Convert streaming audio files

[didikai]

I have some streaming audio files that are in WMA format. When converting to WAV or MP3 the audio is noticeably inferior. Is there a way I can get these files to play on a standalone CD player without losing quality

[Baldrick]

No, you will lose quality but not "noticeably inferior".

What do you convert with?

[didikai]

No, you will lose quality but not "noticeably inferior".

What do you convert with?

AVS audio convertor

[Baldrick]

Try goldwave, audacity.

[AlanHK]

I have some streaming audio files that are in WMA format. When converting to WAV or MP3 the audio is noticeably inferior. Is there a way I can get these files to play on a standalone CD player without losing quality

If you convert to wave, (or CD audio, pretty much the same) it doesn't matter, the result should be the same as just playing the WMA -- in both cases you're just decoding it.

If converting to MP3, use a bitrate at least as high as the WMA and it should be minimally degraded. Or just 192 kB is more than good enough for me.

I presume you can set the MP3 bitrate (determines quality) in AVS Converter.

If not, you certainly can in say Foobar2000.

[Gavino]

I have some streaming audio files that are in WMA format. When converting to WAV or MP3 the audio is noticeably inferior. Is there a way I can get these files to play on a standalone CD player without losing quality

If you convert to wave, (or CD audio, pretty much the same) it doesn't matter, the result should be the same as just playing the MP3 -- in both cases you're just decoding it.

You mean playing the WMA, of course.

[archyboy]

you can also use jaksta

with demo you can convert video or audio to different formats

[didikai]

Thanks for the help. But not having much technical knowledge, when i convert the WMA to MP3 it sounds a bit 'tinny' with some distortion on the letter 's'.
I found a bootleg of my mates band from the 60s and would like to get the best quality so I can send it to him.

[yoda313]

found a bootleg

There's your problem right there. You have no idea how it was recorded. You'll be lucky if it sounds good at all. Any remastering on a consumer level will have little impact.

You MIGHT be able to make minor tweaks here and there but consider your source.

[didikai]

found a bootleg

There's your problem right there. You have no idea how it was recorded. You'll be lucky if it sounds good at all. Any remastering on a consumer level will have little impact.

You MIGHT be able to make minor tweaks here and there but consider your source.

The original WMA isn't bad quality It just gets tinny with the conversion. Is there any way i can use settings to eliminate that?

[yoda313]

Try using a higher bitrate - that might work.

[didikai]

Try using a higher bitrate - that might work.

Yeah I aready converted to MP3 320. I'd just like to get rid of the distortion on the 's' sounds. It's not there on the original WMA

[El Heggunte]

The original WMA isn't bad quality

I believe you. But I have to point out that WMA is inferior to MP3 for example, and in some cases not even re-encoding at maximum bitrate can avoid the recompression artifacts. Especially if the source-WMAs were encoded at 64kbps, thanks to the power of Microsoft's self-marketing.

[AlanHK]

Yeah I aready converted to MP3 320. I'd just like to get rid of the distortion on the 's' sounds. It's not there on the original WMA

I don't think you've said HOW you're doing this conversion.

Using any of the tools I listed?

If you want to do some filtering on it, you could use Audacity.
Open the original WMA with it, not the MP3.

It's not terribly user-friendly at first, but has very comprehensive manuals online.
It has a lot of filters available, and at the end can export to whatever quality and format you want.

There are even specific filters for "de-essing", See
http://www.hypnothoughts.com/forum/topics/deessing-recordings
The plugin they mention is SPITFISH de-esser plugin

Or why not just send him the WMA if you think it sounds okay?
Most MP3 players can handle WMA as well if that's why you're doing this.

[intracube]

This is a long shot; but many years ago ISTR reading Windows (not sure which version) had issues playing back mp3 files - people were reporting poor sound quality irrespective of the bit-rate and source quality.

I also remember some speculating if it was an underhanded way of Microsoft attempting to make their own audio format (wma) seem better quality, or a misguided attempt at reducing music piracy.

However, I haven't found anything substantial to back that up, and I don't have any personal experience of the issue. All I could find with Google was this:
- "This is because Winamp uses it's own MP3 codec, which can handle high
bitrates. Windows includes a crippled version (l3codecx.ax) of the
Fraunhofer MP3 codec which can't encode above 56kbps and has trouble
decoding high bitrate MP3s"
http://www.velocityreviews.com/forums/t180067-256k-and-320k-mp3s-sound-distorted.html

also this:
http://www.winvistatips.com/poor-sound-quality-wmp-t497713.html
http://www.tech-archive.net/Archive/Media/microsoft.public.windowsmedia.player/2007-01/msg00239.html

I don't have any experience of Windows codecs, so I'll have to defer to someone else.

I can't see why there should be any drop in sound quality converting WMA to WAV.

What program are you using to play the converted .mp3s? Have you tried comparing the WMA and mp3 files on another computer or dedicated media player?

[El Heggunte]

...

Windows includes a crippled version (l3codecx.ax) of the
Fraunhofer MP3 codec which can't encode above 56kbps

I already knew that,

and has trouble decoding high bitrate MP3s"

but I wasn't aware of that, as I've always used ffdshow for MP3 playback under DirectShow.
Thanks for the information

EDIT:

Minor correction - actually, it's the file l3codeca.ACM that
cannot encode above 56kbps, since the file l3codecx.AX
is a decoder only (AFAIK, at least).

[intracube]

and has trouble decoding high bitrate MP3s"

but I wasn't aware of that, as I've always used ffdshow for MP3 playback under DirectShow.
Thanks for the information

Just to clarify; I've only found a single source that seems closely related to what I remember. So it looks unlikely to be a general issue with mp3 playback on Windows - otherwise Google would've returned far more pages.

I wish I could remember more details - but it must have been 9/10 years ago.

This site looks quite interesting:
http://mp3decoders.mp3-tech.org/decoders.html