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[JaredH]

I know this has been done to death, and as long as I've been around here I should know the outcome of this post. Still, i need some sound advice on sound. One could say, I need some sound sound advice.

Right now I am ripping my CD collection to WMA9 320kbps. Firstly, please no remarks about "use lossless" or "placebo above 192kbps" etc. Im doing this mainly because I am trying to get the closest to lossless by way of using a lossy compression, and I dont have the harddrive space to rip my whole collection to WAV. This is mainly for the sake of portable use and what not. Ill still keep my CD's, and given the way HDD prices drop considerably every year, I'll be able to afford more space in the future. So I may in the distant future, rip everything to WAV. For now though, I want to conserve space but get the highest quality sound I can get.  Which brings up my next question.

I've read a lot about Vorbis and its sound quality. I've also read a lot about WMA9 and its sound quality. From my own ears, it sounds as if they are both nearly identical. I would almost go as far to say that the differences, which Im sure exist, are out of human hearing range. My question is merely a question of opinion. I know there's already one pro to Vorbis, that being it is open source, but are there others. What are your opinions.

I'll say right now, I think the only thing keeping me from using Vorbis is that the OGG format is not widely supported in the portable player arena. So, are there other things I should know about?

[timsmith]

I have tried most of the encoders available on a number of test tracks and prefer ogg in almost all cases. (I listen to mainly classical/jazz). I have a CD collection which would get into the terrabytes if I had continued to rip to WAV as I started doing. I have found that the ogg format is a great compromise.  I have also tried many media players until I found MC and breathed a huge sigh of relief because it can be set up to maximise the sound quality of whatever is ripped and ease of use is fantastic. I have also found that the way in which you output the sound to the Hi Fi is more critical to performance than the format.  I use a Sonica Midiman and this can make even low bit MP3's sound great. One compromise though is if you use an ipod all tracks will have to be converted to MP3 when uploaded and this can take a while.

[JaredH]

Nah, I'm not cool enough to own an iPod.  

Nor am I cool enough to carry around a portable that can hold more than 512mb of songs.  I may go for a 1gb model sooner or later, but anymore than that to me is just overkill. Call me a dinosaur, but I can burn CDs and throw them away for a heck of a lot cheaper than I can buy a portable that has more storage capacity than my first 4 computers combined.

There again, the only problem I see with the OGG situation is that most of the small size portables dont support the format.

[GHammer]

Right now I am ripping my CD collection to WMA9 320kbps.

I've read a lot about Vorbis and its sound quality. I've also read a lot about WMA9 and its sound quality. From my own ears, it sounds as if they are both nearly identical. I would almost go as far to say that the differences, which Im sure exist, are out of human hearing range. My question is merely a question of opinion. I know there's already one pro to Vorbis, that being it is open source, but are there others. What are your opinions.

I'd stay with WMA if I were wanting a compressed format. Why? Microsoft has more support in more software and hardware than other formats. I would suggest that you look at portable players and see what rate they support for WMA. Been awhile since I looked, but my iRiver player didn't like lossless or high rate WMAs.

I do like MP3 created with LAME --preset extreme --scale 1
They are small enough, sound excellent, and can play on anything.

[edbro]

I think the quality is about the same for a given filesize. The only problem with Ogg is it seems to be more CPU intensive. On a portable player it will eat more batteries than wma. Also, updating tags in Ogg takes quite a bit of time compared to almost negligible for wma.

[breadfan]

have you considered using the ape file format? you get lossless compression there at 50 percent of the file size of wav. Thats roughly equivalent of what your getting now.