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Topic: WMA9 lossless as good as wav? (Read 6109 times) previous topic - next topic
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WMA9 lossless as good as wav?

Just wanting to check before I rip to much of my collection to WMA9...

Is WMA9 (mathmatically lossless setting) really lossless? As in, does it make identical SQ copies of CD's?

Or is there a very slight loss in quality anywhere? (whether humans can here it or not)

I am going to use the PC as a source in my hifi, theres about £5ks worth of kit so it really will show up any artifacts etc...I just want to make sure that im not limiting myself by choosing wma.

I would just rip to wav (as its not a file size issue) but I like how intergrated the copy process is in windows media player...

WMA9 lossless as good as wav?

Reply #1 –
Quote
lossless
\Loss"less\, a. Free from loss. [Obs.] --Milton.
[/i]

It should be obvious that a lossless codec do not lose any quality - a loseless format can rebuild the exact original wavefile.

By the way - do you have any specific reason for using WMA lossless?

WMA9 lossless as good as wav?

Reply #2 –
Im glad to hear that, I know it was a dumb question and I was 99% sure but I just wanted to check.

I think windows media player 9 is good, it is easy to use and is organised well (unlike iTunes) It also looks good which is a bonus as it will be the "front end" to my hifi.

I have no reason not to use it, im not interested in sharing/downloading music over the net so DRM isnt going to be a problem.

Thanks for the help

WMA9 lossless as good as wav?

Reply #3 –
Quote
Im glad to hear that, I know it was a dumb question and I was 99% sure but I just wanted to check.

Your forgiven.

After all, this is the company that claims cd quality sound at what is it, 64kbits per second?

WMA9 lossless as good as wav?

Reply #4 –
WMA lossless will compress the ripped wave files without any loss.

But it is more than likely, that Windows Media Player cannot rip your cds correctly.

WMA9 lossless as good as wav?

Reply #5 –
Plus by default it will protect your files so they cannot be played, converted with any other application, or moved to another computer.

WMA9 lossless as good as wav?

Reply #6 –
Use ExactAudioCopy for ripping your CDs, not WMA...  and look into FLAC, Monkey's Audio, and Wavpack...  They would be better I think.

WMA9 lossless as good as wav?

Reply #7 –
Spoon, just wondering, are wma files generated with your software also protected by default?
And can protected wma's still be decompressed (to wav's) on the PC with the original windows installation, or can they only be played back through media player?

WMA9 lossless as good as wav?

Reply #8 –
I would not recommend to use WMA9 for lossless (archival) compression ... Monkey's Audio and FLAC are much easier to handle and achieve better compression ratios in most cases (ape) and faster compression/decompression (flac & ape).
The name was Plex The Ripper, not Jack The Ripper

WMA9 lossless as good as wav?

Reply #9 –
WMA9 is lossless! 

Better don't use it!
Using lots of CPU power, lower compression than FLAC

CPU usage on my 1.4 GHz P4
FLAC ~0 %
WMALossless ~60%

+ its like Monkey, one block corrupted then it can't be playback anymore

WMA9 lossless as good as wav?

Reply #10 –
Quote
Plus by default it will protect your files so they cannot be played, converted with any other application, or moved to another computer.


This might cause confusion with some people new to compression, might be an idea if making statements like this to tell them how to switch it off. 

I am no fan of WMA but I think it is only fair to point out that this can be switched off via Tools>Options>Copy Music then uncheck "Copy protect Music" in WMP9.

Quote
WMA lossless will compress the ripped wave files without any loss.


As far as I know it will only use lossless via WMP9 on Windows XP, if you really want to use it on 98/ME you'll have to use Spoons dBpower AMP music Converter or something similar Please correct me if this statement is wrong.

WMA9 lossless as good as wav?

Reply #11 –
Quote
Spoon, just wondering, are wma files generated with your software also protected by default?
And can protected wma's still be decompressed (to wav's) on the PC with the original windows installation, or can they only be played back through media player?

My software will not protect any WMA files.

Protected WMA files cannot be decompressed.

WMA9 lossless as good as wav?

Reply #12 –
Quote
Quote
lossless
\Loss"less\, a. Free from loss. [Obs.] --Milton.
[/i]

Windows 3.1: Reliable, doesn't crash
Windows 95:  Reliable, this time we mean it
Windows 98:  Reliable, this time we mean it
WIndows ME:  Reliable, this time we mean it.
W2K:                Better than Y2K.  Reliable, this time we mean it.. Why won't Unix and Linux just go away?
WindowsXP:    Reliable, this time we mean it.

WMA 64k:          CD quality
WMA9Lossless: CD quality

WMA9 lossless as good as wav?

Reply #13 –
Thanks for all the advise.

But..are you saying that using EAC and FLAC will produce better quality results than WMA9 lossless?

How can this be possible if WMA is lossless? Surely you cant get better than that?!?

Im not bothered about CPU usage etc..just sound quality.

WMA9 lossless as good as wav?

Reply #14 –
THe suggestion was that although WMA's compression may be lossless, but wouldn't be as accurate
in getting the data off the CD in the first place as EAC.  That, and some other lossless compressors will
give you smaller files.

WMA9 lossless as good as wav?

Reply #15 –
Daryll,

Purely from a sound quality point of view, they will all do the same job (that's what lossless means).  Folks here are discussing other issues that make one format better than another.  For example:  One problem with audio files on a computer is that they are stored as normal files.  If even a single bit of that file gets corrupted, you will probably lose the whole file.  FLAC gets round that - if a little bit of the file is corrupted you might get a little 'hiccup' during playback, but the rest of the song will be fine.

Other things people care about are how long it takes to encode the file, how much memory/processor it takes to encode/decode, etc.  As far as I know, ALL of these issues are handled better by formats other than WMA.  But purely for sound quality, lossless WMA is fine.

The other issue is ripping - this is a surprisingly tricky thing to do well.  EAC does a tremendous job, CDex is pretty good, WMP is just OK.  So while any lossless format will give you a perfect copy of the original, with WMP you'd be getting a perfect copy of a bad rip (like getting a perfect copy of a bad photocopy!)

Cheers, Paul

WMA9 lossless as good as wav?

Reply #16 –
Thanks for that

So..is it possible to rip with EAC and then convert to WMA9 lossless?

I asume EAC can rip to wav?

Which version of EAC is best?

Just one other thing, how much difference is there between CDROM drives? In other words will files sound better ripped from one drive than another?

I have a laptop with a DVD drive and a normal PC with a DVD+RW drive...which would be best to rip with?

WMA9 lossless as good as wav?

Reply #17 –
Out of interest, why is CDex only pretty good, whereas EAC is excellent?
< w o g o n e . c o m / l o l >

WMA9 lossless as good as wav?

Reply #18 –
Quote
Out of interest, why is CDex only pretty good, whereas EAC is excellent?

The ripping methods used.

WMA9 lossless as good as wav?

Reply #19 –
I'm most surprised by this line-

[WMP] is easy to use and is organised well (unlike iTunes)

WMA9 lossless as good as wav?

Reply #20 –
Quote
Plus by default it will protect your files so they cannot be played, converted with any other application, or moved to another computer.


No it won't.  You have to turn it on, mine came off by default and I doubt MS was just being extra nice to me.

WMA9 lossless as good as wav?

Reply #21 –
I do agree EAC is an excellent ripper, but why is not WMP9?

WMA9 lossless as good as wav?

Reply #22 –
Quote
I do agree EAC is an excellent ripper, but why is not WMP9?

No error checking, BTW the latest EAC can do WMA Lossless
"You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say will be misquoted, then used against you."
 

WMA9 lossless as good as wav?

Reply #23 –
>>>'So..is it possible to rip with EAC and then convert to WMA9 lossless?'<<<

i assume you can, but i don't know for sure.. i didn't bother to install wmp9. i guess there should be an option in wmp to only compress (to windows media audio file) instead of rip and compress

>>>'I asume EAC can rip to wav?'<<<

yeah

>>>'Which version of EAC is best?'<<<

the latest one should work ok

>>>'Just one other thing, how much difference is there between CDROM drives? In other words will files sound better ripped from one drive than another?'<<<

all CDROMs that are capable of doing digital audio extraction do so digitally, so no the sound quality does not change. the only thing that can happen are sync errors with low quality drives if you try to extract the data off the disc too quickly. CDs that heavily scratched can cause similar problems/artifacts

>>>'I have a laptop with a DVD drive and a normal PC with a DVD+RW drive...which would be best to rip with?'<<<

as long as they're decent quality drives and your CDs are in good shape, you should be ok with either of them. some drives do a better job than others (i.e. extracting data quickly without errors) and i heard (and i emphasize heard) CD writers extract audio better than ordinary CDROMs
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