I've been playing around with my music library. I've heard there are many formats out there that are better than MP3, but I never really put it to the test. So I decided to give it a try.

96% of my MP3s I created myself, while the remaining 4% were downloaded because I was too lazy to make them. My tool of choice: Easy CD-DA Extractor. Easy CD-DA supports encoding in MP4, MP3, WMA, AAC, and Ogg Vorbis just to name a few. For MP3s I've always either used a bitrate of 192kbps or 160kbps. I used the former until I decided I couldn't really notice a difference between the two (plus 160kbps takes up less space which is great for my CD/MP3 player).

My test song: Year of the Boomerang by Rage Against the Machine
Tested bitrate: 160kbps
Tested formats: MP4, MP3, WMA9, Ogg, AAC

In short, nothing could touch MP3. I first tried AAC, followed by MP4, WMA9, then Ogg. My question is: what's the big deal? At 160kbps, these formats sounded horrible. They sounded like I was listening to a 128kbps or 96kbps MP3. I thought perhaps that Easy CD-DA wasn't what it used to be, so I fired up WMP9 to rip the song. I chose the highest quality available (I didn't go lossless) on a fixed bitrate (variable bitrates don't want to work with my CD/MP3 player). Easy CD-DA actually did a better job of encoding than WMP9 did!

For anyone using formats other than MP3, please inform me on what the big deal is. I fail to see why I should move away from MP3 to one of the so called "superior" formats.