Help with MP3 Quality...

[vic_vega]

Ok, I have some .Mp3's that are a higher bitrate than I desire for my iPod (which I am going to re-encode to a different compression level) does anyone know off hand if you Lose quality if you go directly from one bitrate to another?

Like say I went from 320 to 160 (would that cause it to degrade in quality?)

Or, should I first encode them to .Wav's (to un-compress them), and then to 160?

[gd_nimrod]

Of course you lose quality, since file size decreases, quality decreases.

[vic_vega]

I know you lose quality when it's a lower bitrate, BUT what I mean is, will I lose quality FROM the conversion to 160 from 320?

[Enchanter]

"Like say I went from 320 to 160 (would that cause it to degrade in quality?)"

Yes.


"should I first encode them to .Wav's (to un-compress them), and then to 160?"

You will lose quality too.


Always remember this: when you compress with a lossy codec, you will lose quality because these codecs inherently discard information regardless of bitrate.

Regards.



Edit: You probably won't notice much, if any, degradation in sound quality using the methods you described, esp. if you are not a critical listener. However, keep in mind that once you re-compressed, something in the audio had been discarded. That is the way it is with lossy codecs.