Hi,
i dindt know exactly where to post this... hope this is the place for this:

i was just talking with a friend, and i sent him a .rar with a wav inside...
he told me that the wav looses quality in the compression-uncompression prosses...

so.. is that how it works ? raring a wav makes it loose quality ?

thnx in advance !

Doesn't seem likely.

and zipping introduces preecho?

rar is lossless. If you lost info's whilst using it rar would break all files.

If you want to compress audio you're better off using a lossless compressor (Wavpack, Monkeys Audio, Flac; lots to choose from) since they are designed to handle audio and as a result do a more efficient job.

ok.. but i just wanted to send him the wav... and i rared it to decrease the size.. just that... so, he can uncompress it...
so.. no chance of loosing quality raring a wav then ?

I've rarred some wav's before and never noticed any perceivable quality loose, however I didn't ABX it to find out as I found it unneccessary, however it may now be neccessary.

People are jocking here.
Answer is that you will not loose quality by raring an audio file, in the same way as you do not loose sentences when you rar a word processor document.

lol.. i think the same way as u, but my friend told me that wavs are rared different than a jpg or a doc... (what do u think about that ? )

Your friend is either a retard or a audiophile living in magic audio land :-)

Unless somthing whent bad. your uncompressed .wav is bit indetical to the .wav you compressed.
Else rar'ing anything would destroy it.

RAR is a lossless compression. It may use different algorithms for certain filetypes, but if you do a comparison of the input and output file, it will be absulutely the same. You can try it yourself. Btw. it makes no sense to rar any JPG, MPG or MP3 files, as they are already compressed. You can't compress them anymore using a lossless compression like RAR, ZIP, 7Z, ACE etc.

What other people were trying to tell you, is that you'd better use a lossless compression designated to compress sound. It will give a better result then RAR and you can play the file directly. And if you want to, you can always decompress it back to a WAV. I would suggest you to try FLAC as it is probably the most supported lossless compression.

Tell him to click here - http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=lossless

k... no need to be offensive...

thnx a lot for your help!!!

He is quite correct about that. RAR's multimedia compression uses different methods to achieve optimal compression for images, sound, text, and even executable files. While it's not superior, it does show some sophistication, specializing for different types of files.

From the add files to archive dialog, see: Advanced tab -> Compression...

A link to the lossless comparison page could be appropriate here. As said, it's better to use special audio compression algorithms like WavPack, Monkey's Audio, FLAC etc. for wav files than using multipurpose compression algorithms like RAR, ZIP, 7Z etc.

lol - i like the unnecessary "or"



later

The main reason why im still using rar to compress them is just cause almost everyone can uncompress a rar, while not most of the people i need to send my wavs have the needed soft to play or uncompress it.

anyway thanx for the usufull link... !

For Windows user, WavPack self-extract mode is even better than .zip/.rar, etc... WavPack compresses better, and to extract the wav: a simple double-click...
It can't be easier

In that case if your friends use windows you can use wavpack. Download it and run a command like this for your files (from the DOS prompt):
That will create a self extracting exe with much better compression ratio that rar...

EDIT: I'm too slow... guruboolez beat me to it...

thnx for the tip ! anyway, i send wavs to people using pcs and macs... so, i still think that rar them is the best option... (i also found compatibility problems with zips on macs)

By the way, the spelling is lose.

Actually, it may be a little OT, but I think you'll be quite amused if you try to uncompress this archive.
That is just an example of how one can use RAR to compress JPG, MPG, MP3 files, etc.

So it's the same image 1024 times? How is that useful?

By adding copies of the files you're introducing huge amounts of redundant information, hence the high compression level. In a real world situation vlada is correct. There is little point in archiving compressed files, as the file size loss is very small and trying to play them realtime (through foobar2000 for example) uses a large amount of CPU time. You'd be better off using a high compression format like LA or OptimFROG, they will use less CPU time decoding.

RAR, ZIP, 7-Zip... all are lossless (NO QUALITY LOSS) Noting is loss...

That RAR make a diferent compression on WAV?

Let test it, with an MD5 hash:

The original WAV File: ef361c2b0f31b9291f2f4a98e8f8905b

The Same WAV file uncompressed from RAR: ef361c2b0f31b9291f2f4a98e8f8905b
The Same WAV file uncompressed from ZIP: ef361c2b0f31b9291f2f4a98e8f8905b

Results: 1:1:1 = Nothing is loss...

That RAR have great compression on WAV files is another thing...

Anyway if your friend belive that then uses a Lossless audio codec (FLAC is a good choice) that have no quality loss and a "better" compression than RAR...

I know it. You misunderstood my point (to give an example of succesful compressing already compressed files).
Anyway, redundant information is always possible as I've got many short mpeg4 files that can be rar-compressed to a ratio of 40% and sometimes even worse (bad encoder? unwise settings? dunno). I used that when transferring that files from my home PC to the university.
I can provide an example if you ask for it…