WMA 9.2 Lossless or WAV?

[Travesty]

I'm looking to encode my CD collection but I want the highest quality and a format that'll play on any Windows based device without having to install any codecs, just not sure which one of the two I should choose? The research I've done seems to point to WAV but I figured I would see what you guys think.

[Boo Berry]

Does FLAC not work on all Windows devices? If so, go for that as that's the most common and widely used lossless audio codec.

[riahc3]

that'll play on any Windows based device

Examples and either Ill try to give you a answer or just say Boo Berry is right.

[Travesty]

Examples and either Ill try to give you a answer or just say Boo Berry is right.

PC's, Tablets, Cell Phones

[Boo Berry]

FLAC *should* work fine. Is there a Windows RT device? If not, it *should* work depending on the app(s) used on PCs/tablets/phones.

[Travesty]

FLAC *should* work fine. Is there a Windows RT device? If not, it *should* work depending on the app(s) used on PCs/tablets/phones.

The FLAC codec isn't baked in any version of Windows, it's one you must download and install and I'm looking to avoid that.

[Gladiatorus]

Ogg Vorbis is lossless as well and much smaller than wav, I just can't remember if it's supported by WMP by default. Now, if you're a purist and have HUGE amounts of space (almost endless if your collection is big), go for wav.

 

EDIT:

Forget what I said in the stroked through sentence, ogg IS lossy.

Edited March 23, 2014 by Gladiatorus

[D. S. Veteran]

Ogg Vorbis is lossless as well and much smaller than wav, I just can't remember if it's supported by WMP by default. Now, if you're a purist and have HUGE amounts of space (almost endless if your collection is big), go for wav.

 

EDIT:

Forget what I said in the stroked through sentence, ogg IS lossy.

 

Go for FLAC. It's lossless as well, incredible format, and you cannot tell the difference from .wav files unless you want to dive into some audiophile mumbo-jumbo nonsense where the 0's and 1's aren't "aligned" the same way.

[+Fahim S. MVC]

If you want a lossless format that'll play on any Windows device (I guess this includes RT and Phone) without having to install a codec, WMA Lossless is pretty much your only choice.  WAV wastes too much disc space and doesn't provide a distinct advantage.

 

However, WMA Lossless is a closed format and I would recommend you look into more open format that have wider community support.

[srbeen]

I hate the guy with the WMA archive of music. I have to re-convert it all. If you plan to stick with windows for eternity and not share your archive with a non-windower, go for it.

 

Otherwise go flac. Its better because its supported on everything (requiring some codecs). DBPowerAmp is really powerful windows conversion software too. Theres a trade-off, If you go WAV you better have a LOT of disc space where if you go with a codec you don't.
 

I admire the lossless ambition, but is it going to benefit you? Maybe make a WMA, FLAC, WAV, MP3 and OGG and see which if any sound better/worse on your setup. Unless you have really high end gear lossless is like watching a bluray on a CRT.

[Boo Berry]

Ogg Vorbis is lossless as well and much smaller than wav, I just can't remember if it's supported by WMP by default. Now, if you're a purist and have HUGE amounts of space (almost endless if your collection is big), go for wav.

 

EDIT:

Forget what I said in the stroked through sentence, ogg IS lossy.

.ogg is a container format which can contain lossless FLAC data.

[Guest]

Hey,

 

WMA Lossless fits exactly what you describe. You can convert raw WAV files into WMA Lossless files by using Expression Encoder. It might be out of support, but it is still better than coding your an app from scratch (or at least, faster to start the actual conversion process). However, support for it is quite limited, although yes, all Windows devices can play WMA Lossless. Link: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=27870

 

An alternative might be to use FLAC since it has good support on many devices, even by default (excluding Windows). But you can easily add support for it by installing third party media players (like MPC-HC on Windows, for example). You can get an encoder/decoder from here: http://www.rarewares.org/lossless.php Just use the simple "-8 -e -p -V -w --" command line parameters when encoding. You can automate this process by parsing files through a simple .NET desktop app, shortcuts, batch files, etc.

 

Personally, I use FLAC for archival and playback on my Windows devices, and 320kbps MP3s on my Windows Phone, since I doubt the ear buds that came with it are capable of reproducing the high quality audio that is usually present in lossless audio files.

[HawkMan]

I hate the guy with the WMA archive of music. I have to re-convert it all. If you plan to stick with windows for eternity and not share your archive with a non-windower, go for it.

 

Otherwise go flac. Its better because its supported on everything (requiring some codecs). DBPowerAmp is really powerful windows conversion software too. Theres a trade-off, If you go WAV you better have a LOT of disc space where if you go with a codec you don't.

 

I admire the lossless ambition, but is it going to benefit you? Maybe make a WMA, FLAC, WAV, MP3 and OGG and see which if any sound better/worse on your setup. Unless you have really high end gear lossless is like watching a bluray on a CRT.

Why would you need to convert someone else's archive of music ?

 

either way he needs it for all his devices, lie RT and WP in which WMA lossless is it. 

 

Also outside of idealistic (but it's not open waaaah) reasons, there's no reason to chose FLAC or monkey over WMA if WMA's suits his purpose. personally lossless is just an archive format anyway. sure you'll use it on devices that can directly access the archive like your computers, but when transferred to a mobile device you encode the lossless to a high quality MP3 or similar. 

 

however if the majority if your devices or even some of them are windows, then you might as well go for WMA as then you have the option of using the uncompressed files you you need to. and the WMA's work on all other devices as well. 

[Gladiatorus]

.ogg is a container format which can contain lossless FLAC data.

That, I didn't know. Now I do. (Y)

[Darrian]

.ogg is a container format which can contain lossless FLAC data.

 

That's true, but it's primarily used for vorbis.  It sounds really great, too, and used to be my preferred lossy format, but since it never got widespread support I switched to aac.  Doesn't really matter, though; Windows can't read the ogg container without installing codecs, which defeats the purpose of the thread.

[Travesty]

Thanks for all the advice guys! But... I'm even more confused because I wanted to see the size difference for myself and I got this.

The top is WMA 9.2 lossless at 96 kHz and 5.1 channel 24 bit VBR and the bottom is WAV uncompressed with all settings set to as source. What did I do to make the WMA lossless burn WAY bigger then the WAV? Shouldn't it of been the other way around?

[HawkMan]

5.1 channel probably

[Andre S. Veteran]

Thanks for all the advice guys! But... I'm even more confused because I wanted to see the size difference for myself and I got this.

Untitled.jpg

The top is WMA 9.2 lossless at 96 kHz and 5.1 channel 24 bit VBR and the bottom is WAV uncompressed with all settings set to as source. What did I do to make the WMA lossless burn WAY bigger then the WAV? Shouldn't it of been the other way around?

Do you really have 96Khz 5.1 24-bit audio CDs?  :huh: Upsampling will do nothing for you. Just use the same settings as the source, 44.1khz 16-bit stereo.

[Boo Berry]

Do you really have 96Khz 5.1 24-bit audio CDs?  :huh: Upsampling will do nothing for you. Just use the same settings as the source, 44.1khz 16-bit stereo.

Indeed. Always rip as source, or else the rips aren't 1:1. 24/96 rips are usually that big, so there's your problem.

 

P.S. I have that CD too! But notice its total size in my music library - that's as a 1:1 perfect FLAC rip of my source CD.

 

[Travesty]

Do you really have 96Khz 5.1 24-bit audio CDs?  :huh: Upsampling will do nothing for you. Just use the same settings as the source, 44.1khz 16-bit stereo.

I have a couple believe it or not but I have no idea why I was thinking of just leaving the setting on for everything haha. Needless to say when I turned it down it made a BIG difference taking the folder size down to 520 MB. I'm surprised though that WAV isn't much bigger, I might go with that.

Indeed. Always rip as source, or else the rips aren't 1:1. 24/96 rips are usually that big, so there's your problem.

 

P.S. I have that CD too! But notice its total size in my music library - that's as a 1:1 perfect FLAC rip of my source CD.

 

They were such great albums!!!

[Boo Berry]

My FLAC's only 3MB smaller than your WAV - that's not bad at all actually! :D

 

Indeed, especially that Crawlspace track... err Sevendust track before they called themselves Sevendust. :p I need to find the original soundtrack album in my collection but I need to know where I misplaced my CDs.  :wacko:

[Travesty]

My FLAC's only 3MB smaller than your WAV - that's not bad at all actually! :D

 

Indeed, especially that Crawlspace track... err Sevendust track before they called themselves Sevendust. :p I need to find the original soundtrack album in my collection but I need to know where I misplaced my CDs.  :wacko:

Got to love mid 90's industrial rock haha.

[+Eternal Tempest MVC]

Personally, I would go with an opensource lossless codex, such as flac.

It's not built in to windows, but there's codec's / players for just about every device.

On Windows, I perfer http://www.xiph.org/dshow/ and you get full flac support in WMP, and more (Ogg, Vorbis / Google's WebM) formats.

 

The one exception would be WindowsRT / Windows Phone given how new (relatively) it is. 

 

Apple also released an opensource, lossless codec called ALAC but outside of Apple products, doesn't seem to be taking off. 

http://alac.macosforge.org/

 

And as other's pointed out, Microsoft has it's Lossless WMA, as well, but it's not open source.

[Boo Berry]

Personally, I would go with an opensource lossless codex, such is flac.

It's not built in to windows, but there's codec's / players for just about every device.

 

The one exception would be WindowsRT / Windows Phone given how new (relatively) it is. 

 

On Windows, I perfer http://www.xiph.org/dshow/ and you get full flac support in WMP, and more (Ogg, Vorbis / Google's WebM) formats.

I do agree, but in this case the size differences between compressed FLAC and uncompressed WAV may not ultimately matter... as long as Synthetic has the hard drive space for it. :p Honestly, he's probably on the right track now. :) The only issue I can think of, if I remember right, is WAV and its support of ID3 metadata and embedded album art but like I said, I can't remember.

Got to love mid 90's industrial rock haha.

Indeed. I need to find some new stuff, heh. *goes and listens to some Ministry*

[Travesty]

I do agree, but in this case the size differences between compressed FLAC and uncompressed WAV may not ultimately matter... as long as Synthetic has the hard drive space for it. :p Honestly, he's probably on the right track now. :) The only issue I can think of, if I remember right, is WAV and its support of ID3 metadata and embedded album art but like I said, I can't remember.

Indeed. I need to find some new stuff, heh. *goes and listens to some Ministry*

Yeah I feel pretty good now going with WAV. Thanks a ton as always guys! I think I'll be hitting up some Skinny Puppy myself.