Convert MP3 file to WAV in Mac Mini

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.

Just to clarify I should have said "converting the MP3 file to "a" lossless format", rather than using "another". That reads like MP3 is lossless, as the remainder of my post implies it most definitely is a lossy format.

Musicman07, I appreciate your feedback. And I don’t dispute what you say. Indeed the more I learn the more I realize any improvements I am hearing is due to my imagination. And as I said earlier, my imagination has certainly led me astray in other matters.

But there is one thing I don’t understand. You said, others have said, that the software “fills in the blanks” When does this occur? Does the Apple Lossless converter expand the MP3 file as it encodes or decodes? Or is the expansion done later by different software?

And is the software that expands a lossy file that has not been encoded into lossless, the same software that expands a lossy file that has been encoded into lossless?

Let me say I’m not trying to advocate converting MP3s to “lossless”. I’m just asking others to help me along in my understanding. For me PC audio seems like black boxes nested inside black boxes. I open one black box just to find another. And I’m not certain I’ve gotten the first box open. Anyway, any feedback is appreciated.

Thanks,
JPO