Dumb MP3 decoding question

[RedRooster]

Here's a dumb one.

Will 128kbps and 192kbps MP3s spit out the same size wav file, assuming it's the same song obviously?

 

[BlackSoul]

yes

 

[RedRooster]

Cool, thank you.
So when making a cd, it really doesn't matter what quality of MP3s I have if I'm going to decode them to wav files before I burn them anyways?

 

[notfred]

<< yes >>

 

[notfred]

<< Cool, thank you.
So when making a cd, it really doesn't matter what quality of MP3s I have if I'm going to decode them to wav files before I burn them anyways? >>



well, the higher quality ones will sound better, but they wont take up any less space on the disc.

 

[Antoneo]

<< Cool, thank you.
So when making a cd, it really doesn't matter what quality of MP3s I have if I'm going to decode them to wav files before I burn them anyways? >>


Why don't you use Nero? It does on the fly mp3 decoding and burns straight to cd so you skip the step of converting mp3s to wavs...

 

[RedRooster]

<<

<< Cool, thank you.
So when making a cd, it really doesn't matter what quality of MP3s I have if I'm going to decode them to wav files before I burn them anyways? >>


Why don't you use Nero? It does on the fly mp3 decoding and burns straight to cd so you skip the step of converting mp3s to wavs... >>



I do use Nero, I noticed sometimes though the decoding doesn't work perfect, and a song or two gets cut off.
I don't mind decoding before though, I'm in no hurry.

 

[PliotronX]

When I first started playing with MP3, I thought it was lossless compression, sort of like WinZIP for audio. Boy was I wrong, MP3 is a lossy format, meaning it has to throw away information based on a psychoacoustic model to which parts of the sound you can hear, and the ones you can't. This is why such small filesizes can be achieved with lossy compression, however, artifacts can be inherent and/or annoying to you if the psychoacoustic model is incorrect, or the bitrate doesn't permit the artifacts to be hidden. Say you rip a song from a CD, keep the original, and encode it into an MP3 at 128Kbps. Then you decode the MP3 into a WAV file (notice it's not referred to as decompressing the MP3). Those two WAV files will be damn near the exact same size, but they will sound different. This is because the MP3 encoder had to throw away data that cannot be recovered from the MP3 during decoding. So, consequently, this means that if you re-encode an MP3, there will be further quality loss than if it was encoded from the original source.

But anyways, the simple answer is if you encoded two seperate MP3s at 128Kbps and 192Kbps, then decoded them, they will be the exact same size WAV files.

 

[chiwawa626]

PliotronX, yea it is lossy compression but genraly if u were to switch a "regular" persons cds with burned ones they would not know the diffrence...what encoder are u using, lame does a good job with its phycoacuousic model (sp..i suck)

 

[PliotronX]

<< PliotronX, yea it is lossy compression but genraly if u were to switch a "regular" persons cds with burned ones they would not know the diffrence...what encoder are u using, lame does a good job with its phycoacuousic model (sp..i suck) >>


Agreed, to regular ears, they wouldn't notice much of a difference

Though on a highend stereo system or car stereo, the artifacts become much more apparent =-O

I use Lame for any MP3 encoding I do, from when I first played with it during version 3.86. It is a love-hate relationship with Lame, cause every release causes a bit of paranoia, and the urge to re-encode my entire collection... hehehe