Questions About Determining if MP3 Quality is Genuine

[maniac_lonestar]

Someone from the internet told me this about an MP3 Collection that I had: “The collection is good, but the MP3 quality is not. All the files are re-encodes and were not originally sourced from lossless audio.
Rather disappointing ”

By the way, the MP3 files mentioned are labeled 320 KBPS CONSTANT BIT RATE in their tag data, and they are in technically 320 KBPS CONSTANT BITE RATE.

I asked him to explain to me how he knew that these MP3’s were re-encoded from a lossy audio format, but he never replied back (after I asked him two times and 5 months have passed he or she hasn’t replid).

So here is my question:

1) How do I know if my MP3 file is re-encoded from a lossless file format?
What program do I use to determine this? Is it my only optione to use my listening abities?


2) How do I know if my 320 KBPS MP3 file is re-encoded from another MP3 with a lower bit rate?
What program do I use to determine this? Is it my only option to use my listening abilities?


By the way, these files were not ripped from me or from my CD’s and they aren’t downloaded through music distribution and sales software like Itunes and Rhapsody etc.

 

[alisbin]

as far as i'm aware (and of course subject to correction) there is no way besides your own ears to tell between a 320 kb mp3 from a lossless/CD or a 320 thats just been beefed up from a lossy format.
basically, a 320 thats from a lossy version will sound exactly like the lossy version, so i suppose if you were to downgrade the encryption and notice a difference then it would at least be likely that it came from a good source.

hope that helps at least a little.

 

[cosmos100]

Yeah Alisbin has a point, CD sound quality is higher than MP3 but unless you have a good ear it's not really noticable in quality, MP3 is the lowest quality of music you can get anyway (possibly WMA might be a bit lower) because they have to compress the music, if you're really after good quality go for vinyl... I don't know all the science but it's just the best quality...

Of course the quality of the machine you play it off has an effect on what you hear. But that's not the question you asked so I won't go into it.