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...