Converting MP3 To Wave

I also wonder why people are still complaining about the audio quality of MP3.

That's simply answered, just do an A/B test between a normal CD and a 128 bit (because that's the most common standard about) MP3 copy of the same song.  If you can't hear the difference, then you're really in a little bit of trouble.

so what is it that we're noticing (that's missing) in MP3 recordings that makes it sound bad?

Try the above and then ask the question - although I doubt if you would need to.

I don't understand the technologists implementing something that would sound bad! The general public doesn't seem to complain at all, only the audiophiles and broadcast people, in which case, don't use it then, no one is forcing us.

True - the general public doesn't complain - mainly because a great many of them are blessed with cloth ears and only listen to music of, shall we say, a more ephemeral nature.  They're also more interested in squeezing as many songs on an iPod as possible.

The reason some of us complain is not because the MP3 format exists and is in use, but because the current trend is towards making music only available in a compressed format.  With the trend towards electronic downloads, where compressed formats are the norm to save bandwidth, we might well get to a point where it will not be comercially viable to release material on CD (or any other high quality format)... and that would be a crying shame for those of us who do care about audio quality.

If the playout formats are no good then go back to tape until the digital formats have been improved or are good enough

They started out plenty good enough, it's the later compression developments which have dumbed the system down.

I don't hear the photographers, graphic artsists, video editors and writers complaining about their new digital equipment and formats, I'm sure they are delighted with the new digital way of working.

I don't hear them complaining either, but I do hear comparisons drawn between digital processing and the earlier methods.  Digital is great for speed and ease, but its quality is still not the same in many cases.

If digital audio is truly so aweful then stop using it and that will force the developers to hurry up and develop something usable.

As I said above, the original development met the needs of 99.5% of the users.  It's the later developments which are putting digital systems in disrepute.

Good quality digital audio can knock spots off any analogue system.  As soon as lossy file size compression enters the frame, then all bets are off.

All the damage is done when compressing to MP3 in the first place.

This article shows how sensitive lossy codecs, and MP3 in particular, are to heavily limited input - generating distortion due to increased peaks above 0dBFS.  Quite a revealing read, I thought.

Paul

I don't hear the photographers, graphic artsists, video editors and writers complaining about their new digital equipment and formats, I'm sure they are delighted with the new digital way of working.

I don't hear them complaining either, but I do hear comparisons drawn between digital processing and the earlier methods.  Digital is great for speed and ease, but its quality is still not the same in many cases.

If you go anywhere near real professionals in these fields then you'll hear them complaining. My office is right next to our organisation's photographic studio. Outside this studio our photographer has a large poster that points out the pitfalls of jpeg compression.

Most video editors that I know are well aware of the problems of mpeg compression too. If you take some video from a DVD, do some editing and then re-encode it to DVD the degradation is obvious.

One single pass of mp3 compression may not be objectionable but as soon as you start passing mp3's through a transmission chain that involves alternative compression schemes then you should notice a degraded sound.

Cheers

James.

Most video editors that I know are well aware of the problems of mpeg compression too. If you take some video from a DVD, do some editing and then re-encode it to DVD the degradation is obvious.

One single pass of mp3 compression may not be objectionable but as soon as you start passing mp3's through a transmission chain that involves alternative compression schemes then you should notice a degraded sound.

James.

True.  And typical DVD MPEG bitrates are supposed to be transparent, for use in high quality TVs - at least that was the idea upon release.  But it doesn't even take re-encoding; use a low enough bitrate and first gen DVD can look pretty ugly, too.

If I misread your confusion and this is all simple prattling, please forgive me and chalk it up to my need for a 2nd cup of coffee...  

Not prattling exactly, just putting the question out in a devils-advocate-to-spur-on-a-discussion kind of way  

If I misread your confusion and this is all simple prattling, please forgive me and chalk it up to my need for a 2nd cup of coffee...  

Not prattling exactly, just putting the question out in a devils-advocate-to-spur-on-a-discussion kind of way  

Ah.  Very well.  But I meant the prattling on MY part - I wasn't insinuating that YOU were doing any!