Is a wma smaller than an mp3 of similar quality?

[chinadoll]

saving a ripped song from a cd ....which format will give me the best compression with similar sound quality is it wma (the windows format thingy) or MP3....heard it is wma ...can this be true??

[QmunkE]

I use WMA since it's just convenient to use Windows Media Player for me - and the quality is fine.

Both formats are entirely dependant on the bitrate you record at - the more bits, the better the sample rate, and the more accurate the recording. MP3 is playable across platforms, and obviously by mp3 players, although nowadays most will play wma files as well.

The choice is up to you!

PS. my mp3 player software uses wma to fit more files onto the memory stick it uses, so I guess it's "better" compression.

[Mattk]

my sony mp3 player converts wma or mp3 to sony's own format (atrac i think) and the compression used is even better song files that are normally 4 meg approx are reduced to 2 !

[Potatoman]

.wma will give better sound quality over mp3 for the same bitrate, but mp3 is more widely used, except where you dload music legally, as .wma can be copy protected.

[Hammer]

wma files are smaller, but oddly enough will wear down the batteries on your mp3 player (shouldn't really call it that in this context, but you know what I mean) quicker because it has to work harder to decompress the files.