MP3 or WMA When Ripping CDs?

[CitroJim]

Down in my blog we've touched on the subject of MP3 players... Following on from that...

Recently I've ripped a load of CDs for upload to my (vintage) iPod and ripped them using Windows Media Player as WMAs simply because I needed to run iTunes (ghastly bit of awful software that is ) as it saved a lot of buggeration.

The question I have is which is thought to be better? I ask as I have subsequently transferred those WMA files to my other two MP3 players and they sound bloody excellent on all three.

For my money, WMA seems to be the winner. Is this so or is it because MP3 is so common and the de-facto standard? Is it another VHS Vs. Betamax situation where the inferior one got there through sheer domination?

Discuss... I'm most interested to know more...

[myglaren]

Do you want the Agnus Dei tracks as WMA Jim?
Or FLAC?

[bobins]

As a sweeping statement - WMA is best for quality, MP3 is best for ubiquity.

[CitroJim]

Do you want the Agnus Dei tracks as WMA Jim?
Or FLAC?

WMA please Steve. I have nothing that will pay FLAC...

And my interest (or rather total lack of and hatred) in IT is not such I'll faff about trying to make it work!

WMA to me works and sounds very good. That'll do a treat as far as I'm concerned.

As a sweeping statement - WMA is best for quality, MP3 is best for ubiquity.

Ahh, so it is Betamax Vs. VHS all over again then... Thought as much

[myglaren]

Well that was embarrassing I was sure that k3b had codecs for WMA and AAC but apparently not.
Probably best to send you CDs.

[CitroJim]

I have a codec on my Ubuntu for WMA Steve; it's called VLC Media Player and is quite truly brilliant...

Best media player I've ever used... I believe there may be a Windows version too but it's not needed; the latest incarnation of Windows Media Player is remarkably good for a Microsoft product...

[myglaren]

VLC is cross-platform and I have it in Ubuntu and Mint - unfortunately VLC won't rip CDS

[CitroJim]

VLC is cross-platform and I have it in Ubuntu and Mint - unfortunately VLC won't rip CDS

No, but there’s a tool that will... Juicer is a good choice and available for Ubuntu... I've used it in the past but you will need to download and install the MP3 codecs for Ubuntu (the ffmpg ones)

They don't come in a standard Ubuntu distro as they're not true open-source...

Else that, use the Windows Media Player... It's a cracking ripper on W10...

[Stickyfinger]

WMA Lossless for ripping and storage, WMA on my Creative Zen compressed, MP3 for use on the phone (when I do not take the Zen with me eg, short trips as it cannot hold all my albums on the card installed.)

[myglaren]

VLC is cross-platform and I have it in Ubuntu and Mint - unfortunately VLC won't rip CDS

No, but there’s a tool that will... Juicer is a good choice and available for Ubuntu... I've used it in the past but you will need to download and install the MP3 codecs for Ubuntu (the ffmpg ones)

They don't come in a standard Ubuntu distro as they're not true open-source...

Else that, use the Windows Media Player... It's a cracking ripper on W10...

Juicer is a bit flakey - used to use that a while back.

Haven't any Windows at all Jim - may pass it to my son to do.

[Zelandeth]

VLC *can* rip CDs (you can tell it to output via an encoder to a file rather than straight to the audio device), but it's a faff!

Regarding MP3/WMA I can't tell any real difference, but I always use MP3 with a variable bit rate and the quality set pretty high. Generally 48kHz sample rate - though I realise that's pointless on a CD given they are only encoded at 44kHz anyway.

Main reason I use MP3 is basically that virtually everything can play them, whereas WMA playback is more patchy.

I still need to sort out my media library after a brief run in with a Windows Media Player be iTunes fight on my system. New Windows installation (this was the Great System Crash of 07 as it's known in this house), and I'd just pointed WMP at my library. I later had to install iTunes to talk to my iPod as well. What I didn't realise was that in the background, WMP was creating a WMA copy of every media file on my system - irrespective of where it was - and iTunes was spotting these WMA files and was then creating an MP3 of it...I ended up with three complete copies of everything - and everything from a dump of a friend's hard drive (I'd just rescued their data for them) in one gigantic mess. About 30Gb of the music is junk that's not even from my media collection! That was in 2007...I still haven't managed to make sense of the mess.

One day I'll just need to nuke the whole lot and start over!

[myglaren]

Haven't been able to install WMA codecs yet, due to them being non open source presumably.
Have a workaround though.

[Hell Razor5543]

I always go the MP3 route, highest quality setting.

[mickeymoon]

MP3, highest quality, plays on everything. That's my choice.

Sent from my SM-G925F using Tapatalk

[myglaren]

I cheated and copied the CDs.
Posted today so may be with you Tuesday or more likely Wednesday.