Sound quality of .wav vs .mp3?
 

Hey,
Did anyone notice that lots of .MP3 to .wav converted CD's suck? I have bunch of trance/house CD's from doubtful sources(internet) and even with high bps rate(128<) they distort in car when turned up high. Cranking up factory CDs to higher levels produces no distortion.
Any advice on how better convert MP3 to .wav so sound quality won't degrade? Is there any correcting software? I use adaptec easy cd creator 5.
Thanks for any tips.
Alex

Its pretty simple, MP3 is a lossy compression technology. It cant handle complex sounds, and is most lossy at the extremes, which means they get more compressed (which sounds like distortion) at the very low bass and high treble.

as Charles pointed out... the MPEG compression used for .mp3 files is one that bases the compression on loss of information in the audio (all kinds of neat techniques that remove the sounds that your ear can not hear - based on as good a model of the human ear as they can come up with). Because the process is not perfect you will notice a degradation in the audio quality.

When you convert the MPEG compressed audio back to an uncompressed bit stream (.WAV) format there is no way to put the information back in. There might be something out there that might help interpolate some of the information, but I have never seen such a program.

Basically think of MP3 as reducing the color count in a picture where there are certain tones that your eye can not see. Once you remove that information, it is gone.

One thing I can suggest is to find MP3's with a higher bitrate than 128. While 128 is supposed to be "near CD quality" (and I run 128 Kbs MP3s in my MP3 CD player all day and they sound pretty damn good) - once you convert back, the degredation is kinda noticeable. I think it's more noticeable on a WAV that came from MP3 than on the MP3 itself.

Try finding stuff that's upwards of 192 or better - you should get a bit better quality.

~HH

128 is not CD QUALITY!!!! its shit quality

192 isn't even CD

320 is close to CD quality
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M5OD TRANSMISSION

I'll agree - but I've said this part before:

I would challenge ANYONE to differentiate between an original CD and an MP3 ripped from that CD (NOT internet music), in a car going 70 MPH. I rip all my MP3s at 128 Kbs - and for normal listening, they sound as good as the originals.

I admit, some music can get strange things happening - certain stuf like choirs and orchestral music can get some strange harmonic changes it seems - but this is VERY rare, and the rock, jazz, and alternative music I listen to doesn't suffer from this.

128 from the internet might be shitty - but downloaded from the internet, there are a lot more variables than just the bitrate to determine a track's quality.

~HH

Yeah but how great does your 16 songs sound when you are trying to change cd's? I can listen to 30 - 100 different songs at 192kbps that sounds as good to cd quality. Unless you are in a quiet room with no other sound but the cd music you will not notice.

The other thing that throws a wrench in the works when it comes to MP3 encoding is that the standard is for the decoder not the encoder. It was up to the different developers to find ways of enocoding the data, so long as the decoder was able to read it you were OK. This lead to competitive algorithms that can encode a lot faster than others (anyone remember when it took hours to encode a song... on the same PC today it happens real time or faster), and each one of them uses what is believed to be an accurate model of the human ear. So sound can (and will) vary from encoder to encoder.

i know but it is a fact that mp3s < CD, to me 128 is okay but i would prefer 192, you can actually hear a diffrence but in the car i don't think i could hear any kind of diffrence
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Vaporizer

I just don't get some of the logic going through car audio. People spend all this money putting in expensive stereo systems, and then send a lossy-compression source into it. Why do you need a good system to listen to degraded sources? If people can't hear the difference between bad MP3s and CDs at 70mph, why do you think people can tell the difference between a $200 stereo and a $1000 one? Can someone explain that to me?

Anyway, I've used a friend to blind test myself and I can reliably differentiate 128-bit MP3's from the source CD's on crappy computer speakers, so I'm pretty sure I can do it in my car. Cymbals, in particular, never sound quite right with MP3s. JJB is right, though, the encoder makes a big difference.

Incidentally, there are other compression technologies which use a much more advanced psychoacoustical model than the one used by MP3 encoders. ATRAC4 (and higher), which is what is used for minidisc, is markedly better even at similar overall bitrates.

The encoder must have more to do with it, then. Because while certain tracks might have losses that affect the SQ, most everything I listen to sounds damn near the original.

I DO have discerning ears, too.

CD's have the ability to record frequencies that the human ear cannot hear - below and above the accepted range of 20Hz to 20kHz. MP3 compression takes those frequencies out of the mix - which you would not hear anyway.

I will absolutely agree that in an optimum listening environment, you would be able to hear certain nuances missing even in a well-encoded MP3. But we all know that try as we might - the car is hardly that optimum environment. Encoded well, MP3's rock! And the difference would probably be more audible on a higher quality stereo - to a point. Maybe you could hear it standing still on a $20,000 cometition system, but even on a $1000 or $2000 good car system, the difference is indistinguishable - especially while driving.

~HH

Sure I can explain. How many Head units have you seen out there that play MP3's with out skipping, giving off read errors but still putting out a descent amount of power for under $200? Also remember that most people like me dont just only listen to MP3's/burned CD's, I also like to listen to my regular store bought cds. The main reason I like burned cd's is that Im sure that you can agree that a 128kbs MP3 sounds a lot better then FM radio signal. At least it does where I live. So I just make a CD of all of the songs they play all the time and never have to hear commercials.

I just bought a JVC MP3 player(200w) for 270$CND, and the sound quality is ten times better than CD, my stereo sounds so much more cleaner and clear than before, more bass also, of course there are some songs that sound crappy, cause it was a bad download, but that's my fault for not downloading a better quality one, I have 4400 MP3's on 27 cd's I rarely listen to radio anymore, and the radio also has CD/RW playback, so all I have to do is burn a ReWritable with 100 of my favorite songs for the time i'm going to be in the car, and when I'm done just erase it and make a new one, it's like I have my own personal DJ in my car playing all the best songs. I think the JVC is the best 270$ i've ever spent for my car.

You mean 10 times beter than the stock CD player?

It is impossible for an MP3 to sound better than the original CD or recording. It can be close, and even indistiguishable, but better? Umm...not possible.

~HH

NO I mean better than any CD not the radio, ok well maybe not ten times better, but I can tell the difference.