Can I Improve My MP3 Quality?

[Smokedhaddock]

I am running 1.2.6. When I export my MP files into Audacity and play them they sound fine. When I have edited them, converted them back to MP3 and play them using Windows Media Player the quality is not nearly as good, any ideas please?

Thankyou

[waxcylinder]

Yes, the problem is that you are recompressing previously compressed audio - hence the degradation in quality. It's like taking packet chicken soup, adding the water and then freeze drying it again - the "quality" gets worse.


Ideally you should be doing all production and editing with lossless WAV files - and then MP3 i the final output delivery medium.

I realize that in the case you hav cited this may be a problem as you may only have the MP3 file and no access to an uncompressed version.

WC

[Smokedhaddock]

Thankyou for the reply WC, at least I understand the problem now.

[jan.kolar]

You could improve it by changing the the parameters for encoding
(theoretically upto the same quality you hear from Audacity - but you have to pay by the size of the file).

(
But in 1.2.6:
is there possibility to choose the paramaters? Check perpahs in Preferences. The default quality is
sometimes not good enough for spoken material, which surprised me recently (artifacts).
In 1.3.x: yes (with substantial bug fixes in recent 1.3.7)
)

[Smokedhaddock]

Thanks Jan, time to upgrade then.