Stupid question from a non-technical person about formats

[Love Expresso]

Hi,

after all these great recordings popped up from the current tour, I decided to use torrents, too, and now downloaded some of the last shows. I am using Miro. I learned that most recordings are in FLAC. Now I download them very fast and get them and when they are still in FLAC in the MIRO surface they sound great with a lot of volume. The same for the little sound snippets some people are so friendly to put online, for example into the comments of the Dime or something like that.
Then I convert them to MP3. In Miro, I have the chance to convert into dozens of formats. I decide to go to MP3 and then put them into my Windows Media Player to be able then to put them onto my MP3 player. And then everything sounds worse than in FLAC at the first step.

How comes? What is it that I am doing wrong? How comes it sounds so great at Miro (don't know if this Miro is well known and common....) and clearly worse at my player? Should I try new headphones??

So please, people, if you have ended your laughing attack about this querie    please try to give an answer that I might be able to understand...

I read in one of Jackals posts for example (if it was him) that I probably will not be able to hear the difference between FLAC and MP3.
I chose MP3 with 320 kbit/s. Albums and Simfy rec. sound great on my player.

I thought about writing this in the other technical section, feel free to move it there.

LE

[Rollergirl]

now, that was a stupid question! 

[dmg]

I use FLAC Frontend to convert to wav but if you only want to convert to mp3 then I also use Switch Sound File Converter that converts to many formats.  I very rarely use mp3 but haven't experienced any problems with Switch and it's very easy to use.

[ds1984]

If both format read by same device don't sound the same it is the conversion.
(If your WMP does not support Flac format, convert it to wav and do a comparaison with the encoded mp3)

If they sound the same then this is the device that can't reproduce the signal with good result (regardless of the audio format)
 

[Love Expresso]

Ah...

will have to read it once more but somehow it sounds sensible. Thank you, I will check it. Seems my WMA player has something to do with it!

Hope...

LE

[holaknopfler]

Maybe the bitrate to which you convert it is 128kbps or something. That is bad quality. You should try 320kbps, that's a lot better! 

[Jules]

The Nero Burning Rom has an utility to convert between many type of files, I always use it and its very useful...

[Fletch]

Now radio, that's bad quality! I'm amazed how many times I've heard songs on the radio and thought urgh! Then hearing a cd it becomes gorgeous! Give me mp3s over radio any day.

[Pottel]

why not just keep it as flacs and play it using the Foobar2000 player (even though i got me a codec once that enabled my windows mediaplayer to also play flac's and shn and stuff)
forget about polluting the gene pool with translating to Mp3, keep it real!

[Jules]

Winamp plays flac, you just have to download and install the plugin from his site...

Or even better, download the VCL player, it plays EVERYTHING, its free and its the best player ever. Actually the only reason because I

[Pottel]

have had too many crashes (not my puter, just the program) with vlc...only use it to play video these days. am very happy with Foobar..

[Justme]

Another point that might be important is the sampling rate ("Abtastrate") when creating an mp3 file. 44.1 kHz is standard, even for recordings on audio-cd. I don't know "Miro" in detail but I guess that you can adjust the sampling rate somewhere.

Then there is "IS joint stereo" which can make things worse (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/LAME#Joint-Stereo), try to avoid it.

You said that you were using a bitrate of 320kps, that should be enough if it is a constant rate. But if you are using a variable bit rate, also known as VBR (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitrate#Variable_Bitrate) you might experience that some portable devices play them at 64kps.

After all I may suggest winff.org for a nice tool when it comes to converting video and audio.

[Jules]

have had too many crashes (not my puter, just the program) with vlc...only use it to play video these days. am very happy with Foobar..

Its just last updates... when it happens to me I uninstall the update and go back to the previous version. I

[Love Expresso]

Blimey! 

Thank you!

LE

[vgonis]

Blimey!  

Thank you!

LE

Le, an honest question: have you really found a solution to your problem from all these answers or just thanking for the time spent? Because I have not understood the very nature of the problem in the first place. Maybe you should give us more details. Type and date of manufacture of your computer, player and headphones. Also the date of your birth, last time you visited a hearing expert and if you sing in the bathroom. Also have you considered that the recent live BD experience might have left you with a permanent hearing impediment?

Now you have to admit that these are really some stupid questions from a non technical person.