Anybody know how to shrink WMAs?

[Unregistered]

I'm recording some tracks (voice only) on my PC and compressed my WAVs to WMA. They're small but maybe not small enough-- I need to share them through an online site that isn't exactly big on space.

So does anybody know how to make WMAs even smaller? (I'd prefer a decent bitrate so the voice doesn't sound slurred, but I'm willing to compromise a little)

I tried lossless codecs but most of them only compress from WAV.

Or,
know any other formats smaller than WMA?

Thnx in advance for the feedback. B-)

[MasterOfPuppets]

Re: Anybody know how to shrink WMAs?

You might want to try the Speex codec (http://forum.dbpoweramp.com/showthread.php?t=2285), designed specifically for compressing audio files containing just voice. It isn't as widely supported as WMA, though. Are you hosting the files on a web page (not so clear)?

WMA is one of the most widely supported codecs that can compress the most with the least amount of lost quality, so if that is a factor then you might have to sacrifice some disk space.

[Spoon]

Re: Anybody know how to shrink WMAs?

For speech try VBR WMA

[Unregistered]

Re: Anybody know how to shrink WMAs?

Thnx to both of you, I did download Speex just now. I will try different VBR bitrates to see where the "acceptable" quality level is.
I'm probably going to host these on the Web but mainly they are for CD burning purposes, so at least that part is OK

I did find a good trick to compress my audio recently using WMA: I compressed my 5.5 MB MP3 file into an 890KB ISDN RealAudio file (my RM codec's on the fritz right now but hopefully I can get that fixed) and then into a 20Kbps, 22,000 frequency, 560KB WMA file. Amazingly no quality was lost (I doubt this would work for a music MP3 but I haven't tried it yet). However, if I can find something better experimenting with VBR or Speex I'll take it.