Does Converting WMA to MP3 Degrade Quality

[Harry]

The Nero Wave editor as well as many other sound editing programs allow you to convert WMA files to MP3 files. I was just wondering if the programs do this by opening up the WMA files in WAVE and only then allowing you to save it to mp3. If that is the case, then it seems like the quality of a music file would be degraded upon converting to mp3. But maybe the wma file is converted to mp3 in some less degrading way. Does anyone know?

[Hi Ho]

When you convert anything you will lose some quality. The difference, however, is often miniscule and not noticable. From what I've heard WMA files sound better than MP3's at the same bit rate.