MP3 to CD quality

[NC]

Is there software to restore an MP3 recorded from the net back to original CD quality?

[Timelessblur]

I do not think that is even possible since an MP3 removes data from the CD. It removes parts of the sound waves that you can not really hear and thows them out. It is impossible to recover what is not there.

[NC]

What do technologies like X-Fi do?

[rhettro]

It's not possible, but if you have MP3's with a bitrate of 192 or higher, it's hard to tell the difference at least on average sound equipment.

[Nater]

As in Soundblaster X-Fi? Well, it sounds a hell of a lot better than any onboard audio solution, I can tell you that much. If you like music at all you'd be well served by purchasing one.

[NC]

Does, say, 128K steaming audio have anything do do with the bitrate?

[rhettro]

128K is the bitrate and kind of the lowest common denominator when talking about bitrates.

[Ashpool]

Does, say, 128K steaming audio have anything do do with the bitrate?

That's breaking the "oh jeez this sounds like crap" line.

And no, you can't change anything about the sound quality of an MP3 itself once it's been encoded. While getting a better sound card is always a good thing, it'll only make you pick out the things that make it sound worse even easier.

[Nater]

For future encoding I'd try using FLAC if I were you. I've been using FLAC Frontend to encode WAVs ripped with Exact Audio Copy, you can find them both at sourceforge.

[Ashpool]

For future encoding I'd try using FLAC if I were you. I've been using FLAC Frontend to encode WAVs ripped with Exact Audio Copy, you can find them both at sourceforge.

While FLAC is really damn awesome, a decently encoded MP3 can rival (or equal) in sound. ~100MB instead of ~400MB sounds a lot more cooler to me.

But since this is an extremely analog deal, YMMV. Give them both a shot.