WAV files v 320 mp3

[pevie]

Just how audible is the difference between these on a quality system. Brian Tappert of Jazz n Groove claims he can't differentiate between the two.
On a similar theme does anybody know the unit Morales used that made the cdj sound good to him ?

[clubman5]

I can hear the diiference. WAV files have better bottom, and smoother mids compared to the sometimes harsh and thin sound of MP3. The better your system, the more difference you hear.

[mezz]

320 is very close, but still not as good as uncompressed .wav
I've heard no difference, however between uncompressed wav and lossless formats like FLAC and Apple lossless. I don't know how they do it, but they sound the same and take up half as much space on a hard drive.

[grizz]

this is very easy to understand. a lossy format like mp3 uses a compression where audioinformation is deleted. a lossless does not change the initial information, it works as any normal file compression format like zip or rar, that reduces the size but not the information.

if you need further information, wikipedia is you friend:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lossless

[jsd540]

Doesn't that have a bit to do with it as well... I know that a wave played back in I tunes (for example ) does not sound as good as a well recorded mp3 on Quick time (for example) even at lower bitrates... Do CDJ's have different software, and could'nt that also be a part of the problem ?

[T. Tauri]

Something interesting I just noticed: it seems not all 320 mp3s are created equal. I recently purchased the Idjut Boys' Tarot re-edit from dancetracksdigital.com, and found it sounding very mp3-y, much more so than when I encode my own. When I looked in Elemental Audio's spectragraph plugin, I was surprised to see it cutting off a bit lower (around 18khz) than my own Peak-rendered LAME mp3s which only cut off around 20khz. I wonder if the speed of LAME encoding is responsible? (when I do mine, Peak has a "quality" setting you can adjust, which makes the conversion go slower or faster depending on where it's set.)

In any case, the two Traxsource's mp3s I have also don't cut off til about 20k, while the ones I have from dancetracks (excluding several that were encoded at a lower bitrate) routinely cut off sooner, as do a few I have from beatport (haven't bought too many from them since they went to offering wav files, so don't have any recent beatport mp3s to compare).

Maybe as far as Brian's own rips, he's right, since his site seems to encode better than the others I've downloaded from.

Peece,
T. Tauri

[jmark]

Something interesting I just noticed: it seems not all 320 mp3s are created equal.

Absolutely true. Encode with LAME at 320 CBR at the highest quality/slowest processing setting, and with most material I would say the differences between the resulting MP3 and the source file are insignificant....even on a good loud system or in high-quality headphones (two playback scenarios that can be very revealing of MP3 degradation).

I'd rather be DJ-ing with WAV files (when using Serato), but given the size of my working music library and current drive spaces (for the 2.5" drives I use in bus-powered Firewire enclosures) it's not practical yet.