I am looking for a program (free or otherwise) that converts wma files to mp3 files. also, what is the best program to use to rip mp3s from cds? thanks in advance.

Your best bet is dBpowerAMP Music Converter. Totally free, and it can convert/rip WMAs, MP3s, etc, providing that you download the codecs too. Everything is free - the program AND the codecs. You'll be surprised it's free.

http://www.dbpoweramp.com/

still once its been compressed as a wma file, Its gonna sound like a wma file even once its converted. Highpitcged and tinny. WMA sux.

is there really a big difference? I can't really tell but maybe I just have an untrained ear. I was under the impression they were just like MP3 files. no?

thanks Six!!! I was gonna cave in and pay for something because I couldn't find anything for free. This is great. thanks again.

You really shouldn't convert an encoded format into a different format. WMA and MP3 work by cutting things out of the original waveform, but they cut out different things. So, converting from WMA to MP3 will probably end up sounding worse than the WMA beforehand. Whereas if you ripped from the wave (ie. CD) to MP3 (or even better, Ogg), then you would get a good quality digital music file provided you use a good codec and ripper.

For quality ripping I recommend Exact Audio Copy from http://www.exactaudiocopy.de and it also is completely free. For quality encoding I would recommend downloading the Ogg Vorbis Tools (includes oggenc among other things) from http://www.vorbis.com but if you are stubborn then get LAME (very good MP3 encoder), the current version is 3.93.1 and if you can't compile it there are plenty of binary packages out there. Start with http://www.mp3dev.org (LAME homepage).

I'm not really familiar with Ogg. can anyone tell me about this or show me where to get more info?

If you want to experiment with Ogg Vorbis, then start at http://www.vorbis.com and click on the download page. Assuming you are using Windows, goto that page and click the Vorbis Tools link to download the Ogg Vorbis Tools which includes everything you need to begin creating Ogg audio (ie. includes oggenc, the Ogg Encoder, as well as some good documentation).

Extract all that into a suitable directory, eg. C:\Program Files\Ogg.

Set up your CD Ripping program to use Ogg Vorbis or a Custom encoder if it doesn't support Ogg (download the latest version of the ripper if it doesn't support Ogg, chances are a newer version will). Then if need be make certain it is aware of where `oggenc.exe' resides. If you can select quality, then choose a quality rating of 6. If you can't but can add parameters to the command, add the parameter "-q 6" for music of quality comparable to 200kbps MP3.

Begin ripping. A decent ripping program will do all the work for you once set up correctly.

But remember, like I said before, don't bother converting your WMA to MP3 or Ogg as they will end up even less quality. If you REALLY must, then decode them to wave (.wav) using a (eg. diskwriter output in winamp) and encode them using a good encoder like LAME (for MP3) or Oggenc (for Ogg Vorbis).

Have fun!