I certainly don't want to start any kind of war here - Just looking for information rather than marketing (MS) info.

Did a little reading the other night, and came across several articles/reviews/tests that claim WMA is substantially better than or at least "more bitrate efficient" than MP3 (depending on who you ask).

So, for fun, I ripped several tracks. Classical music, Pink Floyd, Ska, Reggae, Rock. All were ripped to WAV, and then encoded to MP3 128, MP3 VBR (LAME alt preset standard), and WMA at 96kbit. (Using Music Match and WMA 8).

All the files were uploaded to the empeg, which was plugged into my home stereo for comparison purposes. I played the wav file, then the others in random order (I didnt know which were wich till I looked). The results suprised me.

I could not tell the difference between the VBR MP3 and the WAV, as you would expect (except this one pink floyd song, which gets butchered for some reason). But more suprising to me, I could also not tell the difference between the 96Kbit WMA and the WAV, or the MP3 VBR. The 128 MP# I could tell some differences on most tracks. (I mean its listenable, but I can tell)

Now, the majority of my music is encoded 160-192 MP3. All my newer stuff is VBR, which averages 160-192 as well. I'm thinking of swithcing to WMA tho, as I could fit a LOT more onto my empeg (which is rapidly getting full).

What, oh great gods of knowledge, are the downsides to WMA? Other than the MS as big-brother aspects. Keeping in mind that I dont view my mp3/wma collection as an archive - I keep my CDs for that. I have yet to find an article that did an objective comparison between mp3 and wma whre mp3 won... (Now Ogg, thats another thread...)

Finally, is what I read true - that advances in WMA encoding automatically work on older WMA decoders? I.e. they claim wma9 is even better, and that you dont have to upgrade the decoder??? What decoder is the empeg using, etc....

Thanks for any input, and lets keep it constructive and objective.

-Jeff