when you download music from the empeg back to your pc does it lose sound quality.

when you download music from the empeg back to your pc does it lose sound quality.

No.

The MP3 file is digital, and is copied byte for byte.

However, you cannot convert that MP3 file back to a .wav file without losing quality.

tanstaafl.

In reply to:

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No.

The MP3 file is digital, and is copied byte for byte.

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Unless there are errors in the transmission. . . I've had this happen before. Some of my files have glitches in them that I know weren't there originally.

Stu

When you listen to an mp3, isn't it converted to a wav?

When you listen to an mp3, isn't it converted to a wav?

No.

Your MP3 decoder (that's the "dec" part of "codec") reads the file and sends information to your amplifier which converts it to an analog output and feeds it to the speakers. (This ignores amplifiers with digital outputs.)

Converting a .wav formatted file to an .mp3 format file involves a "lossy" compression routine, and while it is possible to reverse this conversion back to a .wav formatted file, the lost data cannot be recovered and quality loss will occur.


tanstaafl.

The reasone i ask is because i did this then when i downloaded it to my other empeg it didnt sound as good.

When you listen to an mp3, isn't it converted to a wav?

It's decoded to raw 44.1khz stereo PCM audio data, which is essentially the same thing as a WAV file, but just... without the file. It does it on the fly, one frame at a time, streaming the decoded audio "live" to the DSP. It does this at whatever "quality" level the MP3 was created as.

However, you cannot convert that MP3 file back to a .wav file without losing quality.

Incorrect syntax, Doug. It's not the conversion to WAV that loses quality. The quality of a decoded WAV file is the same as the MP3 it was decoded from. The additional quality loss happens if you take that WAV file and then encode it to MP3 a second time. Each time you MP3-enocde an audio file, there is a certain amount of quality loss (however slight) since MP3 is a lossy format.

Edit: to be more clear... It's not the decoding that causes quality loss, it's the encoding.

The reasone i ask is because i did this then when i downloaded it to my other empeg it didnt sound as good.

Did you compare apples to apples? Were both empegs running through the same amplifier and speakers with the same EQ settings? Can you describe in more detail exactly what you did, and exactly what you mean by "didn't sound as good"?

Doug's right, when you right-click in Emplode and select "Download", it should be an exact byte-for-byte copy of the file. If there were transmission errors on the download or upload, they would be obvious as loud skips or glitches in the file rather than a subtle loss of quality.

Yea...what he said....

it was the same system in my truck.eq settings were the same.they were set at flat.bass was not as sharp and highs sounded flat.the only difference was the one i downloaded to has hijack in it.the player i got the music from does'nt.but i dont see why that would matter.thanks for all your thoughts.

Hijack has options for decreasing or increasing the bass and treble. Perhaps the Hijack'd player had its bass/treble settings altered.

all check that out thanks.