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Is the wav file format better sound quality wise, then MP3's?

C

coolred

Diamond Member
I know that if you rip an MP3 at a high bitrate it is very hard to distinguish between the original and the MP3. But if you just pull songs off a CD onto your hard drive, they are in wav format, right? So they are CD quality in wav format? Also can you uncompress an MP3 back into a wav file and back to original quality? If you can do this, is it better to use higher bit rate MP3's, or when you uncompress it does it go back to original quality no matter what bit rate? I doubt the later, but am unsure. Sorry for posting this in off topic, but I wasn't sure where else to put it.
 
part of the compression process for an mp3 is removing sounds that the normal human ear couldn't normally hear... like a really quiet sound while someone is banging the crap out of the drums. If you've got a good ear you can hear the difference. There is no way to uncompress back to normal quality, because the sounds that are not heard are discarded during compression. You can make an mp3 a wav file again, but you'll have holes where some of the sounds that were discarded were. It'll still sound good though.
 
There are codecs that will make the uncompressed audio about half the size of the original file. WMA pro and monkey's audio do it. Its the exact same thing as the original wave, just lossless compression.
 
Well heres the deal. I'm sure some of you have seen my car audio thread. I was considering getting an MP3 capable head unit, but then i thought about it and realized I only have like 150 MP3's and I only listen to a little more then half of them. I think I would be better off just buring the few songs I like on 2 a couple CD's in wav format, rather then spend the extra for an MP3 head unit, that i won't use much. I know I can also hook up a portable MP3 player, if I ever get one, via aux in to any HU with this jack
 
If youre burning wavs onto cds, theres no point. Just burn it as a regular audio cd. Its the exact same thing in the end.
 
Originally posted by: coolred
If youre burning wavs onto cds, theres no point. Just burn it as a regular audio cd. Its the exact same thing in the end.
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Explain please, I am confused
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Audio CD's need to be burned differently. You can't just drag and drop wav files onto a CD and have them play. The difference is in the table of contents. Hence a data CD with wav's in them will not play in your audio CD player, because the player will just see 1 track with a bunch of data in it.
 
I think what he's saying is that there is no point to convert wavs to mp3s before burning onto a disc, because it'll be the exact same thing in the end. All most burning software does is uncompress the mp3s on the fly before putting them on the disc. In other words, 15 mp3s and 15 wavs would both pretty much make the same audio cd in the end.
 
Oh so a head unit couldn't read a CD with wav files on it, I thought they could. So is there any way to take the few MP3s I have and burn them on a CD in a format playable on a non MP3 enabled head unit?
 
Use the WAV files, but burn a disc of type "CD Audio" instead of data, ISO, Joliet, etc. Then your burning software will create a disc readable in many normal CD players as an audio CD.
 
Originally posted by: coolred
Oh so a head unit couldn't read a CD with wav files on it, I thought they could. So is there any way to take the few MP3s I have and burn them on a CD in a format playable on a non MP3 enabled head unit?
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You can convert the MP3's back to WAV files, or rip wav files from other cd's to your drive. Then using a CD Burning program burn those wav files to an Audio Disc / CD format. Then they'll play on 99.9% of the cdplayers out there. [Some Car Audio players have problems reading burn'd media, but ,that's rare nowadays].

If you burned the wav files to a 'data cd' then the audio player wouldn't know what to do with the disc. It's just a matter of telling the software to make the wav files to an audio cd.

As for lossless compression, WAV file isn't compressed at all (as mentioned above) it's just extracted/ripped from the CD. But, interestingly enough, some cdroms don't rip the data off the disc as it was written. The audio-cd format has an interesting error-check alg... and some try to compensate for errors during the read process and change the data.

Basically, if you ripped a wav file, burned that to a new disc, and ripped it, and burned it again, repeat-- the wav file would degrade over time as well. Most newer CDROM's are much better about ripping to wav file but it's not always perfect. Ever hear cracks/pops in MP3's, lots of times that's why--they were ripped from a disc with scratches -or- the CDROM didn't do accurate audio extraction.
 
I'm not sure I follow some of the comments here.

I burn AUDIO CDs in Nero all the time. I convert the mp3s to wav with CDEx rathar than let Nero do it. If I want to make a copy of an original audio cd I rip the tracks to wav them burn those wavs in Nero under AUDIO CD.

You don't burn wavs or mp3s to a data cd, you burn them to audio cd.

 
Did I ever mention data CD's? Thats what i was talking about all along, being able to burn wavs to a CD and play them in a cd player. I think that would be easier and cheaper for me hen buying an MP3 capable head unit, thanks
 
Originally posted by: coolred
Did I ever mention data CD's? Thats what i was talking about all along, being able to burn wavs to a CD and play them in a cd player. I think that would be easier and cheaper for me hen buying an MP3 capable head unit, thanks
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Yes that is possible. CDs are originally in WAV though so you won't be able to put more than 80 mins on a single CD. Since it is a car system using MP3 won't affect it much, you're not going to be able to tell the difference.
 
CDs are originally in WAV
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Cd's are not originally in wav. Cd's are just in their own uncompressed format. Wavs can also be uncompressed but that still doesn't make them the same format as audio cd files. Wavs can also be compressed in various ways depending on what codec you have installed.
 
Originally posted by: coolred
Did I ever mention data CD's? Thats what i was talking about all along, being able to burn wavs to a CD and play them in a cd player. I think that would be easier and cheaper for me hen buying an MP3 capable head unit, thanks
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For all intents and purposes, CD music is basically wave files. Uncompressed audio. Regular CD players can only read CDs burned in a special format with a table of contents, which any CD burning program will support, all of them have it built in. Special "Music" CDRs do nothing other than cost more so the RIAA can get a cut.

If you just burn the files onto a CD, it wont be able to read them regardless of whether theyre MP3s or waves or whatever.

80 mins of wave files equals about 700mb. You wont gain or lose any space by burning it as an audio cd. In essence, before any music file is burned to an audio cd that can be read by a standard cd player, it is converted to a wave first.

So if you want your files to be read by a standard cd player, just burn it as an audio CD. Youll be able to fit the exact same length of songs whether they come from mp3s or waves or whatever. Burning waves to a cd is absolutely senseless, since its the same size as a standard audio cd file, but you wont be able to play them.
 
Originally posted by: zephyrprime
CDs are originally in WAV
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Cd's are not originally in wav. Cd's are just in their own uncompressed format. Wavs can also be uncompressed but that still doesn't make them the same format as audio cd files. Wavs can also be compressed in various ways depending on what codec you have installed.
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That is true but WAV is a lossless format and it is also the most common that requires no additional codecs to play. I'm just referring CDs to Wav for the sake of simplicity, why make it so complicated when his problem is so basic. Anyways it's just a matter of drag and drop these days, Nero and Roxio will automatically convert MP3s and make it so that Wavs are playable on a regular cd.
 
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