Windows Media Audio File-Not WAV? How to rip?

Factual Questions
1

I have some private music from years ago, that I just ripped from CD to Windows audio. I tried to open it into Audacity, but they said they couldn’t open that format. I thought that Windows Audio was wav, but I guess not.
So, how can I rip it to get it into Audacity, so I can mp3 them rascals?

Thanks,
handsomeharry

2

Windows audio is WMA. You can, however, rip to WAV format using Windows Media Player or other CD ripping programs. It’s an option, just not the default.
(Alternatively, you could look for a WMA-to-MP3 converter program.)

3

The Bink and Smacker tool is one program I know of that lets you convert *.wma files to *.wav.

4

Just in case the OP isn’t aware:

Both MP3 and WMA are “lossy,” compressed audio file formats. This means, briefly, that you lose some sound quality in exchange for a smaller file (which means you can fit more such files on your hard drive, portable device, etc. That’s why a regular audio CD can hold < 80 minutes of music, but a CD-ROM disc can hold many times that amount in the form of MP3 or WMA data files). The higher the bit rate at which the MP3 or WMA file was created, the better the sound quality but the larger the file.

WAV is a lossless, uncompressed format. A WAV contains all of the sonic information of the source (like an audio CD) that it was taken from, and is very large compared to an MP3 of the same duration.

If you convert from WMA to WAV, you will not gain back any information that might have been lost when the WMA was created.

5

Just to expand on this. MP3 files can be encoded in a variety of bit rates, ranging from hardly listenable 32kbps to the much superior 320kbps. I’ve done comparison testing between 320kbps files and lossless ones like wav, flac and ogg, and couldn’t hear any difference. This is supported in this test. The files are much larger. I have a 160gb MP3 player. At 128kbps, it could hold about 40,000 tracks. I record at a minimum of 192kbps, and can only store about 15,000. (*Only *:p)

At that level, the differences in quality are more likely to be down to the quality achieved in the recording studio.

6

A program called Format Factory should do the trick for you, and it will convert directly to mp3 format if you want.

7

Actually WAV is just a container format. Various codecs, including lossy compressed ones can be employed. It’s true that in practice it is very often uncompressed PCM audio.