[Ardour-Users] embedded ogg/mp3

[John Rigg]

On Tue, Nov 11, 2008 at 02:43:06PM +0700, Patrick Shirkey wrote:
> Paul Davis wrote:
> >psycho-acoustically compression ALWAYS removes information from the
> >data. you might prefer the result, but you cannot possibly claim that it
> >is an improvement in "quality". 
> So, if I played a compressed file with a jack aware app and record it 
> with Ardour then play it would I get the same result as if I convert it 
> to wave, import it and then play it in Ardour?
> 
> I'm confused because once the information has been removed it should not 
> be possible to get it back again but also the conversion from compressed 
> to uncompressed should not change the audio quality. So why is it that a 
> file converted to wave from ogg/mp3 sounds less dynamic and flatter than 
> the compressed version?

Something else must be different. If you're using the same mp3 decoder
for both direct playback and conversion to .wav, and listening at exactly
the same level, there is no way it can sound different unless something
else is happening (like playing back at a different sample rate or bit
depth from the .wav conversion for example).

John