Seiri, I like a free program known as CDex which converts in both directions from Wave to MP3, WMA and lots of others including my favourite Ogg Vorbis.

Just a few points about quality.

- You'll always lose some quality converting from WAV to a compressed format, but unless you make an A-B comparison the ear is pretty forgiving.

- The best compressed formats are argued to be Ogg Vorbis, WMA and MP3 runs last.

- If you convert from a compressed format back to WAVE you have irretrievably lost the pristine quality of the original WAVE, plus you'll lose a further smidgeon converting back. Hence only do the double conversion if you absolutely have to. If its spoken word it probably won't matter too much, eg a 'talking book', but for music try and re-obtain the original source file if you can.

Royalties are paid for MP3 encryption for professional usage - a good reason for supporting Ogg Vorbis in the future. Ogg Vorbis is superb if you want to conserve space on a CD or Hard Disc, but the number of MP3 players on the market that support this format is still limiting.

WMA would appear to be better quality and as far as I know no-one pays any royalties.

Going back to the start I have no idea how CDex handles copy protected CDs. If I actually owned one I'd give it a try - but I don't.

Regards, John