Let's talk about the benefits of converting mp3 to wav files

I have music files that are 2822 bits, 1536, and 1411. These are all considered WAV files.
There are MP3 files anywhere from 92 to 320 bits.

Question:
Is there a benefit in converting an MP3 file into a WAV file?
How can making the, say 320 bit file, into a 1411 make it sound better?
If its junk in one form, logic says it will be junk in another (larger) form.

Also, what is the difference between the 2822 and 1411 files, in terms of sound quality? (Don't tell me about the math, I get that.)
My ear is pretty good, but I hear no difference between these two.

 

Hi there chas berlin, WAV files are Studio Quality and take up much more space much larger than MP3, MP3 is a much compressed file hence much smaller but produces still relatively good sound on average quality speakers.
But play a WAV on a high quality speaker system and then play the same piece of music in MP3 and it will sound flat.
Some good reading here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_file
hawk22

 

Chas,

Another thought about wav and mp3. I burn a lot of music for my wife since she teaches exercise classes. We use some equipment that won't play the CDs unless the music is in wav format. Therefore, I have to convert all my music over to wav so that she doesn't run into play problems. Even our newer van doesn't read the disks most times. Just something to keep in mind.

Mike

 

That's the bottom line.

If you are playing a file on your computer or device that can play flac/mp3/wav/shn files, I would go with flac. Its file size is smaller than wav but larger than mp3.

For other devices, choose whatever format it plays.

 

wav vs mp3

One other benefit to wav is that a wav file can be played in a standard cd player - car for example whereas most cd players will not play mp3 ( some do and will be marked with a mp3 symbol)
Some cars now have a plug for mp3 players - instead of carrying around a stack of disks which are heavy and large relatively
However the sound quality of a mp3 whether from a mp3 cd or a mp3 player is poor compared to wav
However to their credit mp3s are very small ( affording easy p2p sharing) and will give a digital label and description whether on a mp3 player , a computer or a dvd player)
WAV are relatively large - only 13 or so songs on a cd ( of course depending on length)

 

Good info guys, and I appreciate it.
Pretty much confirms what I thought.
I use WAV files on my computer and MP3 player. My HD is 750Gig, so space is not an issue, and I'd rather have less music on the player w/ better quality (the player is 40Gig).

So to recap, there's no reason to take a downloaded MP3 of say 320 and convert it to WAV. It's the same quality in a bigger package?

 

Exactly, the data was lost during compression. The only reason to decompress is to make the file compatible with other devices (eg a cd player that can't play MP3's or other compressed formats).

There are two forms of compression lossless (eg .zip) and lossy (eg MP3).

With lossless compression you can reproduce the exact data that was there before (very important for program/data files), lossy like JPEG and MP3 are able to compress a lot more but it's impossible to recreate the exact data, as long as it sounds/looks the same though most of the time it's not important. I don't worry about sound files so much (my ears aren't the greatest) but there's probably a few lossless compression formats around for them.

 

Strangely I can hear the difference between MP3 and WAV on my player (Creative Labs). The WAV files sound fuller to me.

 

Good to know Mike.
I only use WAV files in the car and at home, since they sound better. Someone told me a while back that CD players typically won't play MP3 files, so I've never burned any MP3 discs.

 

You can generally hear difference if you listen to the same material in both WAV & mp3, one after another. If you listen to only mp3 & have no other format to compare with [of the same recording], it would sound ok too.

 

I totally agree.
The trouble is I've compared the two, so now I know what I'm missing. I'd always thought MP3 was good until I A/Bd them. Dang, what a difference. I then started replacing what was on my MP3 player w/ WAV files.

 

I would like to hear more. What encoder are you all using to make the MP3s? When you compare the different files, do you know which is which, prior to your listening to it?

How is the comparison being made?

 

The WAV files are compressed to MP3 via iTunes.
I don't remember the specifics of the test, but I remember the stark difference between the two.

I'll load some files on my player in the next few days, and do a blind test and then post the results.

 

Heres my methods -

I generally get a mp3 or wav file if possible altho i can
convert real player files and others to different formats.

I'm far from expert (say Beginner) on audio but learning.

I have a creative labs X-FI Gamer sound card with 5.1
speakers. Note: the Audigy sound card is better (my next
purchase).
I use dBpoweramp to capture, convert, rip/make cd's, etc.
Not a bad suite of software but has a small learning curve.

For my car i use CD's with MP3 format as Stereo, 44.1 KHz
16 bit, 192 kbps. Dont sound bad at all. Never tried my
car to see if it will play wav files (yet).

For my favorite music on a PC, i use the wav format set to
44.1KHz, with 24 bit sample and 2116kbps (DVD quality).
Sounds great.

With this card, the sounds are better using Winamp
player instead of the creative player (most users at their
forum say their software is messed up for now).

savagcl

 

I ask because I use only MP3's in my truck. I use EAC to convert the CD to .wav and LAME to encode to MP3. My goal was to make an MP3 and not be able to hear the difference and I can't (maybe it my 50-year old ears).

Using my home stereo, I would load the original CD in one player and the MP3 in the other. With the display covered and both CD players going, I would switch the source back and forth. It didm't take long for me to realize I was quessing. I could not hear the difference

The settings I finally settled on for Lame was VBR 0, Method NEW, Joint Stereo and High Quality.

When I first started making MP3 CDs, I would use Windows Media Player to rip and convert my music. The sound quality was questionable. (It was awful). I went through a few different programs before settling on the combination I use now.

 

I'm curious about the conversion software you are using. Where did you find it? I use iTunes to take the CD into the computer (WAV), then the software on my Creative MP3 can convert it to MP3.

 

The Ripper I use is EAC (Exact Audio Copy) and it can be found here
http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/

You can find a good set of directions here,
http://www.teqnilogik.com/tutorials/eac.shtml
There is one other thing, under Drive Options, Offset/Speed, uncheck "Allow speed reduction during extraction ". I have found it performs better on my system.


The encoder is the LAME encoder that TonyT listed.

Again, it may be that I'm old and don't hear well.