Audio clarification: Any quality loss after edits/export from Audacity?

[nobodyhome]

So I edited some audio in Audacity to sync up better with the video and audio of another language. There were small segments that were out of sync.

The dvd’s audio I edited was 224kbps in AC3.

After editing in Audacity I exported as AC3 at the same 224kbps.

My question I’d like clarification on is:
Will I encounter quality loss after exporting from Audacity with those settings? Should I have used FLAC or another lossless format? How best to make sure nothing is lost on export after edits?

[noemi7]

Saving in any lossy format like AC3 always causes re-encoding. DVD accepts PCM (wav, 48 kHz) only, and no flac.

[videoAI]

When you export from Audacity, even at the same bitrate, there can be
some potential quality loss due to re-encoding. Here are some key points:

1. Best practices:
- Export to a lossless format like FLAC first
- Then convert to AC3 if needed for final use
- This preserves the maximum audio quality during editing

2. Potential issues with re-encoding AC3:
- Each re-encode can introduce slight artifacts
- Even at the same bitrate, the encoding process isn't perfectly transparent

3. Recommended workflow:
- Export from Audacity to FLAC
- Use a tool like FFmpeg to convert FLAC to AC3 at 224kbps for final output

This approach minimizes quality loss and gives you a preservation-quality
master file (FLAC) to work from in the future.

Tip: try Clever-FFmpeg-GUI

[nobodyhome]

I see, I see. Thank you very much for the insights and for the workflow recommendation. I'll redo my files accordingly. I really appreciate the advice. I am now a bit wiser.

[gregalan]

When you export from Audacity, even at the same bitrate, there can be
some potential quality loss due to re-encoding. Here are some key points:

3. Recommended workflow:
- Export from Audacity to FLAC
- Use a tool like FFmpeg to convert FLAC to AC3 at 224kbps for final output

That's just an extra unneeded step, exporting from Audacity directly to ac3 would result in almost identical output.

Even a few reencodes might not perceptually reduce quality enough to notice.
For example: https://bernholdtech.blogspot.com/2013/03/Nine-different-audio-encoders-100-pass-recom...sion-test.html
Although the test doesn't include ac3, it should perform similarly to mp3.

[pandy]

Also quite important is that conversion from lossy to lossy usually require to increase bitrate - some compression errors are accumulating and may require bitrate increase so to deliver at similar quality usually we need to increase bitrate - probably nearest ac3 bitrate is 256kbps.

[nobodyhome]

That's just an extra unneeded step, exporting from Audacity directly to ac3 would result in almost identical output.

Even a few reencodes might not perceptually reduce quality enough to notice.
For example: https://bernholdtech.blogspot.com/2013/03/Nine-different-audio-encoders-100-pass-recom...sion-test.html
Although the test doesn't include ac3, it should perform similarly to mp3.

Thanks for this too. I'll be reading that in detail. Thanks. Huh... Interesting...