hi, i have a mp3 file at 192 kbps that i need to re-encode, if i do it at 320 kbps will i loose any significant audio quality? or will it be negligent?

Why does the answer matter if you need to re-encode?

Why is it necessary in the first place? Maybe there's a better alternative.

What keeps you from listening to the result and evaluating its quality on your own?

Yes you will lose quality.

What could be the advantage of this? A larger file that sounds worse..............

Yes you will lose something. The new 320 k file will be worse than the original 192 k.

It matters because i have a will to learn. Ever heard of it? If i don't know something i try to find out about that something. That's the whole point of forums like these. And in this case i'm curious if re-encoding from 192 to 320 kbps means there will be a significant loss of quality. From what i listen, no.

I need to re-encode because a wav or even a flac file would be huge.

It's called "second opinion". Again, i'm curious to find out if someone can give their views on this subject.

Happy? geez...

You should have read FAQ before ask.

The stock answer is 'quality deteriorates'. While this may be true in regard to some measures, it is not necessarily the case that the difference will be audible. I've re-encode quite a bit of mp3 to a lower bitrate without being able to ABX the difference. I'm sure there are cases where the result will not be so benign, but there is no reason to just assume it.

The point is that if you take a 192bps mp3 and reencode it to 320, you will have a file that is (1) larger than the original, and (2) incapable of sounding any better. To get from the original uncompressed audio to the original 192 mp3, certain data was permanently discarded. Encoding that file a second time will not bring back what was discarded. The OP was talking about re-encoding to a larger file, not to a smaller file as you discuss.

It's perfectly clear that the OP understands this:

If transcoding something to a smaller file isn't ABX-able do you honestly think that you'll be able to ABX it when it gets transcoded to a larger file?

The guy is asking for information, he isn't asking to be arrested by the transcoding police.

Firstly, please lose the attitude. You say you have a will to learn; Frank was posing questions to get you to think about your requirements.

Think about what you have written here. It's like saying that I have to chop my finger off because cutting my arm or leg off would just be crazy.

If you pick through the responses above I think you have your answer. However, we are still none the wiser as to what possible benefit there is to re-encoding to a higher bitrate. If this is a requirement for a piece of software you may want to take a look at mp3packer (and setting the minimum bitrate to 320)..

You will not hear significant loss unless you encode to a lower bitrate than your source mp3.


If you don't hear a difference, then great You can do a ABX test that helps you distinguish small differences in files. foobar2000 has this tool.

I loose the atitude? ME? I think this is becoming surreal... Well excuse me for replying to the inquisition. You're gonna burn me at the stake?
What Frank did was implying that a) i was just stupid, plain and simple; and b) he said it in an offensive and disrespectful way.
If some of you don't want to answer fine. Don't do it. Just don't expect me to come here, pose a very simple question (i was asking if that particular re-encoding would represent a SIGNIFICANT loss of quality. Aparently very few people actually read the post. I wasn't asking if the 320 file would be worse than the original 192 file. I may not know much about these things but i know that much. Technically speaking, the 320 file would be much worse than the 192? That's what i was asking.


Yes i do have my answers, a couple of people actually tried to help in a polite and respectful way and i thank them for it.
As to why i need to do it, is there any law in the world or rule in this forum that says that i have to say why the hell i want to re-encode?
I said i need to re-encode and wasn't lying, but what if i say that i want to re-encode? Or that i'm considering re-encoding? What the hell does that have to do with anything? What do my personal motivations have to do with anything? Does anyone now have to explain the reasons here why they want to re-encode?

For f*cks sake... that's the last time i pose any questions around here, that's for sure

normally people would re-encode from big to smaller ... never from smaller to bigger ... what is the point on doing it?



It doesn't "feels" like that, even after re-reading the reply twice.


The point is that it makes no sense what you asked. People always want to transcode because they want a smaller file, but what is the point of getting a worst sounding-bigger file?


They where asking trying to understand something that makes no sense. Maybe from your reply we can better advise you. But it looks like you are not interested.


Won't miss you for sure.

...but he isn't asking for advice.

I do think navarre's responses are a bit too defensive and over the top, but people on this forum do tend to be condescending.

Just because you don't know why someone would want to transcode to a higher bitrate doesn't mean there is no reason for it. I have to agree with the OP; it's a simple question that can be answered without the need for any of you to judge him.

I agree with you entirely. It's seems like when the words re-encoding or transcoding appear all rational thought goes by the board and a red mist descends!!

Personally, I can't see how my response was offensive or defensive in the least. I also believe that I provided a superb suggestion with mp3packer - I see he didn't bother to even consider that. Too busy getting arsey.

People often ask poster's motivations, as the poster may not realise that what they are asking can be achieved in alternative or better ways. It's difficult to provide the best answer if you don't understand the reason behind the question.

Frankly I couldn't give a flying f*** if idiots like that don't post again; he's obviously got a serious attitude problem.

And please note that I never tried to convince him out of re-encoding (although I did provide a lot better solution to it).

No, and there is no law to say that members cannot ask you questions in return, especially as it is you asking for help.

You say you need to re-encode. I say you don't; read up on mp3packer. Perhaps this enlightens you as to why we may ask questions in order to help you better.

You are giving me a symptom, not an ailment. If you saw fit to start at the beginning you may find it beneficial... to you - not Frank or I.

exactly what i meant.

Seems like many people have had a bad day...

PS: I'm curious, too. Why would one badly need a 320kbit file? when you can play a 320kbit mp3 you can also play a 192kbit mp3. If not then the application you use is flawed. This is just curiosity, btw. I'm curious, just like you. So don't get mad, ok? I'm just curious.

Maybe there's a flaw in the file that the guy wants to edit which can't be done without decoding it first. Maybe the guy plans on listening to the edited file on an mp3 player and doesn't want to sacrifice any more quality than necessary so has chosen the most paranoid bitrate.

Seems like a situation that would make "sense", no?

Maybe he wants to do a listening test using all 320 kbit mp3s, but reencoded from lower bit rates. Making them all 320 kbits would prevent the subject from just looking at the file length to determine which is which. If this is the case then he should be advised to provide lossless files instead.

As already pointed out though, unless he tells us what he is doing, we can't provide him with the optimal solution.

The optimal solution for him would be the answere: "No, there is no significant loss of quality if you transcode with 320kBit/s. We do not know why you want to do this kind of thing and most of us think that tanscoding to a higher bitrate is useless, but that's the answere".

A similar question where transcoding to a higher bitrate makes sense:
I want to use AAC encoeded music (DRM, 128kBit) from iTunes on my mobile phone. Well, this is not possible in the first place because the music is DRM protected, so I first burn a CD from the music and then re-import it into iTunes again. What bitrate are you using to re-encode the music, using iTunes AAC?

I'm to lazy to read everything!
So I will just give you a simple answer, don't convert!
192 to 320 means transcoding to bigger file and worse quality than on the original 192kbps.
This means, waste of space!

The opposite (320 to 192) is more acceptable but still not recommended!

Never convert mp3 lower quality to 320kbps!

NO. The optimal solution for him would be to answer: "do it and abx".

That would be the "optimal" answer to his first question:


...and that's the "optimal" answer to his second question:

All this without needing to know why. Now that wasn't so hard, was it?

"Do It and ABX!": The final answer to all questions! (not 42 as expected!)

"Should I use OGG or MP3 if I prefer quality?" - "Do It and ABX!"
"Is V5 a good compromise between size and quality?" - "Do It and ABX!"
"Is V2 transparent to most of the people?" - "Do It and ABX!"
"If I need to transcode, should I use a higher bitrate?" - "Do It and ABX!"

Well, sometimes people do not have the time to do the ABX and only want to participate in the wealth of experience of the community. If there are no experiences so far, it would be nicer to say "sorry, we have no clue".

The whole point of asking why he NEEDS to reencode 192 to 320 is to find out if he specifically wants to do a lossy conversion or if he would do it losslessly (which is possible) if he knew that he could. I am still waiting for an answer to that question.

Why not just take him at his word instead of assuming that he's ignorant?

I dare say almost nobody outside of HA is aware of the ability to losslessly increase the bitrate of an mp3, so to assume that the OP must already be aware of that seems counterintuitive to me. And what is the harm of asking if this is something that he knows of? Failure to ask this question may leave him with the right answer to the question he asked without giving him the answer he really needs.

no. Negligent for whom? For me? Sure. For Gurubulez? It would probably huge.

Ha! I've just come back from another day out and can't believe that this thread is still breathing.

I can't help but think that you'll never get it, unfortunately.

I really don't understand your stance greynol, unless it is one of the devil's advocate. I have helped many people on this board. I often post questions to the OP's original question, and many times the outcome is not what you would expect from the original question, but better for it. I can't believe that in another thread you would not also be asking why the re-encoding is required - because you are inquistive and thorough when helping others. You know that it has to be a two-way street to get the best result.

Normally when you ask questions the OP will explain their full requirements, and most times you can help them further. In this instance the OP chose to take any questioning as a personal attack. Go figure.

I do understand that we can be a little mob-like at times, but I don't see how anyone can condone his attitude. Frankly I find it a little offending, as I don't see that his response to my post was at all warranted.

Wow, I guess I'll answer three posts in a row...

I seriously doubt that his questions have anything to do with increasing the bitrate for the sake of increasing the bitrate. You're making this much more complicated than it really is, or really needs to be.

Any of us would be negligent for not suggesting he conduct an ABX test to determine if the loss was negligible.

Are you suggesting that Gurubulez would find the loss significant when transcoding from 192 to 320, and for something other than problem samples? If so, I'd really be interested in what he has to say about it.

No, I'm not playing devils advocate and it was never my intention to insult anyone either, though I have a really hard time with the way people on this forum deal with the issue. Always quick to tell someone what they should or should not do and that he's essentially stupid if he doesn't go along with the program even when they themselves can't seem to understand that people may have legitimate reasons for doing something.

It seems like you took it personally and even got a little defensive after John agreed with me. My comments weren't pointed at you, actually. In fact, I feel the same way you do regarding the attitude and did note that you weren't one of the people passing judgment. You do an excellent job helping people and usually exercise a lot of patience and tolerance when doing so.

Honestly, I felt like I already knew why or at least was willing to take him at face value that he "needed" to do it (akin to Frank's first question), at which point the "why" does not matter.

The most diplomatic way of handing a situation like this is to give the answer first (and let's be honest, they were a pair of easy and straight-forward questions) and then politely ask why and suggest that maybe there's a better alternative than transcoding. Unfortunately this is not how it usually goes down around here. No, instead you get what can often be translated as "You're an idiot. Why would you want to do such a stupid thing?" This thread is a perfect example.

I agree with you completely and hope you don't think that I condone his attitude! I just think if people take a step back they'll see there are other attitudes that are just as offensive. I've gotten a bit tired of it and thought I'd speak out.

Now that it's off my chest, I'm actually interested in knowing why you had recommended mp3packer in this situation. Would you be willing to explain it? At this point I don't even care if it's directly on topic.

EDIT: Response to kwanbis was changed in light of the fact that I may have misinterpreted him.

I think we broke TOS #5 a long while back. I guess I should split a lot of this, but I didn't want to stop the flow.

As I say, I do know that this can happen, and at those times it frustrates me also. However, in this case I don't really see it; people were answering the question.

Here, I cannot disagree. This is often the best method (kudos to Vietwoojagig also).

Personally, although I have felt in the firing line myself, I welcome your involvement; if truth be told I love these threads! As members of a community I like to see people challenging the group, to ensure that we don't disappear up our own collective anus. IMHO the issue of "bandwagon-jumping" is quite infrequent, but still a concern, as it undermines objectivity - which we as a board hold very dear. I tend to think that it is often caused by less experienced/knowledgeable members rushing in with the stock answer, without the background knowledge to explain why that is the board stance, or to perhaps disprove the OP's misinformed view. Please bear in mind I don't really hold this thread in the same light, so I'm not referring to any posts here. If I were to agree with you here, I guess this thread would be a case of "the red mist" - focussing on the part of the post that goes againt the norm, and ignoring the OP's actual requirements. Perhaps both scenarios are a result of fanatical members with a strong opinion (although not always backed up by reasoning) on various subjects that are the very core of this board. I don't know. It needs to be held in check though.

The OP says that he has to transcode to 320 CBR. This reminded me of a post in the mp3packer thread which spoke of some software that required CBR files. mp3packer was created to convert CBR files to VBR, squeezing a few KB from the file; however some users are using it for the opposite, converting VBR to CBR. If the OP used:


... mp3packer will repack the frames but be restricted to the minimum of 320kbps - resulting in a CBR 320 file. The genius in this solution is that no re-encoding has taken place; the audio data stays the same - it's all about headers and padding and other stuff that I am cluesless about.

Your suggested reason that he needs to correct an error and resave may well be valid - I'm still confused about the "I need to re-encode because a wav or even a flac file would be huge" thing. I'm not sure that mp3packer would be a help in that situation, although it is posible that some other tool could fix the file as is. This just highlights why he should be more forthcoming.

Edit: I realise that suggesting mp3packer is not a direct answer to the question. I, like some others, was too focussed on the requirement, and not the question. That said, I can't apologise for this, as this approach usually works out - I'm still conviced it would have here if he had not been so defensive. As I posted before, his post describes a symptom of the core issue, not the core issue itself. If an employee came up to you and said "My mother has died in a horrific car accident so I need a few days off" would you focus on whether they had adequate holiday entitlement?

I think I may have angered him by pointing out the flaw in the curious response "I need to re-encode because a wav or even a flac file would be huge". That's not a reason to re-encode, and appeared to highlight to me that the OP may be in deep water.

He said he has to re-encode, but he didn't say he had to do so @320.

Anyhow...
Thanks for sharing. I think the application and its abilities are quite interesting. If I had a need for it, I would have followed the discussion as it was unfolding. This could certainly be relevant to the OP's situation, even though I'm doubtful. Still, I really don't want stifle any suggestion, especially when people like myself may learn something new.

Maybe he plans on listening to the file on a portable device, or has a drive full of lossy files in which case a lossless file would stick out like a sore thumb. I suppose he could have been more forthcoming, but again, I don't see why it matters. If he doesn't want a file larger than 320 kbits, so be it.

You have no reason to apologize for making a suggestion or for saying that his attitude was unwarranted.

I still disagree with the premise of your argument. There does not have to be a core issue and if there is one, there's no reason to believe that he can't work it out himself provided he gets the answers to his questions and there's also nothing stopping him from asking a follow-up question.

A worker with no entitlement in need of time off would cost a company his productivity. Your analogy assumes that we're out something by granting him an answer. His questions were too simple for that. In the first six responses to his question, only two indicated that the person replying had read the initial post properly, so maybe he was asking for something that costs more than what we would be willing to give freely.

Now of the four responses that fell short, how much effort went into coming up with a reason to not answer and/or put the OP down compared to what could have been spent actually reading the questions and coming up with a direct answer? I still find it disgusting, but we probably don't need to go 'round about this any more because I fear that neither of us is going to budge.

There was no flaw in his response and he was not in deep water; it wasn't the reason for him needing to re-encode.

I want to re-encode because I want bigger files, just not too big. Think about how this sounds while noting he acknowledged that re-encoding upwards will still result in a loss of quality. There must be a rational explanation for why and I guarantee that it isn't stupidity.

Let me have my final say on this.

We lost the OP way back up the thread, but nevermind, can't be helped, sometimes.

However, what I tried to say earlier, and I wasn't having a 'poke' at any one in particular, is that when a question is posed relating re-encoding/transcoding, the automatic presumption seems to be that the OP needs to be educated in some way, regardless of the nature of the question. To me this does seem somewhat arrogant on our part as the assumption is that this person really doesn't know what they're doing. As greynol suggested, it would be far better first to be clear what the question is, then to answer it and only then to question whether there may be a better way of doing it! At least this way the OP receives the answer to the question they asked and they have a warmer feeling about being questioned about there reasons for doing it.

Just to flame this slightly, I have done a fair amount of casual transcoding testing with different codecs and bitrates and, despite what many will claim, in the environments within which the transcoded product is probably listened to, I doubt most would hear any difference. Sure, you can probably ABX the results, if you're so inclined, but on the bus, the train, in the car or jogging down the street? I think not. After all, many of us do exactly the same thing with video and probably never even give it a second thought.

Here I have to disagree. Re-encoding a 192kbps file to 320kbps does not make sense, there must be a reason to do so. I am more interested in the reason - the core of the problem. If someone is asking for help to transcode from 192 to 320 I think it is wrong to assume that they've made the best decisions so far. I wouldn't be doing my 'job' properly.

I think you missed the point of my analogy: the core point here is not the holiday, it is the bereavement. A question was posed, but the response would not be a direct answer to the question.

That said, as we all agree that the best way to tackle these issues in future is to answer the question and then ask about the core issue, I guess you might answer "Of course you can have the time off. I'm very sorry for your loss. Would you like to talk to someone, a counsellor perhaps?"

If you take the sentence as is, it does not make sense. However, I agree, if you change it to "I need to re-encode to a lossy format because a wav or even a flac file would be huge" then I suppose it does make sense. Perhaps I was looking for an answer to the core issue, and therefore found it baffling.

Yeah, crying shame.

OK, I think we are all pretty much agreed on the approach now. I still fail to agree that, in this thread, the OP was bombarded with anti-transcoding zealotry.

Well, I suppose you are dragging us slightly more on topic. I will freely admit that I have transcoded from 320 CBR to -V5, and don't have an audible issue with it (only psychological). I think many members, myself included, will state that "transcoding is not recommended as it will result in a loss of quality; however you have to decide whether that loss is perceivable".

On the flip side I would rather new members were warned about transcoding, than thinking it was perfectly acceptable, like bitrate peeling. As I said previously: in these cases posters should be given an explanation, not just "transcoding is stupid you fool!". The threads that turn into flaming/trolling wars are often started by a mis-informed noob. The best outcome would be for an expert to explain where they've gone wrong; however often you just get ten members rapidly responding with something short, negative, and perhaps rude, and that is when things get hostile. Of course they are also sometimes started by informed people, with alternative views - I'm not suggesting that everyone needs re-educating.

Such a warning is totally unnecessary here. He already acknowledged in his very first post that he understands this.

...and I truly believe that this is one of those occasions!

I agree. The OP obviously knew that he was losing quality by re-encoding.

I also agree that some responses totally ignored this fact.

So to sum up,

1. It will lose quality by re-encoding. Whether or not the loss will be perceptible cannot really be determined without testing the material in question, but in many cases it may not be.

2. If the OP goes to 320 it will be significantly larger than the original.

Is that right?

EDIT: fixed accidental duplication

I would even venture to say that in this case (192 to 320 mp3) for most people and most material the loss will be either imperceptible or barely perceptible (but not objectionable).

Maybe he has got some recordings in mp3 192, and wanted to edit them somehow, perhaps to remove tape hiss or some other noise...
That might also explain his remark that wav or flac would be too big to keep.

P.S. This was a funny thread, especially since the OP disappeared. We will never know what he really wanted...

A legitimate reason for such an action is that the source itself is an MP3 and needs to be edited then played back on a device which is MP3-only or space constrictive. This isn't too much of a stretch, and it doesn't even qualify as "transcoding" since there was an editing step in between. I echo the statement that this happens in video all the time, commonly even thrice, especially when dealing with suboptimal tools, of which there are many.

there are some reasons when its ok

for example if you need to use mp3 joiner and have most parts is 320 kbps

It still seems like a weird thing to be curious about. It's like asking whether you could the encode all the 16 bit samples in .WAV file into a humungous XML file. You probably could but why would you want to?

I'll tell you why *I* suppose the OP wanted to upcode the 192 to 320. There are a lot of pirates out there who are posting mp3's into Usenet warez groups and the like, and when they do they brag that their rip is of better quality than some other posts. They point to their so-called "320 kbs rip" and thump their chests and say "You get the best from us." And if you d/l this stuff it's not only piracy, it's likely of poor quality as well.

Why did the OP want to know how much he'd lose quality? To see if his phony 320 rip could be detected as having come from an inferior source by listening. Meanwhile the people here were sincerely trying to get their arms around his problem and be helpful, when all he wanted was to see if he could be smoked out by the unsuspecting listener.

Too bad there's no software that can detect a transcoded mp3. Yes I know there are techniques, like transcoding to Lame V2 and then studying the bitrate distribution, but if there were a tool that showed a multiply-transcoded mp3 for what it is the pirates would be more easily seen for what they are.

NOTE: I have no proof about this guy, just a guess, but it's certain that there are pirates posting phony 320 kbs rips, and he coulda been one of them.

Thanks for resurrecting this God-awful thread.

I would point out that anyone posting copyright music on a P2P network is a pirate, not just those with bad transcoding habits. Posting good rips does not make one any morally better.

Hi to EveryOne [First Post], login, just a joke...

Pirates steal your ship don't they, it's not piracy, but copyright infringement! That's quite different...

Just a quick note on a 'valid scenario' that just came to mind:

Maybe he wanted to e.g. edit out advertisements on a long internet radio rip or sth. like that? (Might explain the "FLAC too large"). In this case of course, he could have used something like mp3DirectCut, and all without transcoding

He doesn't have to steal your entire fleet to be considered a pirate. Pirated copies result in lost sales, so every lost sale is money that was effectively stolen from the legitimate coptright holder.

If you have bought a copy of a CD, DVD, etc. and you make a copy of it then that could be considered copyright infringement. If, however, you keep that copy for your own use then there has been no lost sale, so it might not be considered piracy. But if you give away copies to friends and strangers who might otherwise have bought copies then you and they are guilty of theft, so I think the piracy label is appropriate.