wma vs mp3

hey guys, is wma far inferior to a well decoded mp3? i'm just downloading some music of kazaa to put on my pda. (don't worry, i have the cds, i'm just too lazy to rip them, whoever doesn't have the coldplay cds should go and get them. :) )

WMA is a better compression method than MP3. It's got better sound quality at the same bitrate. Downside is that it's less commonly used than MP3, can have DRM implemented (iirc) and is proprietary (iirc as well).

MP3 is the standard, and is slightly worse than a same sized WMA file. However, it's an open standard and it's completely free of DRM.

One of the up-and-coming file formats is OGG-Vorbis (files are named NAME.OGG). It's a better compression scheme than WMA and it's also completely free. It's just a great way to compress a music or movie file. (movies are sometimes named NAME.OGM)

you might consider using OGG for your PDA because it's so cheap on space.

WMA and OGG are better than mp3. OGG is my choice because it sounds great and isn't MS proprietary. I think it will be a while before you start seeing ogg even coming close to overtaking mp3s. Major audio programs like winamp are already supporting it though so that should speed things up considerably (if someone downloads an ogg file and it doesn't work, they are probably more likely to just download mp3s than to troubleshoot ogg). Still, it'll be a while, I don't think any file format has ever been as famous as mp3.

i wouldnt touch wma with a 10 foot pole. DRM scares the crap outta me. if you want high-quality MP3s, use exact audio copy + LAME, best sounding MP3s your gonna get.

.APE will give you an exact audio copy. (big size though)

.MPC is a lossy compression format, but is slightly smaller than .MP3 and sounds better than .MP3, .OGG, & .WMA

My choice would be Mp3Pro, that's of course assuming you own the CDs and are converting them to Mp3Pro ;)
Seriously, Mp3Pro halves the size (pretty much) and it's much matured.
Downsown, you most likely have to pay to be able to convert to Mp3Pro