Uncompressed Audio?

[Hi Ho]

I am thinking about building a cheap audio server for my house. My idea is to build a PC that has audio files only and nothing else. I have a couple questions. How much space would it take? I currently have 6GB worth of CD's on my computer ripped at 256k WMA format. What would that be uncompressed? How much power do I need? It would be serving three PC's througout the house. How would I copy the music uncompressed? Also, do .wav files keep the same information as MP3/WMA's such as artist, alblum, title, etc? Any suggestions/comments would be helpful.

[SonicVanguard]

It's hard to know what a 256k WMA file is uncompressed. But I like to think of it this way, multiply the file size by 10 (for a 128k file) and you'll have an approximation of what the file size would be uncompressed. So figure 256k is twice the size of a 128k file, that would be 20 times - so your 6Gigs becomes 120Gigs.

There's really no point in recording what you have as uncompressed, it's already been compressed and the compression alogrithm has removed the 'unneeded' information, there's no way of getting it back unless you have the original uncompressed recording.

And wav files do not have ID tags.

Dave.

[ogrerocks]

A .wav file is uncompressed. No, they do not have ID3 tags or any of that thing.
Just some suggestions:
Get rid of any/all WMA you have and make it all MP3.
Lower your bitrate Variable bitrate 192KHz. That should keep the audio quality very close to the original CD, but save you a good amount of Hard Drive space. 256k is just overkill, unless you're playing it on a very top of the line home theatre system (your logitech sysytem doesn't count).

For some reference for you, I ripped Under The Bridge by The Red Hot Chili Peppers. The uncompressed .wav file is 45.7 MB.
Encoding to MP3 with VBR (Variable Bitrate) 160-224k, stereo, Highest quailty setting, using CDex 1.51, yeilds an MP3 6.37 MB, just over 7:1 ratio.


I read an article comparing MP3, WMA, and OGG. The results showed that OGG was the Best with MP3 in second. I decided to try it on my own and got the same conclusion. If you want to try, the best test is to compress applause from a live performance. There is a huge difference between the three with applause.

[Hi Ho]

I do have the original recordings and I do play them back on my home theater system. It would make no sense to uncompress files. I guess I wouldn't gain much by having them in .wav format. WMA format sounds better to me than MP3 format. I really don't hear much difference. Also, if I build this serrver I would be playing the songs on high quality systems throughout the house so I would keep it at 256k.