What You Lose When You Compress Music to MP3, M4A, WMA, etc. (Tutorial and Example with Audacity)

This video shows what is lost when you convert your music to a lossily compressed format, such as MP3, M4A, or WMA. Although this video only shows the difference between a WAV (uncompressed) and MP3, similar results would occur if you compared WAV to M4A, WMA, or any other lossy format. I have since published another comparison video comparing WAV to other lossy formats, include M4A and Opus:    • MP3 vs M4A (AAC-LC, AAC-HE v1, & AAC-HE v2...   including at extremely low bitrates (as low as 12 kbps, where you can hear the newer formats easily beat MP3!!).

NEW MP3 vs. M4A (AAC-LC, AAC-HE v1, & AAC-HE v2) vs. Opus Comparison:    • MP3 vs M4A (AAC-LC, AAC-HE v1, & AAC-HE v2...  

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-- VIDEO CHAPTERS --
0:00 Introduction
0:23 Uncompressed WAV Sample
1:03 320 kbps MP3 Sample
2:13 Difference between WAV & 320 kbps MP3
3:25 64 kbps MP3 Sample
4:34 Difference between WAV & 64 kbps MP3

Generally, MP3 is regarded as an inefficient compression format. Newer standards like M4A, WMA, Vorbis, and Opus offer better quality for a given bit rate. However, with any form of lossy compression, some information is lost. Lossless compression codecs like FLAC and AIFF preserve quality; however, they do not reduce file size nearly as much as lossy formats.

When the WAV was converted to a 320 kbps MP3, not much information was lost. However, a lot of information was lost when the WAV was converted to a 64 kbps MP3.

It's 2017, and I think websites like Amazon and iTunes should no longer be offering only MP3s/M4As. With storage space so cheap and internet speeds so fast, lossless audio formats should be widespread. Lossy formats still have their uses, for example putting on a phone with little internal storage.

YouTube compresses video and audio after they are uploaded, reducing the quality slightly. The original audio files used in this video are available at https://drive.google.com/open?id=1jx6...

I use the same technique to compare MP3 to M4A in another video:    • M4A vs MP3 Audio Quality Comparison  

If you add the difference file to the MP3 file, you will get the original WAV quality back:    • Restoring MP3 Quality  

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