Take audio that was encoded at a sub-par bitrate, and covert it to a higher bitrate with better quality sound?
Not that I'm aware of. I believe the old saying "you can't make something out of nothing" would apply here
Yes, attempting to defy the laws of physics will doom one to an afterlife in Newtonian Hell Your plan would of course simply generate the same sub-par audio at a higher bitrate, unless you re-encoded the original source directly. Like Neph says, one cannot make a silk purse from a sow's ear...
That's why audiophiles scorn converting to mp3s. Because people convert to mp3, then convert back to wav thinking they haven't lost anything and no one would be the wiser. Simply put, when you convert to mp3, you get compression but also alot of data is tossed out forever that supposedly the average listener won't miss. When you convert back to wav, that information that was tossed out doesn't magically come back.
CD quality in general is not enough (if you an audiophile). If you are compressing music from an analog source like a live performance then a lossless codec who be the best way to go. But for simple CD-Ripping mp3 at 192 kbps isn't horrible. I think people have gotten the wrong message about the whole lossless codec movement. Using Flac or WMA lossless or any of the few lossless formats available to rip audio of a CD is over kill! DVD-Audio is another story... I wish that it was possible to compress a sound file then uncompress it without any loss. Isn't it possible to do such things with Flac (mathematically) since it offers a range of compression levels while keeping a lossless status?
