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 dont care what others think. If MP3s converted to Apple Lossless sound good to me Ill probably continue to convert them. Im not seeking the blessings of others, Im seeking their knowledge. In this particular case Im 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 Im 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) doesnt 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 Ive 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
First to Jax2. I appreciate your feedback. Honestly, in regards to this matter, I dont care what others think. If MP3s converted to Apple Lossless sound good to me Ill probably continue to convert them. Im not seeking the blessings of others, Im seeking their knowledge. In this particular case Im 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 Im 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) doesnt 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 Ive 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