[Lamplighter]

Hello all- I have been downloading alot of full albums off blogsites recently and then transferring the original MP3 files into regular CD's (CD audio format) for playing on my home CD player.
I am wondering about this CD audio format though and exactly what is it equal to ?
If I have a full album in MP3 at 320 and transfer it to CD audio can I assume the quality of that CD will similar in sound quality ?
If that is the case then can I assume that a full album in MP3 at 192 ripped into CD audio would be of lesser quality than the 320 simply because the source was better quality despite them both being in CD audio format ??
Many of the original MP3 files I used are gone and now when putting some of those CD's on my MP3 player I am figuring it would be pointless to rip them at 256 when many of them may have only been at 192 when I originally downloaded them anyway, correct ??
I hope this makes sense.
Cheers for any help or just some information !!!
LL-

 

[Sir Nobax]

Euh, you cannot make MP3's sounds better after you have converted it into PCM audio.

MP3 deletes parts of music the codec thinks we cannot hear (thus lowering the complexity so also the filesize) and because of that, if you burn it onto a CD, it won't be better.

And reripping the MP3->PCM CD will cause some enormous quality kill, doing that with higher bitrates could however save a little bit of quality.

 

[poo]

Yeah - if you burn 192 MP3 back to CD it will be about the same quality as the MP3 before burning. You're better off burning to CD in MP3 format thereby fitting more tracks on a CD. In fact you are probably better off forgetting all about burning and just using the files themselves...

 

[Redo]

Going from mp3 to Audio CD will yield identical sound quality as the mp3 file. However, don't delete those mp3's off your computer! Or at least back them up on a data CD/DVD.

Once you put the mp3's on to the Audio CD, if you want to extract the Audio CD data back to mp3, you end up doing a double lossy transcode. This makes 192mp3 -> Audio CD -> 192mp3 CD closer to 96/112kbps mp3, because it tosses data away two times.

 

[Lamplighter]

OK now I see. Cheers for all the information guys.
I was not able to save most of the original MP3 files simply because I had no computer or storage device and I was downloading al of those files at a local internet cafe and burning them onto CD right there.
The other bad part is that I am using WMP 11 (for my Toshiba Gigabeat S30) and in WMP 11 there is no way (that I have found) that you can import music into the library from files on your computer.
You can only import music into the library from burning an actual CD !!!!
So I have now roughly 100 full album CD's that have been burned from MP3 files and do not have the original MP3 files.
I have started saving the MP3 files and will have to look for a better method of storing and converting these files, perhaps Media Monkey or something similar ??
Now I know a bit more than I did before !!
Thanks again to everyone, LL-

 

[Lamplighter]

Oh, just thinking...
Since I do not have the original MP3 files but have these CD's that are basically the same sound quality how could I now store these audio CD's on a hard drive with no loss in sound quality, would I have to use a certain format ?

Cheers again, LL-

 

[stewgriff]

You could use a lossless format like FLAC, but that would take up a lot of space on your hard drive; FLAC compresses PCM audio to about 50% of its filesize with no loss of quality at all.

 

[Mansize_tissue]

Seeing as the files are already in a lossy format, i see little point converting them to a lossless format since it won't improve sound quality.

 

[Oliver :)]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lamplighter /img/forum/go_quote.gif Hello all- I have been downloading alot of full albums off blogsites recently and then transferring the original MP3 files into regular CD's (CD audio format) for playing on my home CD player. I am wondering about this CD audio format though and exactly what is it equal to?

In case you are still wondering, CDDA translates to 1411 kBps. As said, if you burn a CDDA off shoddy MP3s, it will still be 1411 kBps, but the quality will be no better than whatever the MP3s were in the first place.

 

[Oliver :)]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mansize_tissue /img/forum/go_quote.gif Seeing as the files are already in a lossy format, i see little point converting them to a lossless format since it won't improve sound quality.

Uhm, well, the process might not improve sound quality and you loose more space, yet in some cases it might improve the... versatility of the file.

 

[Redo]

FLAC, or rip them to a high mp3 bitrate like 320kbps.