The biggest question when formatting newly recorded audio is the WMA/MP3 question. As a musician and former home recorder, this question always bothered me a little bit. So the biggest question really is what are the advantages and disadvantages of both? The second biggest question is what software is available out there for both? We'll answer both for you.

WMA stands for Windows Media Audio. So no, you can't escape Mr. Gates no matter how you try. WMA is Microsoft's cornerstone for audio production and distribution. Most WMAs can be found on internet sites and the like. They are generally larger files than MP3s and are considered by Microsoft to have a higher quality than any other format. The main boast of WMA is simply that with the bitrate, amount of bits per nano-second, that WMAs offer the audio accuracy should be more dead on than with MP3 files.

When several countries' labs converged to take on the evil that is Microsoft (not my words) they formed the Moving Pictures Experts Group (MPEG) and their third generation of audio software was called MPEG3 or MP3. My typing hand is very thankful for that. MP3's main attraction has to be a greatly reduced file size to WMAs. They achieve this by cutting out the parts of the recording that the human ear can't normally hear anyway. The result was a smaller program, or audio file.

Looking at both WMA and MP3 files on the same audio player you have to wonder which one will sound better and the answer is, it's hard to tell. A lot of this depends on your player's capability. WMAs sound better than MP3s at the same bitrate, but the average person will not be able to tell the difference unless they really concentrate. So that's no help in deciding things at all. So you can eliminate bitrate differential from our argument here.

MP3s are smaller files and have slowly become the standard over time, so that is something that definitely works in the MP3's advantage. WMAs are still mostly used on computers, where bitrate and to an extent, size is not as much of an issue as a personal player. So on a player it's advantage MP3 for storage capacity saved. On computer it's WMA for versatility and performance.

WMAs will play on "MP3" players, mostly. You have to remember when music players first came out, space was limited. Because of the limited space, smaller files were preferred. The size comparison of the files has not changed any, but the size of the hard drives has. The thing is though; everyone is already used to dealing with MP3s, so stick with what you know.

Converting WMA to MP3 or vice-versa is a step you can take to make sure all of your audio formats are the same. The software for these conversions is easy enough to find, though depending on the file size and your PC's processor can take a little time. Remember though, the more you convert the worse the audio quality will become. There will always be a bit of quality loss when converting.

So overall in the war between WMA and MP3 format we'd have to go with MP3 for size and not much of a drop-off in sound quality. However for musical projects WMA seems to be the preference as the range of audio frequency is higher. I think like most other formats, each serves a purpose, but unless you're a musician, serious music lover or have the ears of a canine, MP3 will serve you just fine.