In My previous Post I asked about re-encoding 320kbps mp3 into apes to conserve

Diskspace while preserving quality...

Kind people told me it would be worse but nevertheless try....
So....

I now have an 55Meg Ape file which was in it's mp3 file size 18Meg!
What's worse is that I *accidently erased* the original mp3file....

I think I should re-encode it to Mp3@320kbps.. But here's the question

"Will Re-encoding an 55Meg Ape(Which was originally mp3@320kbps) into Mp3 320Kbps again produce degradation in audio?"

Yes it will. The only question is, if it is notable to you.

uhhm...
do I get this right, you had an (high quality) mp3, transcoded it to ape (why?!), and now want to have that mp3 file again?


to reencode to ape to preserve discspace?
I guess you burn em cd or something then...


yes. but as the process of encoding to ape didn't degrade quality (cause it's losless), this would be like if you transcode a 320 mp3 file directly to 320 mp3.
theoreticly, there will of course be a quality loss, but I guess you are unlikly to hear it.

edit: damn, I lost the race to dev0

OK.. some things you need to know.

It never makes sense to transcode a lossy file (mp3) to a lossless file (Monkey's Audio, .ape). The resulting file will be much larger and will have the same quality as the original mp3.

Perhaps when you said "ape" people thought you meant LAME's --alt-preset extreme? In that case, yes, transcoding a CBR 320 mp3 to an --alt-preset extreme mp3 would save you a little disk space, and the quality degradation from transcoding might not be noticable. But I still wouldn't recommend it.

I would just try to get the original files back by using such a file recovery tool. It works perfect