2007-02-20 05:47:37 · 5 answers · asked by toes48 1 in Computers & Internet ➔ Other - Computers
They are all different formats for recording music. MP3 the most common. But you can store more with WMA files. The MP3pro kind of disappeared as there was only one type of player for this. So even though the player was half the size of an MP3 file, you had to buy a certain player. Music lovers want a wide choice of players, that is what doomed mp3pro. And finally wav, is the best as far as recording. You would want to record home stereo music in this format. But even when I listen to music of different formats on little, bitty, earphones, I hate to say it, but I do not notice any difference. The only way to tell is if you had big speakers and you be chillin out, but anyway here are the 4 definitions.
MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a popular digital audio encoding and lossy compression format and algorithm, designed to greatly reduce the amount of data required to represent audio, yet still sound like a faithful reproduction of the original uncompressed audio to most listeners. It was invented by a team of German engineers who worked in the framework of the EUREKA 147 DAB digital radio research program, and it became an ISO/IEC standard in 1991.
Windows Media Audio (WMA) is a proprietary compressed audio file format developed by Microsoft. It was initially intended to be a competitor to the popular MP3 format, but has not yet received such popularity. However, with the introduction of WMA Pro and Apple's iTunes Music Store, WMA has positioned itself as a competitor to the Advanced Audio Coding format used by Apple and is part of Microsoft's Windows Media framework
mp3PRO was an audio compression algorithm (or codec) that combines the MP3 audio format with spectral band replication compression methods. It claims to achieve transparency at lower bitrates than MP3, resulting in a file nearly half the size of standard MP3. RCA was the only company to offer portable players compatible with mp3PRO, but they have dropped support for the format.
WAV (or WAVE), short for Waveform audio format, is a Microsoft and IBM audio file format standard for storing audio on PCs. It is a variant of the RIFF bitstream format method for storing data in "chunks", and thus also close to the IFF and the AIFF format used on Amiga and Macintosh computers. Both WAVs and AIFFs are compatible with Windows and Macintosh operating systems. It takes into account some differences of the Intel CPU such as little-endian byte order. The RIFF format acts as a "wrapper" for various audio compression codecs. It is the main format used on Windows systems for raw audio.
Though a WAV file can hold compressed audio, the most common WAV format contains uncompressed audio in the pulse-code modulation (PCM) format. PCM audio is the standard audio file format for CDs at 44,100 samples per second, 16 bits per sample. Since PCM uses an uncompressed, lossless storage method, which keeps all the samples of an audio track, professional users or audio experts may use the WAV format for maximum audio quality. WAV audio can also be edited and manipulated with relative ease using software.
2007-02-20 05:51:22 · answer #1 · answered by Big C 6 · 1⤊ 0⤋
When a file is converted to mp3 or wma or ogg or any lossy format the converter takes out information that it feels isn't necessary. That's how you compress. So, by taking away info you do lose quality. Some converters do a better job than others. Some formats are better than others. That's where debates get started. To go from mp3 or wma to wav is uncompressing. You don't lose quality. But, if you were to convert to another lossy format(wma, mp3,ogg,etc..) after uncompressing, I believe you would drop in quality substantually. Now, why do you want to uncompress your files? To write to a CD? Most writers will do the conversion automatically. Well, if you already have the files on your computer, than any good burning software will automatically decode the files to the proper format for CD. If you're looking to download some music files off the internet than it's just a preferance call. If you even have a choice that is. If you're looking to download from a CD to your computer for archiving purposes than I suppose most people on this site will tell you that mp3 with the Lame codec would be the way to go, to maintain the best quality possible.
2016-05-23 23:05:45 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
well they are all different files so they are viewed differently by the computer. wmas are windows media files. mp3s and wavs can be played by windows media player and other programs. as far as burning cds, mp3s are the smallest, so you can fit more onto a cd. However, not every cd player will play them. wav files are what most cd players will play. but they also take up more room then mp3s. hope this helps.
2007-02-20 05:50:38 · answer #3 · answered by rchilly2000 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The difference between these formats is the way in which they deliver the sound in terms of quality.
MP3 files are known for file compression giving reasonably good quality sound in small file sizes.
WMA and WAV formats tend to come in bigger file sizes because of their richer sound quality.
Personally, I prefer WAV provided file size is not an issue. WAV format in my experience delivers very good sound quality as it is more realistic.
2007-02-20 06:02:06 · answer #4 · answered by madabout_life 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
They are different formats they are just different files. AAC is best an 128KHz AAC file is equivalent to 160KHz on MP3 so it is better but WAV is the best but it will use something like 25MB per song.
2007-02-20 05:50:23 · answer #5 · answered by Darian 3 · 0⤊ 1⤋