compressing wav files

Hi,
I just read that wav files have good quality sound for recording and burning.

But if you later want to compress/convert the wav file into an MP3 or Itune file, the sound is terrible or worse than if you started with an MP3.

Has anyone ever heard of this? I like clear stereo sound. And I have been burning old records and CD's using wav to save and play through Pyro. It sounds great.

I don't want to waste time compressing some of my saved wav files into MP3 if it's going to sound worse than even an original MP3.

Thanx,
Amy

Just out of interest, why would you want to "compress" wma files to mp3 anyway since the file sizes are comparable?

Hi Amy,

Someone told you that converting wav files to mp3 gives poor results. This is absolutely untrue. When you convert or encode you can select the amount of memory to use to make your mp3s. More memory the better the results and, even with memory use as high as 192 or 256, the files are still considerably smaller thn wav. Converting to mp3 will entail some loss but, if you use the higher memory rates, I doubt you will notice. That being said, the results are in the ear of the listener, so why not make a few test recordings of one of your favorites and see how it sounds with different mp3 memory rates.
By the way, there are several different mp3 encoders out there - they aren't all the same. Pyro uses LAME which is a good one but for some reason everyone has problems with Pyro's mp3 encoding . So if Pyro starts acting up for you with mp3 encoding, don't spend a lot of time struggling with it, use a different encoding program - they are free.

gerry

Agree.
Mp3 is a lossy codec -BUT the beauty of it, is that it tries to simulate wave files. It takes out certain frequecies that are usually not noticable by human ear. With that being said, there is some sonic quality loss -thats just the way it is for saving space. Whether or not you can live with it, is a totally personal decision. I know peeps who swear there is so little difference that it doesn't matter, and others that can tell you exactly what frequency is missing, and find it totally unacceptable.... it is kinda like listening to an album on a really, really great system and then hearing a cassette in a car -I'm being very cavalier here- but any lossy codec (compression / decompression scheme) will lose sonic quality. It varies with bit depth & sample rate and the system u hear it on. Every digital recording has a sample rate and a bit depth, i.e. true stereo is only 16/44.1. It's 16 bit depth and sample rate of 44,100 times per second Then u get up to of 24/96 (bit depth of 24, sample rate of 96,000 times per second) Some are better than others, and some are much worse. You've just really got to listen for yourself and make a decision. There is no right or wrong answer here. Some of my mp3's are pretty damn good....
Hope this helps
C/Maker