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The Basement
Puzzled WHY compressing music damages the sound.,
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<blockquote data-quote="Christopher Burke" data-source="post: 209389" data-attributes="member: 12415"><p>Dear Anyone.</p><p></p><p>OK, I'm not a professional, I'm a wannabe who wants to learn and has a bunch of STOOOPID questions he doesn't understand. Here's one of them!</p><p></p><p>Sound on a computer is 1's and 0's. As is text. But I've discovered the hard way that if you compress a sound to an MP3 you lose definition that you DON'T get back by re-opening it as a .WAV. But I don't understand WHY. I mean if I compressed a book to a .RAR file (or .PDF or whatever) and then reopened it as a text file, I wouldn't lose any of the book, would I? The text all looks the same quality to me, I've tried it. I could compress and uncompress (decompress?) it all day long and it would stay the same.</p><p></p><p>So why if I do the same thing to a soundfile, compress it and decompress it, does it make any difference to the quality of the sound? Is it just nobody's bothered to get the algorithms right? And if I compress it to a .RAR instead of a .MP3, would it keep the original qualities that way so when decompressed, it would sound like the original .WAV file? What puzzles me even more is that it can't be an inherent property of the soundfile because I've discovered something called FLAC, Free Lossless Audio Codec, that shrinks a file AND keeps all the audio quality (that's what it says on the package anyway!) </p><p></p><p>So what's the problem with .MP3s? If .RAR can keep things lossless (though you'll have to tell me if that includes audio) and FLAC keeps sound lossless (again, if that's not correct you'll have to tell me) why can't .MP3 keep things lossless?</p><p></p><p>Beginning to think it's going to be one of those 'why do graphics always have white backgrounds you can't get rid of' type questions where the answer is 'because nobody's bothered designing a graphic filetype that doesn't have a white background!' (I know you've got GIFs but they're strange, they DO degrade the original picture and I dunno why, maybe they're designed by the .MP3 guy!) </p><p></p><p>Hope someone chooses to answer. Sorry I'm not an expert like you guys, but I do want to learn. </p><p></p><p>Yours respectfully</p><p></p><p>Chris.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Christopher Burke, post: 209389, member: 12415"] Dear Anyone. OK, I'm not a professional, I'm a wannabe who wants to learn and has a bunch of STOOOPID questions he doesn't understand. Here's one of them! Sound on a computer is 1's and 0's. As is text. But I've discovered the hard way that if you compress a sound to an MP3 you lose definition that you DON'T get back by re-opening it as a .WAV. But I don't understand WHY. I mean if I compressed a book to a .RAR file (or .PDF or whatever) and then reopened it as a text file, I wouldn't lose any of the book, would I? The text all looks the same quality to me, I've tried it. I could compress and uncompress (decompress?) it all day long and it would stay the same. So why if I do the same thing to a soundfile, compress it and decompress it, does it make any difference to the quality of the sound? Is it just nobody's bothered to get the algorithms right? And if I compress it to a .RAR instead of a .MP3, would it keep the original qualities that way so when decompressed, it would sound like the original .WAV file? What puzzles me even more is that it can't be an inherent property of the soundfile because I've discovered something called FLAC, Free Lossless Audio Codec, that shrinks a file AND keeps all the audio quality (that's what it says on the package anyway!) So what's the problem with .MP3s? If .RAR can keep things lossless (though you'll have to tell me if that includes audio) and FLAC keeps sound lossless (again, if that's not correct you'll have to tell me) why can't .MP3 keep things lossless? Beginning to think it's going to be one of those 'why do graphics always have white backgrounds you can't get rid of' type questions where the answer is 'because nobody's bothered designing a graphic filetype that doesn't have a white background!' (I know you've got GIFs but they're strange, they DO degrade the original picture and I dunno why, maybe they're designed by the .MP3 guy!) Hope someone chooses to answer. Sorry I'm not an expert like you guys, but I do want to learn. Yours respectfully Chris. [/QUOTE]
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