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Geek Culture / does re-encoding mp3 files to a higher bit rate "work"?

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Pus In Boots
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Posted: 20th Nov 2010 03:36
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basically I'm getting new earphones that offer supposedely amazing sound quality, but everyone says songs in lower bit rates will suffer because of all the compression. If I re-encode say, a 128kbps song to 320kbps, what effect would this have? would it solve the problem or just magnify it?

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dark coder
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Posted: 20th Nov 2010 04:50
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Of course not, you can't retrieve data from a source that has lost it.

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DJ Almix
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Posted: 20th Nov 2010 05:45
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Quote: "basically I'm getting new earphones that offer supposedely amazing sound quality, but everyone says songs in lower bit rates will suffer because of all the compression. If I re-encode say, a 128kbps song to 320kbps, what effect would this have? would it solve the problem or just magnify it?"


It's the same as asking, if you scale an image, does it make it higher quality.


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BatVink
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Posted: 20th Nov 2010 11:36
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It also depends on the song. For example Drum 'n' Bass or Jungle (am I showing my age now?) will not be particularly effected because it's lower frequency sounds. However, if you plan on listening to Catherine Jenkins, you may lost some quality on the high notes.

It also depends on whether you've used a variable bit rate in conjunction with the sound, and this in turn is affected by the musical complexity.

MP3 removes the humanly inaudible ranges, eventually removing some of the more audible ones as the quality drops. In general, you won't spot the difference between 128 and 320 Kbps, the human brain doesn't work fast enough to process momentary differences.

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bitJericho
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Posted: 20th Nov 2010 12:59
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Quote: "MP3 removes the humanly inaudible ranges, eventually removing some of the more audible ones as the quality drops. In general, you won't spot the difference between 128 and 320 Kbps, the human brain doesn't work fast enough to process momentary differences."


You will in fact hear the difference. I certainly can. It's why I use flac instead of mp3.

The difference is a more natural sound

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Pus In Boots
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Posted: 20th Nov 2010 13:21
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so how do you go about getting flac files?

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bitJericho
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Posted: 20th Nov 2010 13:39 Edited at: 20th Nov 2010 13:42
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Quote: "so how do you go about getting flac files?"


You encode them from the original CDs. I recommend http://cdexos.sourceforge.net/

There's no way to make existing mp3s sound better.

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Phaelax
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Posted: 20th Nov 2010 22:39
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Don't forget some of those frequencies will depend on the speakers as well.

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"Imagination is more important than knowledge..." ~Einstein
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JoelJ
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Posted: 21st Nov 2010 22:13 Edited at: 21st Nov 2010 22:14
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Quote: "Of course not, you can't retrieve data from a source that has lost it."

Quote: "It's the same as asking, if you scale an image, does it make it higher quality."


And zipping a file in effect will destroy it as decompressing it is impossible. It's like scaling an image. Right?

I think it's funny that the first two posts sound like they're trying to make the OP sound stupid. I think it's a perfectly valid question as we commonly call it "compressing" or "encoding" rather than "scaling". Thus making the second post a horrible analogy as we're not "scaling" the music.

I'm not trying to dispute the fact that you can't re-encode to get quality back. I'm just trying to point out to a few of you that it isn't as obvious of an answer as you're pretending it is.

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Jeku
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Posted: 21st Nov 2010 22:32 Edited at: 21st Nov 2010 22:32
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Quote: "And zipping a file in effect will destroy it as decompressing it is impossible. It's like scaling an image. Right?"


Actually your analogy is bad, not the image analogy. An MP3 isn't simply a compressed WAVE file. The transformation required to convert a regular WAVE file to an MP3 actually removes sound.... sound that you can't get back. A ZIP file is lossless, so it *can* be undone for a perfect recreation of the source.

If you convert a high-quality BMP to a JPG, you can't then go back to the high-quality BMP version with just the JPG. MP3 is lossy in the same kind of way.


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DJ Almix
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Posted: 21st Nov 2010 23:24
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Quote: "I think it's funny that the first two posts sound like they're trying to make the OP sound stupid. I think it's a perfectly valid question as we commonly call it "compressing" or "encoding" rather than "scaling". Thus making the second post a horrible analogy as we're not "scaling" the music."


I didn't sound mean, because I was giving an example of what it would be equivalent to. Someone who asks this question and gets and answer might want to know why or a situation to compare it to.

It's the difference between me saying:

"It's like scaling an image and thinking your actually getting high quality, like you can just pull something from nothing."

versus what I originally said, that was unbiased and just a fact for him. It's a perfectly understandable question.


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JoelJ
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Posted: 22nd Nov 2010 07:32
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Quote: "Actually your analogy is bad, not the image analogy. An MP3 isn't simply a compressed WAVE file. The transformation required to convert a regular WAVE file to an MP3 actually removes sound.... sound that you can't get back. A ZIP file is lossless, so it *can* be undone for a perfect recreation of the source.

If you convert a high-quality BMP to a JPG, you can't then go back to the high-quality BMP version with just the JPG. MP3 is lossy in the same kind of way."

I understand that. I was just pointing out how it would be easy to confuse it because I've heard of the process being referred to as "compressing" music more than I've heard "scaling" music. I just thought it was interesting that the first two posts sounded condescending as if the OP was an idiot for even considering that it might be possible. Where the language we use to describe it sounds more like compressing a file than it does scaling it. Maybe it's just me and I was in the wrong mood when I read the posts.

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Phaelax
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Posted: 22nd Nov 2010 12:01
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To give a perfectly clear answer,

Quote: "but everyone says songs in lower bit rates will suffer because of all the compression"


That is true with MP3s because the compression algorithm is what we call a "lossy" one. Just as Jeku mentioned how an image loses clarity with JPG compression, so does an MP3. If you save an image as a PNG, the file is still compressed but uses a "lossless" compression algorithm to which no data is lost. The sound alternative for that would be FLAC and certain forms of WMA.

While FLAC would have a greater file size than an MP3, you should hear a noticable difference when encoded at 128kbps.

There might be programs that can resample the data and try to fill in some of the missing bits but I'm not aware of any such software.

Quote: "a 128kbps song to 320kbps, what effect would this have?"

You'd have a larger file, that's it, assuming it was an MP3.

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Fatal Berserker
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Posted: 22nd Nov 2010 17:37
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Theres a difference between Lossless data compression (such as .zip, .7z, .rar)

and lossy data compression (jpg, mp3).

lossy remove parts of the file that arnt needed. such as colours the eye cannot usually see, or sounds.

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Pus In Boots
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Posted: 22nd Nov 2010 18:26
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and from what I understand, lowering the bit rate increases the range of sounds being removed so that audible sounds start being taken out (as opposed to the inaudible frequencies), is that right?

Quote: "I just thought it was interesting that the first two posts sounded condescending as if the OP was an idiot for even considering that it might be possible."


Nah it's all good.

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