Convert MP3 file to WAV in Mac Mini

In a previous thread, "Lossy to Lossless" I reported that when I converted some old MP3s to Apples Lossless, they sounded better. I have not done any blind tests, but have converted about 50 of them and listened to most several times. I stand by my original claim. The MP3s I have converted to Apple Lossless have better definition and sound punchier.

If it sounds better to YOU, that's where it should end for YOU. Why would it make any difference what others think?

Responding for myself; I said the conversion MAY sound worse. You are asking the software to fill in all of the information that has been stripped of the file in the first place, without any access to that information. In doing so it basically makes up all the stuff that it's adding based upon what is already there in the highly compressed version. If you can live with that, and it sounds better to you, have at it.

I cannot imagine why anyone would do that unless the mp3 was all they had access to (as in a file straight off the Internet from iTunes). I don't buy any music that way. If there is music that interests me I'll buy the disc and rip the files in a lossless format. Disc space is cheap and my iPod holds 60gb of music so I find no reason to compromise the music for the minor convenience of downloading.

On another note pertinent to the original query; I'm pretty sure that WAV files do not support tagging so you may lose some of the metadata like album artwork in doing that conversion. Apple Lossless does support metadata so that would not be an issue. I'm not entirely clear on this issue so someone with more knowledge should chime in.

There are some cases where only mp3s are available -- such as long out of print (& out of license issues perhaps) album that is "out there" in mp3 only, or certain bootleg cuts (legal issues aside) that exist in mp3 only. Is there any way to "enhance" the sound of these files?

It is possible that an MP3 converted to ALL or other loseless format might sound better than the original MP3 due to the software that decodes it. The new file will not have any more musical information though

Been away. Thought I would post again to this very interesting thread.

First to Jax2. I appreciate your feedback. Honestly, in regards to this matter, I don’t care what others think. If MP3s converted to Apple Lossless sound good to me I’ll probably continue to convert them. I’m not seeking the blessings of others, I’m seeking their knowledge. In this particular case I’m trying, in my own way to learn more about PC Audio by exploring this mundane, but to me, perplexing part of it.

To Mlsstl and Etep29: Yeah, what you guys said. Maybe playback of an Apple Lossless file that was previously an MP3 file might sound better (for reasons unknown to me) than playback of the original MP3 file. But I’m starting to doubt whether any improvement, or degradation, can occur.

The more I learn (if learning is mostly failure) the more I realize the converter (even while using sophisticated techniques) doesn’t do much. It merely encodes a PCM byte to a shorter code, stores the shorter code, and decodes the shorter code to a PCM byte before playback. So, almost 100% of the time, the decoded PCM byte is identical to the encoded PCM byte.

As I understand it, there is a very small possibility of error, a very small possibility that the decoded byte is not identical to the encoded byte, but such errors would occur rarely and randomly and would not effect sound quality in any systematic way.

If this is all correct ( and considering the source it may not be) there is no improvement or degradation involved in conversion. So if there is any change in sound quality it would be following conversion. And this is where I stop (if indeed I’ve covered any ground at all). Is it possible that PCM bytes in an MP3 file are played back in a substantially different way than PCM bytes decoded from an Apple Lossless file?

JPO

Jpod, it is true that converting the MP3 file to another lossless format should not make the file worse, possible but unlikely as you point out. However, there is no way to incorporate the orginal musical information back into the file once it has been compressed in a lossy format. What's lost is lost. What will happen is the software will fill in the blanks, so to speak, when you expand the file size. This may sound good, perhaps even better to you, but it will not be true to the original recording. This still falls into the garbage in garbage out category. You can dress up the pig, but it will still be a pig. The only guarantee is that your file size will increase exponentially. Once you have an MP3 leave it that. Try to stay with lossless if at all possible.