MP3 vs WMA

Some time I added some of my KN7000 arrangements in WMA format to my site for those who do not have a KN7 but would like to hear them.

I can't remember now why I chose the WMA format instead of the MP3 format.

Can anyone give me some reasons, opinions, etc., as to the advantages and disadvantages of each of these formats.

Thanks much.

Larry Gosmeyer

Not much difference.

A Windows Media Audio file is slightly smaller, a slightly more compressed file.

Example: A wave file song saved as an MP3 at 128 kbps (Joint Stereo) is 2.17 MB

The same wave file, saved as a WMA is 2.16MB

Many experts agree that for roughly the same size file, WMA just sounds better then an MP3. Indeed, Napster, and many pay music sites are using WMA, because they believe the quality is better, in a smaller file size.

So it's just a matter of choice, although in my personal opinion, WMA gives better quality than MP3 for lower bitrate.

SeeYa,
Larry

mp3 is more universal for portable players, wma can be played on any windows pc, but so can mp3. Wma probably has the edge at very low bitrates but who wants low bitrates unless absolutely unavoidable? The quality difference is not great, wma just has a different frequency spectrum slice strategy and was an attempt by microsoft to usurp a popular free format with their own proprietary format. Both are outclassed by more recent encoding techniques such as aac, but with less universal playback options.