I was doing some googling on the difference between wma vs mp3. Besides the obvious that wma is proprietary and mp3 is open source, which is better in terms of sound quality? XBMC plays pretty much all formats, and I can't tell a single difference between wma and mp3 in terms of sound quality. In fact, wma seems to sound better in some cases. The stuff I read was confusing. As far as I can tell, wma is supposed to sound better at lower bitrates, with mp3 holding a clear edge over 128kps. So what do you guys think?

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Well mp3 is and it isn't open source. Some codecs are but some are licensed by two doods that go by the name of Fraunhofer/Thomson. Which is why some apps even on Linux do not come with mp3 codecs installed. The license has to do with methods of encoding and methods of playback that have to be followed.

There are alot of different variations of the mp3 codec though,some of which I think are far enough off the main thread that they can be somewhat open still.


Back to the original question...wma I hate it and won't ever go back to it....mp3 is kind of the lesser of the two evils. As long as you stay at 192 or above on the bitrate you should be good for sound. I wouldn't suggest going any lower than 128 even.

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Yeah 192 is the cutoff point for me as well. The short answer is I encode my music to mp3, but I really don't care which I end up with, XBMC plays them both perfectly, along with wav, flac, and ogg.

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but aren't most CD done in WMA format? I could swear the last time i put a song from one of my CD's onto my PC that is was WMA and not MP3. But it has been a while so i am not sure.

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Actually, its RAW media file on the CD "30-60mb each song. When the computer encodes the CD, it puts it as WMA "default" by WMP. WMA is a simple format, from MS, that is equal to MP3 128kbs. All my music are 192kbs, for many reason; It have good audio sounding and its volume is the best at the encoding. AAC is just like MP3, just in an uncompress form.

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i always just rip mine at 320k mp3 :-/