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320 mp3 or wav?

Posted: Sun Jan 23, 2011 2:16 pm
by redDEX
which do i want to download for the best quality in a club?
what are the differences between these two formats?

Re: 320 mp3 or wav?

Posted: Sun Jan 23, 2011 3:23 pm
by Sheff
You can never guarantee a 320 track is actually 320. Someone could have recorded it with a calculator and upload it at 320kbps, still doesnt make it true 320.
WAV is what you want, but if you want guaranteed best quality then go for Vinyl.

Re: 320 mp3 or wav?

Posted: Sun Jan 23, 2011 3:45 pm
by brasco
Sheff wrote:but if you want guaranteed best quality then go for Vinyl.

Re: 320 mp3 or wav?

Posted: Sun Jan 23, 2011 3:46 pm
by dirty d
Sheff wrote: but if you want guaranteed best quality then go for Vinyl.

Re: 320 mp3 or wav?

Posted: Sun Jan 23, 2011 4:12 pm
by JensMadsen
Buying wavs is pretty expensive compared to 320s... Normally there shouldn't be any flaws in the 320s you buy... And it's only really when playing on big systems the crowd is able to hear the differnce.

Re: 320 mp3 or wav?

Posted: Sun Jan 23, 2011 4:12 pm
by gravious
Sheff wrote:You can never guarantee a 320 track is actually 320. Someone could have recorded it with a calculator and upload it at 320kbps, still doesnt make it true 320.
WAV is what you want, but if you want guaranteed best quality then go for Vinyl.
Don't quite follow your logic there, as the same applies to wav, no? There's nothing to stop someone from recording something at 16kbps mp3 (i.e. really shit) quality, then uploading it as a WAV either!

Anyway, OP, if you are asking what you should download tunes as from legit download sites (Juno, Amazon, whatever), then 320 should actually be 320 in pretty much all cases, not some lower quality


In file terms, a 320 means a 320 Kilobits per second compressed MP3, whereas WAV is theoretically 'lossless'. Compression causes glitches and loss of dynamics in a track, but high bitrates make this a lot less obvious, and hard to notice to anyone who isn't a hardcore sound-head.

WAV is clearer and better (and therefore a much bigger file), but in my experience 99.9% of people won't notice the difference in a club between that and 320 mp3.

Re: 320 mp3 or wav?

Posted: Sun Jan 23, 2011 7:41 pm
by JensMadsen
gravious wrote:
Sheff wrote:You can never guarantee a 320 track is actually 320. Someone could have recorded it with a calculator and upload it at 320kbps, still doesnt make it true 320.
WAV is what you want, but if you want guaranteed best quality then go for Vinyl.
Don't quite follow your logic there, as the same applies to wav, no? There's nothing to stop someone from recording something at 16kbps mp3 (i.e. really shit) quality, then uploading it as a WAV either!

Anyway, OP, if you are asking what you should download tunes as from legit download sites (Juno, Amazon, whatever), then 320 should actually be 320 in pretty much all cases, not some lower quality


In file terms, a 320 means a 320 Kilobits per second compressed MP3, whereas WAV is theoretically 'lossless'. Compression causes glitches and loss of dynamics in a track, but high bitrates make this a lot less obvious, and hard to notice to anyone who isn't a hardcore sound-head.

WAV is clearer and better (and therefore a much bigger file), but in my experience 99.9% of people won't notice the difference in a club between that and 320 mp3.
What i tried to say ^^^

Re: 320 mp3 or wav?

Posted: Sun Jan 23, 2011 7:48 pm
by roshman111

Re: 320 mp3 or wav?

Posted: Sun Jan 23, 2011 9:20 pm
by Sheff
gravious wrote:
Sheff wrote:You can never guarantee a 320 track is actually 320. Someone could have recorded it with a calculator and upload it at 320kbps, still doesnt make it true 320.
WAV is what you want, but if you want guaranteed best quality then go for Vinyl.
Don't quite follow your logic there, as the same applies to wav, no? There's nothing to stop someone from recording something at 16kbps mp3 (i.e. really shit) quality, then uploading it as a WAV either!

Anyway, OP, if you are asking what you should download tunes as from legit download sites (Juno, Amazon, whatever), then 320 should actually be 320 in pretty much all cases, not some lower quality


In file terms, a 320 means a 320 Kilobits per second compressed MP3, whereas WAV is theoretically 'lossless'. Compression causes glitches and loss of dynamics in a track, but high bitrates make this a lot less obvious, and hard to notice to anyone who isn't a hardcore sound-head.

WAV is clearer and better (and therefore a much bigger file), but in my experience 99.9% of people won't notice the difference in a club between that and 320 mp3.
Yeah true about that mate, dont know why I said that lmao

Re: 320 mp3 or wav?

Posted: Mon Jan 24, 2011 11:04 am
by Sparxy
Very few people will notice the difference between a 320 and a WAV in a club. I burn all my 320s to CD to play in the club and they sound great! WAVs are massive files and will need lots of storage making them a pain to work with. At home I use Traktor scratch.
I gave up on vinyl long ago because vinyls can be lost, get scratched, and degrade over time. Keeping MP3s backed up on HDs seems like a much cheaper and more efficient option than keeping stacks of vinyl (which I still have in boxes in the loft).

The only thing vinyl has going for it thesedays IMO is the feel and control that you just don't get with digital formats. But then with things like Traktor Scratch and Serato you can even emulate that thesedays...

Re: 320 mp3 or wav?

Posted: Mon Jan 24, 2011 1:20 pm
by kate_
WAV's arent massive compared to vinyls

Re: 320 mp3 or wav?

Posted: Mon Jan 24, 2011 4:30 pm
by ashley
WAV > Vinyl.

Vinyl has surface noise and other defects, but do sound a lot better.

Plus you'd be dumb cutting a dub from an mp3.

Re: 320 mp3 or wav?

Posted: Mon Jan 24, 2011 5:26 pm
by dj $hy
ashley wrote:Plus you'd be dumb cutting a dub from an mp3.

Re: 320 mp3 or wav?

Posted: Mon Jan 24, 2011 6:02 pm
by Majin
Most of the places I've been to you can stream a clip off YouTube and no one would tell the difference.

Re: 320 mp3 or wav?

Posted: Mon Jan 24, 2011 6:20 pm
by Sheff
Majin wrote:Most of the places I've been to you can stream a clip off YouTube and no one would tell the difference.
You must go to some pretty shitty places then LOL

Re: 320 mp3 or wav?

Posted: Mon Jan 24, 2011 6:44 pm
by Majin
Sheff wrote:
Majin wrote:Most of the places I've been to you can stream a clip off YouTube and no one would tell the difference.
You must go to some pretty shitty places then LOL
Yep, Montreal has garbage venues.

Re: 320 mp3 or wav?

Posted: Tue Jan 25, 2011 5:19 pm
by basslinefreak
aslong as your track is signed to decent digital label then mp3 over wav i say. aslong as your mp3s been structed proply. they should sound identical to the wav. ...9 times out of 10 if your 320 mp3 sounds shit so will the wav. i mean why do these artist give tracks out in mp3? unless they dont wont any1 playing them out?