Again, you can't lose what's not there to lose. A 128 bit rate mp3 has already lost information - converting it to 320 does not regenerate it. I don't understand what you're not getting.
Itunes is going away??
- Thread starter TJS
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The part of technical information that is escaping you is the fact that every time you convert the file to mp3 format regardless if the conversion is at its full setting of 320 you will still lose something.
"You cant lose whats not there" were not talking about losing whats not there were talking about losing something that is there - you will lose something on the conversion process when compression takes place again .
If you have a 128 bit rate file, most of the information that would be lost in a 320 bit rate file is already not in existence - and it's gone forever. Converting it to 320 does not create it.
If you have a half of a burger, no matter what you do, you will never have a whole burger.
If you have a half of a burger, no matter what you do, you will never have a whole burger.
What Andy is saying, and he is mainly correct, you lose NOTHING on the conversion from the 128K compressed signal to an uncompressed temporary version, but potentially lose something on the reconversion back to a compressed 320k mp3 since the recompression process will most likely not compress it identically to the compression that happened at 128K.
So not only won't you get a better sound by upconverting it .. you might actually have a worse one ...
If I have a 128 bit rate file and want a 320, I'm going to look for a better quality to rip from - as in the original. I wouldn't even be trying to convert it - as I know it's already worse.
OK... So I decided just to do a little test to see what happens when you convert a .WAV file to various sizes, and what it looks like if you upconvert an MP3 file. Here's the results...
I started with a sample WAV file (5,150KB)
Converted it to 320kbps MP3 file (1,157KB)
Also Converted it to 128kbps MP3 file (463KB)
Then converted the 320kbps MP3 file to 128kbps MP3 file (463KB)
UP converted the 128kbps MP3 file to 320kbps MP3 file (1,156KB)
Converted the 128kbps-320kbps file back to 128kbps MP3 file (462KB)
... Now I forget the point I was trying to make.
I started with a sample WAV file (5,150KB)
Converted it to 320kbps MP3 file (1,157KB)
Also Converted it to 128kbps MP3 file (463KB)
Then converted the 320kbps MP3 file to 128kbps MP3 file (463KB)
UP converted the 128kbps MP3 file to 320kbps MP3 file (1,156KB)
Converted the 128kbps-320kbps file back to 128kbps MP3 file (462KB)
... Now I forget the point I was trying to make.
I recommend AAC over mp3 as the encoding process is mode advanced and generally can sound better in a smaller size format.
Thanks Apple!
Thanks Apple!
While true, less devices (though most software) support AAC, so you might limit yourself if you put some songs on a flash drive and brought them somewhere else to play.
