If I have a song that is in 128 kbps and I burn it onto a disc and then i import the disc under 256 kbps will I have higher quality music?
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iPod A way yo get high quality music from low quality songs.
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No, it will be worse quality. If you import it using one of the lossless formats (WAV, AIFF or Apple Lossless) it will be equal in quality to the 128kbps files.
If you import at 256kbps you're making a lossy copy of a lossy copy.
Once you've lost the information/data by compressing it to 128 kbps, you can't get it back by simply writing it to CD and re-compressing it to a higher bitrate, as the information/music on the CD was created with the 128 kbps version.
But when I do import it at a higher bit rate then it says under summery that the song is 256 kbps leading me to think that it is in a higher bit rate. Is the only way to get the bit rate desired is to buy the original album? I put all of my cds under 320 kbps leading me to thinking that I have the best quality possible. Is that so?
The only way you can get a true 256kbps or 320kbps bitrate is to reimport the music from an original CD--not low quality mp3's burned back onto a CD. You could encode your 128kbps files in Apple lossless and it won't sound any better b/c the information for the music track is already gone. iTunes only states what you selected for encoding...it doesn't know if you encoded from an original CD or a lossy source.
If you don't have an original CD your music is the best it's going to be. The music information is already gone and is encoded at 128kbps. iTunes will tell you it encoded at whatever format you selected, but it'll sound worse reencoding lossy compression to lossy compression once again.
CD's are 1411kbps and are being downconverted to 256kbps or 320 that's why they sound good.
Think of it this way. Imagine water being your music's quality and a glass being your bit rate. A 128kbps music file is like a small glass filled with water. Trying to convert that file to a higher bit rate like 256kbps is like pouring the water from the small glass into a large glass. However, even though you have a larger glass (bit rate), you've still got the same amount of water (quality).
Just so you know, 320kbps mp3's or any mp3 for that matter is not nearly the highest quality possible that you can get. In normal Audio CDs they use lossless files. A WAV file is 1411kb/s. Compare that to a 320kb/s mp3. A ton of information (sound waves) is lost when converting to a lossy format, like mp3.
And no matter what you try to do, you can't higher the quality of one of your songs. You can only make it worse, by taking away information. But once you take that information away, when it's done converting then all that information is gone for good. You can't restore it to make it better quality.
You can make it higher bitrate, but that won't make it any higher quality - the file will just take up more space on your computer. A bitrate, like 320kbps, is how much information the file takes up for each second that the song has. So if the song is 2 minutes (120 seconds) and the bitrate was 320kbps then the file size would turn out to be 38,400 kilobytes (120*320) which is a bit less than 4 mb.
I hope that helps.
And no matter what you try to do, you can't higher the quality of one of your songs. You can only make it worse, by taking away information. But once you take that information away, when it's done converting then all that information is gone for good. You can't restore it to make it better quality.
You can make it higher bitrate, but that won't make it any higher quality - the file will just take up more space on your computer. A bitrate, like 320kbps, is how much information the file takes up for each second that the song has. So if the song is 2 minutes (120 seconds) and the bitrate was 320kbps then the file size would turn out to be 38,400 kilobytes (120*320) which is a bit less than 4 mb.
I hope that helps.
