How to get back exact quality?

[spacely]

Hi.

I have v2.0.4 on Win8. Got it from the exe installer. I set it to record from Stereo Mix (IDT HIGH Definition). I set the sampling rate under Quality to 192000 and used "best quality". I played the nice Youtube video ( ) and recorded it with Audacity. I play it back with Audacity itself at that quality rate, and there seems to be some distortion...kind of like being played in a bathroom with tiles on the walls. I saved as MP3 (options 320kbps...that made a nice big file). Played it through Windows Media Player. Sounds about the same as played through Audacity.

This must be an old topic, and I am surely not an expert, but how do I capture the audio, save it to a file, and play it back so it's exactly the same? What I am hearing is a function of the streaming data (online), the software playing it (not sure what Internet Explorer is using), and the speakers hooked up (those were the same at 1st play, and when Audacity was playing what it captured). My computer complained at sampling rates above the 192000 (in playback).

What are the fanciest settings, and best save format?

Thanks in advance

Dave

[kozikowski]

You may be suffering from Windows trying to help you.

http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/fa ... hancements

Windows is not a "tape recorder" any more. It's a corporate communications device.

Koz

[steve]

You will get best quality if you download the YouTube video rather than trying to record it. There are several Add-ons available for Firefox for downloading from YouTube.

[spacely]

You may be suffering from Windows trying to help you.

http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/fa ... hancements

Windows is not a "tape recorder" any more. It's a corporate communications device.

Koz

I don't see any of those options in my Win8. But it's definitely the "tunnel" effect in your manual....I wonder if the recording device, or playback device is more important....

[Robert2]

Have a look at How To Disable Audio Enhancements in Windows 7
Read more at http://technicallyeasy.net/2010/09/how- ... TLtB6Zo.99

This applies to Windows 8 too.

HTH.
Cheers,
Robert

[spacely]

Hmm, I found only one device that had an Enhancements tab, and they were all turned off. To be sure, I checked Turn them all Off anyway, and recorded again, but no difference.

Much to my surprise, when I hovered over the Youtube Video, RealPlayer allowed me to download a copy. But that's an mp4. I just need to strip out the audio portion, as mp3 I suppose. Of course, RealPlayer wants me to pay, or buy a partner product for that conversion to work. And Audacity won't read it. So, almost there...how can I strip out the audio?

[steve]

I just need to strip out the audio portion

If you install ffmpeg, Audacity should be able to import the audio part of the video. http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/fa ... tml#ffdown

[spacely]

I just need to strip out the audio portion

If you install ffmpeg, Audacity should be able to import the audio part of the video. http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/fa ... tml#ffdown

Absolutely perfect.

Still kinda mad at Microsoft for not allowing us to record exactly what's coming out of our speakers, w/o distortion.

[spacely]

When saving MP3, what's the kbps rate do, other than make the file bigger?

There is a little distortion when playing back after saving to MP3, 320kbps.

The file size is almost as big as the original MP4 (was a still picture video), so what file format should I save to so not to lose quality, relative to the MP4 I started with?

[steve]

MP3 and MP4 are "lossy" formats. That means that each time it is encoded, a little bit more of the audio information is thrown away with some inevitable loss of sound quality. This is why it is highly recommended to work in a "lossless" format such as WAV, throughout the production process, and convert to MP3 (or whatever lossy format is required) right at the end of the process, so that sound quality loss due to encoding only occurs once. In practice it is not always possible to do this.

The losses due to encoding can be minimised by using a high bit-rate, at the cost of larger files, but MP3 encoding "always" loses some sound quality.