...I think that WMA is getting a very bad rap on this thread. I spend a good bit of my time consulting on media formats, and WMA is hands down better than MP3 and offten Ogg Vorbis at a given data rate (averaged) when using VBR encoding. My company has done a number of double-blind tests with audiophiles and VBR WMA wins every time.
Thank you! I was beginning to think I was the only WMA-lover here. Before ripping my library, I did some research and found numerous double-blind tests (non-Microsoft-sponsored, thank you) showing WMA to be preferable to MP3 at equivalent bit rates. My subjective experience bears this out, although it's not scientific, since it's not blind, and I'm not objective
To put this back on topic: On my home stereo system (a real stereo, not computer speakers), I cannot hear the difference between CD playback and 160 Kbps WMA. In addition, I probably could not tell the difference between 160 Kbps WMA and 128 or even 96 Kbps WMA on most tracks in a blind test, although I can find differences if I know what I'm listening to.
On the flip-side, 128 Kbps MP3 is the absolute lowest acceptable to me for listening, and I can hear the difference between it and a CD (loss of high frequencies, mostly). 96 Kbps MP3 or lower is basically unlistenable to me, due to high-frequency loss (resulting in "muddy" sound). I am 99% sure that I could pick a 96 Kbps MP3 track versus a 96 Kbps WMA track in a double-blind test. Hey--somebody prove me wrong!
At higher bit rates, I believe that the differences between WMA and MP3 become harder to detect.
BTW--WMA got a bad rap when it was first released because WMA version 7 was really bad. Version 8 and 9 are much much better, so if you read a bad review, make sure they're not referring to version 7 (probably an old article, in that case).
As for WMA being proprietary--hey, at least it's free! And besides, with Microsoft behind it, it's not going anywhere. Still, make my Zen play oggs, and I'll think about switching