I really think that Tom shouldnt review anything when he talks about sound quality as he obviously doesnt have very good ears... but seriously, saying that WMA is better than mp3 is quite frankly the funniest thing ive heard. They and meny others say that WMA sounds clearer and brighter than mp3, but they dont realise that WMA sugar coats the sound to make it sound better, but this is poor as its not a true representation of the real source. I really have to laugh when microsoft calls 192kbps audiophilie quality when it, to myself and many other audio compression enthusiasts, is worse than a lame encoded mp3. Mp3 is dated, and loses fidelity, but it doesnt change the sound as bad as WMA. Thats why it'll never take over mp3. In order of quality, id say real audio, wma, mp3, ogg/aac (both equal) and finally mpc as the highest quality. mpc is also good at bitrates but most people prefer small files for some reason. Broardband is very much taken over now, even here in the uk, so an extra few seconds download should be worth it for the very high quality that mpc provides. And besides, mpc averages at around 192 anyway, and most release groups encode at 192 anyway! mpc has a great phycoacoustical model and works very well in all frequencys. If filesize is important, for example in portable storage, like in the article, then ogg vorbis would be the best bet! it sounds superior to all lossy formats known at 128kbps and lower. All we need now is support for mpc, aac and ogg to become standard in hardware and software players and mp3 will be out of the window!
edit: Anyone interested in audio compression, head over to
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org and join us in our community!<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by fireballuk2001 on 08/21/02 03:14 PM.</EM></FONT></P>