Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] Decoding / encoding mp3 files

["Richard Fish" <bigfish@asmallpond.org>]

On 9/1/06, Hemmann, Volker Armin <volker.armin.hemmann@tu-clausthal.de> wrote:
> And recoding: mp3 is a lossy format. If you turn them into wavs you have not
> only wavs based on reduced information, you remove the stuff that makes mp3
> sound 'better' than they are. If you encode them again, you are removing more
> information.

Minor technical correction: wav formats are not even compressed, much
less lossy.  So converting from an mp3 to a wav (which is really just
PCM audio with a header attached) is very much like playing the mp3
through your speakers.  There should be no difference between playing
a wav generated from the mp3 and playing the mp3 itself.

But the point of what you said is correct...the wav file will not have
the same quality as the original recording that the mp3 was generated
from, and an mp3 generated from it will have even lower quality.
Although I suspect that most people couldn't tell the difference
between a 1st gen and 3rd gen mp3 if the bitrate is high enough.  When
I download stuff from iTunes, record it to CD, and then rip to ogg, I
certainly can't tell any difference between the 3 versions.

To answer the OP, I've used sox in the past to convert between
formats.  It can also apply lots of other transformations (noise
filters, volume normalization, tempo adjustments, etc) to the files.

-Richard
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