Jason Nankoo

Today, a lossless file – while more expensive than a lossy one – is still a LOT cheaper than it’s vinyl or CD predecessors back in the day.

That is very true thinking about it. I guess with the rise of 320 MP3 and 256 AAC which sound as transparent to the original WAV file to most people, WAV downloads can seem more expensive than they really are. Why pay more if your satisfied with the cheaper file format after all ?

Another reason for purchasing Wave files even if you want to use lossy from what I can see is that you can encode the file to your satisfaction.
I’ve personally come across a few 320 MP3 downloads where I could hear artifacts, one of them had odd sounding hi hats. When I purchased a WAV version of the track I encoded an MP3 and that version did not have this artifact.
If you buy a lossy version of the track and your not satisfied your either stuck with it or you’ll have to spend more money just for the WAV.

I’m hoping this discussion will be helpful to others besides myself.

The test in Audacity was very close admittedly (thanks to Deathy for highlighting the video BTW) the 320 MP3 won against the AAC 256 average bit rate version but was beaten slightly by the AAC variable bit rate versions.

When I was researching the difference on other forums etc a few folks reckoned they could hear a difference between an AAC and MP3 file.
How these individuals noticed such a difference is anybody’s guess, but if the Audacity test is anything to go by they could well be correct.
Like you say from your own experiment though, 320 MP3 would be more than enough for the majority.

Undoubtedly going from lossless to lossy is the best option but for many this is still not realistic. While hard drives are much larger the cost of WAV vs MP3 files generally is still an issue.
Many people will probably have at least a few lossless files say from CD or vinyl but most downloads will likely be lossy.

I mentioned AAC to MP3 primarily because I was thinking about Platinum Notes. On version 4 of this program there is no option to go from AAC to AAC. There is only a 320 MP3 option.
Many have commented on this website about this, even Phil has said he has encoded some of his MP3 files using PN back into MP3. Also he mentioned that he’s been able to play these files loud without any problem.
From the Audacity test though, it seems you lose less data going from AAC VBR to MP3 than MP3 to MP3.

I don’t have to option to encode a WAV file into 256 CBR MP3 with Foobar 2000 so I used the equivalent? – 245 VBR MP3
When I compared this version of the file to the AAC VBR to MP3, although the 245 file won, it did so only slightly. There was more of a gap going from MP3 to MP3.
This would suggest to me, alongside what Phil has said that even a 320 to 320 MP3 would not sound as terrible as some might fear.

They probably wouldn’t care if you no longer had the original CD’s just as long as you have their license.

I understand what your saying about unknown artists. Some on the music I like particularly from the early nineties are on white labels. Very unlikely you would get those released on a digital download site.
You would be surprised though at some of the artists who turn up on download sites and even on streaming sites Spotify !
Think the ProDub folks have claimed its quite unlikely their license would not cover the music you play.

It is a headache to think that digital would make DJing cheaper but now you have to have one of these expensive licenses.

Here is a useful blog post on the subject

http://www.digitaldjtips.com/2014/06/questions-licences-need-dj-upload-mixes/

Actually because the converter has to start making stuff up the wasn’t there before, it’s more than likely that it will actually sound less.

Thanks for the advice.

I remember some saying on this website that PN was not a good idea because you would essentially be altering your MP3’s and therefore losing bits from the file in the process. Guess that’s why one of the creator’s of PN said in an interview that you should start off with WAV’s for better results.

Also as you say if the converter is making up nonsense to compensate then that’s another good reason not to start off with MP3. I can only speculate that is why Audacity is looking at the MP3 and the MP3 saved as a WAV as two different files.

If I were advising anyone else I would say as long as you don’t have to alter a file MP3’s would suffice.

I was curious to see whether there was any difference with two MP3 files but one of them saved as a WAV. The two tracks did not cancel each other out.
This was unexpected for me because I’ve always assumed (and others have also it would seem) that if you edit an MP3 file such as re-editing it, as long as you save it as a lossless file you don’t lose any bits.
BTW I did not edit the other MP3 in any way, just converted it into a ‘false’ WAV file.

The thing is I have been using Platinum Notes because of over compression and clipping to convert 320kbps MP3’s to FLAC. Also I’m planning to use these converted files in a DJ mix, which I will record as a WAV but then convert to 320kbps MP3.
Would it not be better to use lossless files for the DJ mix since if I do the above the DJ mix will be degraded quite a bit by this point ?