MP3/CD Quality Conversion

[OzFlores]

Alright, i was talking with a friend about converting MP3's from 192 to 320 and ripping CD's to 320.

He mentioned that if you convert any MP3 from any bit rate to any other bit rate whether it be 128 or 320 it loses quality no matter what.

He also said that if you rip from CD to 320 directly you get the best quality.

I also debated the fact that if you rip a cd into an ISO, BIN, RAW or any other image format and load it onto a virtual drive and then rip the tracks from there you might get better quality.

Im not sure what to do I have many MP3's and are now debating on whether i should up convert my 192 to 320.

Im using latest (stable) DBpoweramp CONVERTER with latest Lame Encoder.

Can anyone help me out here, would greatly appreciate it.


~Ozzie~

[jtbse]

Re: MP3/CD Quality Conversion

He mentioned that if you convert any MP3 from any bit rate to any other bit rate whether it be 128 or 320 it loses quality no matter what.

Hi Ozzie...

I'm afraid your friend is somewhat correct here. MP3 is a "lossy" format, and once you've compressed the raw audio to 128 bps, you've lost some quality, and you'll never get it back; even if you transcode to a higher bit rate. In fact, just going through the conversion process is likely to reduce quality further (although I doubt most people would notice going from 128 to 320).

Not sure I would agree that LAME 320 bps is the "best" quality, but with the standard presets, it *is* quite good. But if you have an audiophile's ear, something losless like FLAC would probably be better.

My advice would be to leave the 128 bps mp3's just as they are, and experiment with other bitrates and formats for future rips to find what sounds good to you and compresses to the file sizes that you need.

Good Luck

[LtData]

Re: MP3/CD Quality Conversion

Converting your mp3s to a higher bitrate gains you nothing except larger files. See here for more information on file types and other things audio-related: http://www.dbpoweramp.com/spoons-aud...de-formats.htm

[gameplaya15143]

Re: MP3/CD Quality Conversion

I also debated the fact that if you rip a cd into an ISO, BIN, RAW or any other image format and load it onto a virtual drive and then rip the tracks from there you might get better quality.

Not unless your CDs are scrached to he11 and you use special software to rip them that is made to handle messed up CDs. In general if the CD is readable, it will read fine.

Im not sure what to do I have many MP3's and are now debating on whether i should up convert my 192 to 320.

doing so would only waste hard drive space and degrade the quality (although i doubt you could hear it).. if you want to use 320kbps then re-rip the CDs directly to it.

[Deano]

Re: MP3/CD Quality Conversion

He also said that if you rip from CD to 320 directly you get the best quality.

Yes, it will be the best quality. You'll also get rather large files and may well be completely unnecessary for your ears. You should try out several ripping settings and finding which quality suits your ears in comparison to the compression ratios you will end up getting.

I personally use -alt-preset-standard (as I still use 3.96.1, should probably change that) and get sound that is adequate for my listening habits on my mp3 player. That, of course, is not the same for everyone. Some people quite happily use 128kbps.

I also debated the fact that if you rip a cd into an ISO, BIN, RAW or any other image format and load it onto a virtual drive and then rip the tracks from there you might get better quality.

Well, it probably wouldn't affect the actual quality of the rip, although I guess the encoding would be faster. But by the point you've ripped an .iso, you won't have saved any time anyway.