OK, I admit it. I’m a bit of a Neo-Luddite when it comes to MP3 players. I just received my first MP3 player and I’m not sure what to do with it. I’ve ripped some of my CD’s to my hard drive but they are in WMA format? Is that the same as an MP3? Do I need to convert them to the MP3 format before I load them onto the MP3 player? If so, how do I go about doing that?
What player do you have?
Most all can handle MP3, WMA, and lots more.
Which is “best” is an unanswerable question. Every codec has user-settable levels of quality, most can be perfectly transparent at a decent bitrate.
A proper “rip” to hard drive from a CD will produce WAV files - huge, but lossless.
Most music programs (WMP, iTunes, etc) will happily encode to a format - MP3, WMA, AAC, etc. Much smaller.
Give us a bit more info ;D
I have a free off-brand…Coby, I think. It’s only 2 gig, but it was free. 
Did it come with any software?
If not you can probably just plug it into your computer (USB probably, maybe firewire) and Windows Media Player will recognize it and you can transfer songs to it. WMA can be a perfectly decent codec, what did you use to rip a CD?
I don’t think it has any software with it but it did come with a USB cable. Are WMA files bigger than MP3? In other words, will I be able to put as many songs on the player? I’m confident I won’t be able to hear any difference between formats…I’m going to use it in my vehicle with the mediocre Ford sound system speakers.
Windows Media Player came up automatically on my laptop to do the ripping. I assume there are other programs that are better?
OK here it goes… Codec is short for COde and DEcode
There are many kinds of codecs. WMA (by Microsoft) is one, MP3 is another one and mp4 (also called AAC or m4a) is yet another one. There are many more but those three are the most popular. These are called LOSSY codecs. That means you lose a bit of the quality of the music.
There are also codecs like FLAC, WavPack, ALAC and WMA-Lossless which condense without any loss of music quality
Which one is best? Here’s where it gets a bit complex.
It isn’t so much the codec by the bitrate that counts.
You see when you rip a CD to your computer it produces a wav file. These are HUGE. Even a lossless codec is really to big
A lossless codec reduces the WAV file anywhere to 40% to 60% of the original size. A lossy codec reduces it anywhere to 9% to 15% of the original size.
So you want a format, that is lossy for your personal players.
What a lossy codec does is it cuts off the portion of the WAV file that most people won’t notice.
Now currently AAC does the best job compressing files. WMA and MP3 are not as good, but the difference is marginal. WMA used to be mostly DRM (Digital Rights Management) protected. Meaning you could only play them on certain player. This isn’t true today, though a lot of older music exists that is still protected. And audio books in WMA format are still protected for the most part.
It isn’t the lossy codec that matters so much as the bit rate. The lower the bit rate the worse the file sounds. For MP3 once you go below 128 it’s VERY noticable for music. (For spoken word books you can go as low as 16). Once you get above a bitrate of 192 in MP3 it become hard for most people to tell the difference between an MP3 and a non-compressed file. Once you get to 320 bitrate for an MP3 almost no one can tell.
Now you probably say, well why not just rip your CDs to MP3 at 320 bitrate. Again, because the file size is large. The lower the bit rate the more music you can fit on your personal player.
Different kinds of music also call for different music. For instance a pop song is “acceptable” at 128 bitrate (though it can be a bit 'tinny" sounding). A classical music song would probably be awful at that bitrate. Because classic music is more complex than a pop song (well usually) you need a higher bit rate.
For the OP, you need to look at your player and see what kinds of formats it can play. Almost everything plays mp3 that’s why it’s the most popular format. If you are using Windows Media Player (WMP) to rip your music and want to rip to MP3
Go to WMP -> Tools -> Options -> The Rip Music (tab)
About half way down it says “Rip Setting” choose MP3. Then a bit futher down it says “Audio Quality.” Then move the slider to the bit rate you want.
The best free music ripper for Windows is EAC.
If you want to learn anything more go to Hydrogenaudio and look around their forums
Nah, WMA is probably about the same size as MP3 at the same quality.
Yes, there are better ripping programs. But only if you want to stray into audiophile fanaticism (which I do, Exact Audio Copy, heh :D)
But try out just plain ol’ WMP. If it works fine for you, it’s a perfectly reasonable option. It’s certainly not bad. Maybe not the absolute optimum, but if you’re happy with what you hear it’s fine. From a car’s speakers it’s probably better than fine. The real test for you, it sounds like, is your own ears. Rip a CD. Play said CD. Then play the WMA files. If both sound fine, go with what works.
128 Kbps was the default setting.
I think I’m going to stop with the ripping now that I’ve done a few CD’s and transfer them to the player. Once in the car, I’ll have a better idea if I’m getting a “tinny” sound and need to make adjustments.
Thanks everyone for your help and education. In all other areas I’m pretty technologically saavy but the whole music thing is new to me.
Posted before reading, but Markxxx speaks the truth. EAC and Hydrogenaudio are fantastic. I’ve been a devotee of both for a decade now.
I just want to add one more thing.
The program that is used to convert a file into a CODEC also makes a differance. It is not just the file type, or the bit rate.
You can get MP3 rippers that give a differant sound, in theory it should not be the case since the output mp3 file is of the same form.
One of the best rippers is called CDex, all I can suggest is that you try out a couple of well known songs and use differant ripping programs and then you will see what I mean. The best mp3 rippers use the LAME ripping algorithm.
I also suggest that any doper who is not aware of the differance that ripping formats make, they should just give it a try for themselves.
Another point - not terribly relevant when you rip, but WMA is a Microsoft product. Like the DOC or XLS filetypes for MS Office, it is my understanding that macro code can be embedded in it. This allows for the file to do much more than just play music, but it makes it the preferred choice for trojans and viruses. (One example - as the music plays, your pC could display ads…)
This is not a problem for a music player, but it is a danger if you play the song on a PC. It’s not a danger for music you ri from CD yourself, but any WMA music you get from your friends, or from any of your millions of friends on the internet, could be a risk. MP3 music cannot be used that way.
*(There was an MP3 virus many years ago, but it relied on PC’s with a flawed MP3 codec - given a certain bad MP3 file, it could cause the program to glitch and execute code in the MP3. That codec has been fixed and any new PC or PC that has had windows updates applied in the last 5 years is safe.) *
As posted above, the format of your rips - wma or mp3 - can be set in the program. Microsoft, being Microsoft, has made the default their own WMA.
I use mp3 because I have 2 of my 4 players only do MP3, and the others - older iPods - don’t do WMA either. Since the only advantage of WMA is that it might not play everywhere (MP3 will) why bother with it?
The biggest advantages of MP3 are that it plays everywhere, and that the file format was established early enough that it could NOT be monkeyed with to add digital rights, executable programs or other unneccessary crap. I suppose the only flaw with that is that it cannot be modified to be sort of like a DVD, an album file with “chapter stops” for each song for example. Maybe that’s good, maybe it’s bad.
Good post, Markxxx, but from personal experience, I’d say that you can get perfectly listenable music, classical or pop, at 128 bitrate. Not ideal, but far from “awful.”
They (meaning Microsoft, I guess) used to claim that WMA gave better sound quality than MP3 at an equal bitrate, or equal quality at a lower bitrate, so that, for example, 64 bitrate WMAs sounded as good as 128 bitrate MP3s. I don’t know if this was ever really true; Wikipedia has a discussion of the issue here.
For what it’s worth, my first MP3 player was a Creative Zen that I got about 3 years ago, and the software that came with it had an option to automatically convert higher-bitrate MP3 and WMA files to 64-bit WMA when transferring to the player, in the interest of saving space.
Rip the same song at different bitrates and play them back so you evaluate the difference between them. Include the lowest bitrate you can so you can hear just how much information a low bitrate can lose. Use the bitrate that you like.
You might want to try this for each type of music you like to listen to.
I have to really agree with this. In the end, despite what audio people say, if it sounds fine to you it’s OK
This USED to be true, but it’s more complex than that.
You see it’s not only the codec but who MAKES the codec.
For example if you rip to MP3, you should be using the encoder for MP3 that is called LAME. Many different companies and organizations make MP3 encoders and they each encode the music differently. LAME makes the best MP3 encoder.
If you’re using MP4, Nero makes the best encoder for MP4. Apple’s encoder for MP4 (the one you find with iTunes) is almost as good and a lot easier to use.
So it’s not only format, it’s not only the bitrate but it’s they TYPE of encoder you use. If you go to Hydrogenaudio, they provide links for listening test.
Now to me, I can’t tell the difference, so again, use what is good for you.
For the poster that mentioned CDex, is also a good ripper. I found that it does have issues. I’ve gotten rips form CDex that didn’t play correctly. I have never found that with EAC. If EAC tells you your rip is good, it is. Of course EAC has various setting, and unsecure rip in EAC is worse than a secure rip in CDex
Another one to look at is Audigrabber. (See Hydrogenaudio for links to programs)
Oddly enough if I can’t get a good rip in EAC, I’ve used CDex or Audiograbber or even the ripper that came with my Windows machine, to get a good rip. This is especially true of audiobooks.
The best all around program for ripping and audio is DbPoweramp. The issue is it’s not free. But it’s darn convenient. DbPoweramp’s CD ripper is considered equal to EAC.
The issue is it isn’t a free program. I got it because it’s so darn convenient. I rip all my music to lossless (Wavpack) and then keep it on my computer. Then I use DbPoweramp to convert it to m4a (mp4) for my iPod. It’s just takes a right click on the Wavpack file and I convert to m4a and transfer to my iPod and delete the m4a file.
If you’re willing to shell out a few bucks DbPoweramp is the way to go
Welp, the songs sounded great on the car speakers so I have officially arrived in 1985! Yea me!
Thanks, everyone, for being so helpful.