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Subject:Best Quality?
Posted by: penseur99
Date:2/23/2003 8:58:43 PM

I wonder witch format type I should use to get the best quality of sound? wav, pca, w64, vox, ivc, dig. I don't mind ram space, I want the best, uncompress.

Any of these that change the quality each time I re-save? like jpeg with picture, you know?

Any one I should avoid?

Subject:RE: Best Quality?
Reply by: Engineer
Date:2/23/2003 10:23:04 PM

I would say that the best sound quality would be WAV. Any type that compresses the file usually degrages the quality.

Subject:RE: Best Quality?
Reply by: philsayer
Date:2/24/2003 3:32:01 PM

Sound Forge is a wave file editor, so whichever format you save in, it'll be converted to a .wav when you open it.

Therefore, the ideal save format is .wav. Other formats, which almost all use file-compression, will inevitably degrade the file - and the more you re-open it and save it in those other formats, the more pronounced the effect will be.

Subject:RE: Best Quality?
Reply by: musicvid10
Date:2/24/2003 8:38:12 PM

The exception is the Sonic Foundry .pca format, which is a lossless compressor. Although not compatible with third party software, I use it a lot for archiving. If you are storing a lot of audio, the modest compression is welcome.

Subject:RE: Best Quality?
Reply by: penseur99
Date:2/25/2003 3:36:42 AM

thanks for the answers, and I am happy to see that I was using the good format.

Subject:RE: Best Quality?
Reply by: PixelStuff
Date:2/27/2003 12:10:58 AM

I believe that *.aif files are uncompressed also. Though it is generally used on the Macs.

JBJones

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