Learn inside which is the best audio format for your music. MP3? WMA? Ogg? or MP4?
Most people carry more than 1 GB of music in their laptops. Most of the music is encoded in the old MP3 format. Old? Yes… more than 15 years old. The MP3 format project started in 1998, can you believe it? Run a search on Google if you don’t. MP3 format started as a project from a German man to encode the CD’s audio in a way that they could transport 100 musics instead of only 10. Of course the algorithm has evolved a lot since then. Still MP3 is a very low quality standard only used because of the popularity. What are the alternatives? Too many but this guide will only focus on the most important ones.
WMA
Windows joined the audio quality race and launched it’s very own audio format. In the beginning it was even worse. When the version 8 came along the quality boosted to a level much more superior than MP3 ever could. The way the files are coded allow WMA to achieve much better results than MP3 even can. WMA is about 50% with the same bit rate. If you choose the VBR option then you can have music you can’t hear the difference between CD and WMA with just 192 KB/s. If you don’t believe try yourself. This happens thanks to the technology called VBR. It will use just the bits it needs to make the quality good. If there is no music at a determined second it will use 0 KB’s in that second. If one second of music has a lot of instruments then the VBR will use 320 KB’s making the file small and top quality. Interesting isn’t it? MP3 VBR technology doesn’t work so well by the way.
OGG
This one has very good quality at low bit rates such as 64, 92 and 128, sometimes even better than WMA but the lack of compatibility and popularity makes this format a not very good option for you…. Forget it
RA
Real Audio used to be a very good format. Now it’s worse than WMA so forget it.
MP4
Now we’re talking. The best for last. This new format is up to 5x times better than MP3 and up to 3x times better than WMA. There are too many MP4 formats because some codecs use one technology and other codecs use another technology. The best one so far is NERO Digital audio. Who could guess that a CD burner software was the best audio encoder in the world? Too bad they changed the way they encoded it. The very best quality was around NERO 6 when they allowed high bit rates using High Complexity encoders. After that with Version 7 you only use Low Complexity with high bit rates. Still it’s a very good codec for low and high bit rates. The only problem is you will have to buy Nero and I tell you it’s not cheap.
A cheaper, or better free solution is Winamp. It can RIP music from CD’s to MP4 format with a quality almost as good as NERO. Too bad you can’t encode files that were already Ripped and encoded.
To ensure you have 100% music quality rip it with EAC software than encode it with NERO Digital to MP4 format High Efficiency codec. Nothing is better so far!
October 19th, 2008 at 9:44 am
very useful article, thank you for the advice. well done
October 19th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
Thanx for this info. I’ve often had problems playing some files on my WMP cos the codec wasn’t available. Yes, I too hate RA, haven’t used it for years I,ve been better off without it. You’ve really done your research on this, Good work.
October 19th, 2008 at 11:47 pm
I got a lot of good info from this, but I still can’t figure out how to put the music on the contraption.
It is a good read.
October 20th, 2008 at 9:30 am
Thankyou, Red for the info. I’ve always been having problems playing music.
But I’ve tried Nero and it’s really good but it’s expensive allright.
October 31st, 2008 at 9:44 am
Good article, Red. Regarding Ogg Vorbis (OGG): just because it isn’t supported by everything, some excellent devices and programs *do* support it, so don’t dismiss it completely. The fact that it is an open source format makes it ideal for people who don’t like to spend money (like me).
December 12th, 2008 at 7:11 am
what about lossless formats like – flac , ape , shn , wv …. ?
December 12th, 2008 at 9:56 am
You know, those formats are just too big to be useful… ever tried to stream a lossless music?
You can have a 3:50 audio music with less than 3 MB with MP4 v2 and that same music can be up to 20 or 30 MB with Lossless!
Don’t waste time converting your music to lossless formats. If you want the nearest lossless audio you can try MP4 with full quality, the file will be about 10 MB and you CAN’T hear the difference.
March 9th, 2009 at 12:07 am
*.flac files are the best compressed format ive heard, the best period is good old wav format. (cd’s use wav format at 16-bits and 44.1k sampling rate) however these files are large and not suitable for streaming (without a ridiculously fast internet connection) but as far as archiving cd’s or obtaining quality music (by whatever means) try to find a flac, as most people dont use wav files
windows media player has a link on their plug-in page for “oog coedecs” this includes the flac encoder/decoder
hope this helps
March 9th, 2009 at 3:46 am
i forgot to mention, about flac and wav files, these are the better formats to use if you’re converting from a cd, dat tape, or an analog source, if youre storing a wma, mp3, mpeg, etc. you wont gain anything by converting to a better format in which case your best off just leaving it in whatever format its already in.
you may not realize much of a difference between formats playing songs back through your pc speakers, but say you put it on a cd, or run it straight to a decent amp with some okay speakers, theres much more detail in the sound with wav and flac files than in mp3, mpeg, wma, etc.
June 9th, 2009 at 7:23 pm
Hey I just wanted to put my 2 cents in. I run a club in South Long Beach and I use WAV for all of my audio. I have currently over 22TB’s that I ripped straight from disc to drive all in WAV format. It’s good enough for a 6,000 sq. ft. club and sounds awesome. It takes good quality audio to be bumped at 16k watts and still sound crisp. Though I have never tried FLAC… it would literally take MONTHS of 24/7 work to convert 22TB’s and be slightly pointless as stated before, you probably wouldn’t a difference unless its encoded to FLAC and compressed straight from the source, wither it be CD, DVD or a Master cassette.
June 26th, 2009 at 1:31 pm
Very informative, but what if your not fussed about the quailty and just want to carry large amounts of music with you when you are on the go? what format is best compressed yet still supported by most media players?
July 1st, 2009 at 12:08 pm
Just a heads up, MP4 is a video file, not an audio. It leaves me to doubt the rest of the information given in this article.
July 16th, 2009 at 5:42 am
Never heard of RA and hope will never heard of RA. XD
August 23rd, 2009 at 9:58 am
MP4 isn’t only a video format! See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_file_format for more infos
August 23rd, 2009 at 2:37 pm
Thanks Redburn,
Its really good.. the way you presented the information..
I searched a lot site..most wanted to say the same thing … but the way you presented .. really good.
Best of luck
August 23rd, 2009 at 3:37 pm
Yeah you’re right it is audio too, My bad then Great Article!!!
Sean Oppermann
September 30th, 2009 at 4:18 am
hello,
This is a great article. I agree MP4 is the best format till date for audio and video. I would like to know which is the best in MP4, Nero digital audio (latest) or iTunes. both have come really close earlier. I would like to get first hand information on this. E.g Encoding music at 128 kbps CBR which of the two is better or at 96 kbps CBR which is better (also including VBR )?
And what about wma10 pro at 128 kbps and 96 kbps?
I would be glad to know the results, probably after the listening test.
Thanks
November 20th, 2009 at 2:40 am
does it help to convert mp3’s to mp4 format? does that improve the quality? and are mp4 files the same at m4p’s which are the file format used in Itunes?