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Topic: Any point converting mp3 to lossless? (Read 4730 times) previous topic - next topic
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Any point converting mp3 to lossless?

Hi all-
Forgive what is a relatively newbie question  but is there any point in terms of sound quality converting an mp3 file into a lossless format for cd burning?  In other words, once you've made the conversion to mp3, you've already compromised the sound quality which will no longer be restored by converting to lossless?

Thanks for any advice!

Any point converting mp3 to lossless?

Reply #1
Nothing can restore actual lost data, as far as I know. No, there's no real point to converting lossy to lossless except for bragging that you filled up your portable player to the brim

Any point converting mp3 to lossless?

Reply #2
NO!

Any point converting mp3 to lossless?

Reply #3
Quote
In other words, once you've made the conversion to mp3, you've already compromised the sound quality which will no longer be restored by converting to lossless?
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=267986"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Correct.

Any point converting mp3 to lossless?

Reply #4
Figured it was a silly question but thanks for the input!

Any point converting mp3 to lossless?

Reply #5
Correct that the conversion won't restore any extra quality, but you did say for burning to CD, so I will say that burning programs like Burn at Once will uncompress all the input files ahead of time rather than try to decode during the burn.

Any point converting mp3 to lossless?

Reply #6
Quote
Hi all-
Forgive what is a relatively newbie question   but is there any point in terms of sound quality converting an mp3 file into a lossless format for cd burning?  In other words, once you've made the conversion to mp3, you've already compromised the sound quality which will no longer be restored by converting to lossless?

Thanks for any advice!
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=267986"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


No, the lossless file will just be a perfect recording of the imperfect MP3 file.

It will sound exactly the same as the MP3.

Any point converting mp3 to lossless?

Reply #7
Like everyone else has said, you have already loss all the quality so converting it to loseless is pretty pointless. As DonP said, I like burnatonce to make my audio CD's because I can make them directly from my FLACs and OGGs.

Any point converting mp3 to lossless?

Reply #8
Quote
Like everyone else has said, you have already loss all the quality so converting it to loseless is pretty pointless. As DonP said, I like burnatonce to make my audio CD's because I can make them directly from my FLACs and OGGs.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=269527"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


Is there any way of downloading lossless files without them being giant?  I find that by the time you've payed for all of the megabytes you're getting into the price range of just buying the actual cd

Any point converting mp3 to lossless?

Reply #9
None whatsoever

Any point converting mp3 to lossless?

Reply #10
Quote
None whatsoever
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Well if you can find FLAC files...they would be smaller than WAV files.

Any point converting mp3 to lossless?

Reply #11
I ripped a song from a cd in mp3 format (160k) and in FLAC lvl8, and then transcoded the mp3 to FLAC, and the result was:

original flac rip: 18,366 KB
transcoded mp3: 19,044 KB

and when i monitor the file playing in winamp, you would think that flac would have detected the lower quality mp3 copy and encoded at a low bitrate, but there’s hardly a noticeable difference in bitrate when compared (which was obvious with the file size comparisons) but still. I wonder why this is?

Any point converting mp3 to lossless?

Reply #12
Quote
I ripped a song from a cd in mp3 format (160k) and in FLAC lvl8, and then transcoded the mp3 to FLAC, and the result was:

original flac rip: 18,366 KB
transcoded mp3: 19,044 KB

and when i monitor the file playing in winamp, you would think that flac would have detected the lower quality mp3 copy and encoded at a low bitrate, but there’s hardly a noticeable difference in bitrate when compared (which was obvious with the file size comparisons) but still. I wonder why this is?
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=282788"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

It may be the same reason as the one why re-encoding lossy->lossy=bad: Lossy encoders introduce quatitization-noise(also called artifacts) - thus, it can happen that the encoded mp3 is more complex than the original. Or in more simple less technical-accurate words: If you do original->lossy->lossless, then the lossless-encoder also has to encode the artifacts.

This is just a guess - i dont know if the above is true.
- Lyx
I am arrogant and I can afford it because I deliver.

Any point converting mp3 to lossless?

Reply #13
Quote
you would think that flac would have detected the lower quality mp3 copy and encoded at a low bitrate, but there’s hardly a noticeable difference in bitrate when compared (which was obvious with the file size comparisons) but still. I wonder why this is?
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=282788"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Lossy and lossless codecs differ fundamentally in how they encode audio (lossless is not just lossy with a larger bitrate); thus it is not possible for FLAC (or any lossless codec) to detect the lower quality copy, it just does what it's supposed to: (as Lyx pointed out) it makes a perfect copy of the (now lower-quality) audio input.