Okay, this might be a little tough to follow, but here goes:

Would the quality of a wav file change from being compressed to an mp3, then having that mp3 decompressed, then re-encoded to an mp3 with a higher bitrate?

YES

and if you cared to search just a little you would have the answer.
T
he tersm is transcoding.
Encoding to a lossy formats always losses information.
It cant magically appear because you decompress it.
That why it called lossy...you have a loss.

get it


please read the faqs or seach before asking questiosn where the answer is allready giving.

Obviously this new fellow is unacquainted with the depth of techincal expertise in this board and the triviality of his question. Well, I hope he was not scared off.

All the data you threw away when making the mp3 is still not there when decompressing to a wav file, so yes, the quality would be affected.

I think it's a good question. A lossy format with such characteristic could exists. He says he will transcode to a higher bitrate.

It's not a good question. It's a very common question, and if he took at least one MINUTE to look at the FAQ, he would've gotten his answer.

It seems to me his question is understood in two different ways here:

1. Is it possible to increase the quality of an mp3 file by transcoding it to a higher bitrate?

As has already been said, this is not possible.

2. Is it possible to keep the quality of an mp3 file when transcoding it to a higher bitrate?

This should be possible, though I think it'd be very hard to do by converting mp3->wav->mp3 and doing it like this will AFAIK lower the quality with all encoders you'll find. But one could inflate the bitrate by adding useless data. However, I don't see how this would be useful except to convert a VBR file to CBR without losing quality.

Both of those questions are STILL answered by the FAQ.

Hey, give me a break! I didn't realize that the question would have been in the FAQs, and if I had known, I would've checked. No need to be so snarky with the answers!

In response, how audible would the difference be?

it's called LOSSY TRANSCODING for a reason, people...

it depends on you hearing capabilities, the source bitrate, the target bitrate, the encoders, etc.

For sure, you'll get a larger file. Also for sure, the quality will be lower, and it may or may not be noticeable, depending on a bunch of factors. The only reason to do it that I can think of is to play pranks on your friends but I may be missing something.

There's really no point in transcoding MP3 to MP3 to a HIGHER bitrate. If you need to pad to CBR, that's what mp3packer is for.