Encoding question

[wxrkny]

Most of my music collection is in mp3 format 192kbps. I've read that WMA produces much better sound than mp3 at the same bitrate. Would I lose a lot of quality by re-encoding the mp3's at 128 WMA? The reason I am doing this is to put more songs on my mp3 player which is compatible with both mp3 and WMA. Is re-encoding just a bad idea in general or is it ok if done properly? Thanks in advance for any help.

 

[Rickster71]

If your looking to save space...

The mp3 format will save you space (fits more songs) on your drive.
Is space savings your main concern? Then stick with mp3.
IMHO, If your using ear buds you may not hear the difference with WMA.
I save my music in WMA format. But I put them to a 300 Gig drive, and listen through my home stereo system.
As for the conversion, mp3 to WMA? I've never tried it. I don't think you'll hear the diff with ear buds. Hope this helped a bit.

 

[Steve1000]

Don't know what your encoder is, but in general 192kbps MP3 sounds transparent to me for day-to-day purposes. Others will tell you differently. I suppose there is a CODEC bad enough to be problematic with normal music at 192 kbps or to someone with absolutely superior hearing (much more rare than you might expect, BTW), but that's not me.

Generally you might well lose sound quality by transcoding from 192 kbps MP3 to 128 WMA. Transcoding is generally risky in terms of sound quality.

You could re-rip if you have the original CDs. Unless you are short of space I wouldn't see much point in it. Since 192 kbps MP3 is generally transparent to me, for example, I have nothing to gain in terms of sound quality by re-ripping in any other CODEC at a lower bitrate. MP3 is very universal, so that's what I use, at a bitrate that generally sounds transparent to me.

For some hard-nosed objective data go to hydrogen audio. You may need to work your way up the learning curve before you can use the information there. That's up to you. It takes some work.

Most of my music collection is in mp3 format 192kbps. I've read that WMA produces much better sound than mp3 at the same bitrate. Would I lose a lot of quality by re-encoding the mp3's at 128 WMA? The reason I am doing this is to put more songs on my mp3 player which is compatible with both mp3 and WMA. Is re-encoding just a bad idea in general or is it ok if done properly? Thanks in advance for any help.

 

[mtrycrafts]

Most of my music collection is in mp3 format 192kbps. I've read that WMA produces much better sound than mp3 at the same bitrate. Would I lose a lot of quality by re-encoding the mp3's at 128 WMA? The reason I am doing this is to put more songs on my mp3 player which is compatible with both mp3 and WMA. Is re-encoding just a bad idea in general or is it ok if done properly? Thanks in advance for any help.

As Steve said, I don't think it is a good idea to recode mp3. But, if you can use either, why not code one and see what happens and code one from a CD and compare, preferably the same music.

 

[JKL1960]

I'll echo that re-encoding the MP3s to wma would not be a great idea. You would probably lose fidelity but might not notice on your equipment. Encoding them all over again from the original CDs may or may not be worth it but working from the original CDs would be the best way.

Look at it this way: some information was lost when going from CD to 192kbps mp3. To use that mp3 as the source to encode the wma (or another MP3) would lose more information again.

 

[MDS]

Look at it this way: some information was lost when going from CD to 192kbps mp3. To use that mp3 as the source to encode the wma (or another MP3) would lose more information again.

Correct, but you may or may not notice any real difference using the mp3 as the new source and re-encoding it using wma. The mp3 will be converted back to PCM and then the 'new' PCM data will become the source for the wma encoder. The source for the wma encoder is not the same as the original PCM from the CD because as JKL1960 said, some information was lost; the conversion from PCM to MP3 discarded audio data that the perceptual model used by the MP3 encoder deemed inaudible.

If you want to save space and re-encode to wma, it may be ok but the best approach would be to re-rip the CD or save the WAV from the CD so you always have the original without re-ripping the CD. That's the approach I use and have all of the songs from my CDs in WAV format stored on an external hard drive. You can then transcode to any lossy compression format without re-ripping.

Having said all that, I am in agreeement with Steve1000. I have over 5,000 songs in 192 kbps MP3 and with VERY FEW exceptions, they are 'cd transparent' to my ears too.