Am I correct that decompressing to WAV cannot reverse loss of quality?, [TOS #6: was "mp3 to wav quality" in General Audio] Options

[Paul77]

Hi

I have just used winamp to convert some mp3 files to wav for recording to cd (as the tracks are only available on Amazon as mp3 currently).

Wav's are 7 or 8 times the size of mp3's due to the compression. When you decompress to wav can you only ever get the quality that was present in the mp3. That is when the mp3 was created from the original source some loss of quality is inevitable and decompressing to wav presumably cannot reverse that loss of quality so my wav files presumably cannot sound as good as on a purchased CD.

Can someone confirm this is about right or have I missed something?

[Gainless]

I actually thought that the mp3 algorithm can make use of less information by distorting some sounds with overdrives, and just wondered if this clipping distortion can be exactly or just "approximately" recreated in a WAV file, as a gain higher than 1.00 is simply not possible, but seems to be in mp3 files. So the question is basically for me: Does a WAV contain exactly the same information as a decoded mp3 stream out of any audio player?