1. This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies. Learn More.

battle between mp3 and wav... HELP PLEASE!!!

Discussion in 'Audio' started by solarwnd, Mar 26, 2005.

  1. solarwnd

    solarwnd Member

    Joined:
    Mar 20, 2005
    Messages:
    56
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    16
    can someone tell me what has better sound quality, even though it is tough to hear it out?

    which has better sound quality, .mp3, or .wav?

    any help is appreciated, thankyou
     
  2. venomX05

    venomX05 Regular member

    Joined:
    Jan 18, 2005
    Messages:
    855
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    46
    Hey solarwnd,

    I personally think that the .mp3's are ALOT better than .wav's.

    MP3's are smaller in size and you can compact a HUGE number of them on a single device without losing any type of content.

    Now, this might be debatable but most people use mp3's because they are easier and more fun to handle.

    Alot of people use the .wav's for various reasons, cd's music, and other sorts of things.

    By the way...mp3's in my opinion are a MUCH better quality in regards to sound than an mp3.

    But that is just my opinion!

    Hope this helps!

    ;)
     
  3. solarwnd

    solarwnd Member

    Joined:
    Mar 20, 2005
    Messages:
    56
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    16
    thanks for help but if anyone knows who the band
    "pink floyd" is, they know there is a lot of tiny sound detail in their songs and since wav is a bigger file, shouldnt it have more better sound quality? im just wondering if i should rip my pink floyd audio cd to mp3 or wav, i want to keep all the detail, or can anyone else suggest any other sound format that would be better or the best sound quality?

    thanks, any help is much appreiciated,
    --solarwind
     
  4. venomX05

    venomX05 Regular member

    Joined:
    Jan 18, 2005
    Messages:
    855
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    46
    Well it wouldn't hurt to try both options.

    Do this...download the mp3 on a filesharing app., then rip it off the cd...just for kicks do a bunch of them.

    Then compare the 2. If you have a cd, get all the songs off of it and compare all the cd songs to the mp3's you just d/l'ed. Since you know about the little sounds on the original album, you shouldn't have any problems in regards to choose which is better.

    You can use a program called MusicMatch in order to do .wav files and then convert them over to mp3's. If you do this, burn both sets to a cd and play them in your car or stereo whichever you prefer...and then you should have your answer!

    But give it a shot. You will get alot of answers in regards to this, so it might be good to test it out yourself and see what you like!

    ;)



    BTW, I know who Pink Floyd is...LOL!
     
    Last edited: Mar 26, 2005
  5. djscoop

    djscoop Active member

    Joined:
    Feb 6, 2003
    Messages:
    4,051
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    66
    the simple answer to this question is that WAVs are MUCH higher quality than MP3s because WAVs are uncompressed, MP3s are compressed. So no matter what bitrate or encoding you use for an mp3, it won't sound as good as the original uncompressed file, because there is a loss in sound quality. While mp3s can come close, they fall short in the high end frequency range. There are lossless compressed formats you might want to check out, since WAVs are somewhat impractical due to their large size. FLAC is a good lossless format, and I've heard good things about MUSE as well.
     
  6. McBrat

    McBrat Regular member

    Joined:
    Mar 6, 2005
    Messages:
    160
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    26
    Agreed
     
  7. venomX05

    venomX05 Regular member

    Joined:
    Jan 18, 2005
    Messages:
    855
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    46
    Djscoop, does it again!

    ;)

    Damn, I really need to stay out of the audio forums!

    LOL!

    :)

     
  8. djscoop

    djscoop Active member

    Joined:
    Feb 6, 2003
    Messages:
    4,051
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    66
    naw man, you gotta learn some how! :)
     
  9. venomX05

    venomX05 Regular member

    Joined:
    Jan 18, 2005
    Messages:
    855
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    46
    Yeah definately...remind me that I have to come and take one of your classes if I ever happen to visit Cali.

    LOL!

    ;)

     
  10. solarwnd

    solarwnd Member

    Joined:
    Mar 20, 2005
    Messages:
    56
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    16
    so lets say i ripped a whole bunch of .wav files and want to fit em all on a cd to play on a regular cd player, the old ones that just play regular cds. Could i fit more .mp3s onto the cd then .wavs (note that they are all burned to cd using real player so they are converted to the regular old style cd format.) Could i fit more onto the cd if my source was mp3 instead of wav, or would it not even make a difference since they are being burned to the cd in the regular cd format that can be read by all players?

    Any help is much appreciated, thanks to anyone who can help

    --solarwind
     
  11. solarwnd

    solarwnd Member

    Joined:
    Mar 20, 2005
    Messages:
    56
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    16
    can someone please help?
     
  12. Digidave

    Digidave Regular member

    Joined:
    Jul 11, 2004
    Messages:
    309
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    26
    The short answer to that is no they would be exactly the same, once they are in CD-audio format.It took me awhile to grasp this whole concept!!
     
  13. venomX05

    venomX05 Regular member

    Joined:
    Jan 18, 2005
    Messages:
    855
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    46
    Please...I can only hope to find that concept!

    :)
     
  14. weazel200

    weazel200 Regular member

    Joined:
    Feb 26, 2005
    Messages:
    1,297
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    46
    If you are burning files to a blank CD then it is determined in 2 ways. If you are making a data cd then you could fit as many files on the disc as long as it didn't go over 700mb (standard blank cd i think). If you were to make an audio cd then you could fit as many mp3's on the disc as long as the duration didn't exceed 80 minutes (standard blank cd i think). With wav files i think it is the same as mp3's but not sure whether size of the files and duration of the cd is determined. As far as i know there are only 2 types of blank cd's available. 1) 74 mins, 650mb and 2) 80 mins 700mb. If you were to make a data cd then using a standard 4.7gb dvd disc should be sufficient. I know some players and programs can fit more data on a cd by over burning or something but this generally isnt reccomended. I know Nero have this option. Please correct me If i am wrong in any way at all.
     
  15. diabolos

    diabolos Guest

    Your on the right track weazel200 but its much simpler than that. If your burning Audio CDs the only thing that matters is the uncompressed duration (time length) of the song! If you are burning data you must be concerned with how big, in Mega Bytes (MB), the compressed (eg Mp3) or uncompress (eg WAV) audio files are.

    The much more complex answer is that when you make a Audio CD the burning software converts the audio files to PCM before burning them to a CD. Thats why Audio-CDs are much differnt than Data-CDs. A Data-CD is composed of 1s and 0s (respectfully). A normal audio CD player (eg factory Car stereo) can't play audio files on Data-CDs but can play analog Audio-CDs.

    Also, it worries me that some of you can't hear the difference between a Mp3 and a WAV. WAVs are uncompressed raw samples and therefore the best possible quality that you can hope to achieve. Mp3 is a lossy codec scheme that cuts out parts of the audio while keeping the most important samples. Mp3 is horrible when compared to any uncompressed or lossless audio format.

    Skim this:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CD

    Study this:
    http://arstechnica.com/guides/tweaks/encoding.ars

    Do this:
    http://cd-rw.org/articles/archive/mydeneaclame.cfm

    Note: Mandatory for all [bold]Newbies[/b]!!!

    :)
    Ced
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Mar 27, 2005
  16. weazel200

    weazel200 Regular member

    Joined:
    Feb 26, 2005
    Messages:
    1,297
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    46
    Cheers Ced. U have proved once again u are a top audio expert. BTW is there any media players that support PCM.
     
    Last edited: Mar 27, 2005
  17. diabolos

    diabolos Guest

    All windows platform media players support PCM inside of the .WAV container. The reason .WAV is uncompressed most of the time is because they are PCM-WAV files. Any WAVs created by ripping from a CD are PCM-WAV files.

    This is the point to understand!

    There are 3 things that make a media (audio and or video) file playable:

    1) [bold]Containers[/bold] (the card-board box) - A Container holds formatted data. The data can be of any type. The Container is only concerned with what type of data it is tying to contain. Imagine a card board box, the box can hold anything. The only way you can know what is inside the card-board box is for it to be clearly labled and have all the info on whats inside of it displayed in "plain english". For the rest of my examples assume the Container has the words "English Essay" writtin on it. An example of popular Container standards are .WAV (Windows) and .AIFF (MAC) files.

    2) [bold]Formats[/bold] (the logical list) - A format is simply an organized list that in this case defines how data is read and interpeted. Imagine a stack of papers. Since you know that each peice of paper contains text, because the container told you what to expect when you open it, then you also know to begin reading the paper at the top left corner and from left to right untill you reach the bottom right corner. Examples of popular audio Formats are, Mp3, OGG Vorbis, AC3, RM/RAM, AAC, WMA, Flac, and Monkeys Audio.

    3) [bold]Encoders[/bold] (the writer) - Encoders as you prabably already know, create media files according to the standards of the Format! Imagine, again, the list. The list didn't make its-self but you know how to read (decode) it because it was put together in a logical way. Well an encoder is restricted by those same rules. It must (in the case of writing an english essay) start writing at the top left of the page going from left to right untill it reaches the bottom of the page. Audio Encoders are much more complicated than that but still simple if you know all of the rules. An example of a popular audio encoder is LAME. The LAME encoder uses the [bold]MPEG Layer-3 Audio[/bold] format to create high quality .mp3 files!

    Try this: Rename one of your .Mp3 files to .WAV. You will see that the file name extension doesn't matter that much because of the services being provided by the container to the Media Player.
    Note: Dont't rename it anything that uses a DS filter (eg .ogg) since this could cause windows to lock-up due to an infinitly looping external while-loop!

    So, Encoders need Formats and Formats need Containers.

    I have to much free time...lol
    Ced
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Mar 27, 2005
  18. Digidave

    Digidave Regular member

    Joined:
    Jul 11, 2004
    Messages:
    309
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    26
    Yeah! You go dude! That's what I meant to say.(LOL)
     
  19. Digidave

    Digidave Regular member

    Joined:
    Jul 11, 2004
    Messages:
    309
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    26
    Now my head hurts! It's either,reading that description, or that last beer I had last night.
     

Share This Page