music ).

There´s a important thing to remember: harmonics. When you buy a amplifier, the Total Harmonic Distortion is one important parameter to measure the quality. There are other things, like clipping, peak average, etc., to consider.
I suggest you a small program called MP3gain to normalize your mp3 files, without decompress them, and use a Digital Signal Processor to hear. DFX is a good example, it works on harmonics, even the frequencies cutted out during compressing, they are restored from harmonics that are present in almost full sound spectrum of a track.
Important that the goal of all compressed formats is save space, of course there is cost/benefit. I believe that 192kbp/s is nice, you get all you need and living in a world like ours, most of us have audible range very limited, never more 20-20.000Hz.

If you want quality I'd use FLAC, APE, or SHN for lossless encoding without patent encumberments.

If you want quality without filesizes requiring an 18-wheeler to tote around, try Vorbis. Not that widely supported, but you can always use something like RockBox on a portable device. Plus, most portables aren't listened to in optimal environments anyway.

(sorry, double post)

Thanks people,

I've decided to use lossless audio. WMA lossless.
I'm sorry this this known dagmatism, but uncompressed, the sounds are far more better, warmer en a good higharea.
My headphone is already 8 years old and in these times this one is the best available. The Sony 9000 (pure natural meterials and shells from special wood.
What I hear in 320 kbps MP3 is still some artefacts and not always, but the solo's don't came out naturally.
WMA lossless is not that bad. The ratio is between 40-70% compressionsize of the original wave. (lossless)

Maybe it is between 2 ears, but uncompressed sounds excellent and is lossless (4 - 7 MB per minute istead of 10 MB per minute.

Maybe I get in the feature a MP3 player and this is not any kind of concern, why not?
The lossless WMA files are easeally converted down to MP3 and the original (the master) is here on my system.
In Cooledit I can save the wave in any format from Vobis till CCtLaw.