# mp3 Q **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 14, 2005, 7:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mp3-q/335554 "2005-12-14T07:52:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Declan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecae2f/32.png) [@Declan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Declan)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2005, 7:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mp3-q/335554/1 "2005-12-14T07:52:03Z")
Can an MP3 encoded song , be converted back to a wav file ? Declan ---
**Author:** ![Garfield226](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Garfield226](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Garfield226)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2005, 7:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mp3-q/335554/2 "2005-12-14T07:55:03Z")
Yes. Google “mp3 to wav”. You’ll likely lose quality though. ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2005, 7:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mp3-q/335554/3 "2005-12-14T07:55:29Z")
Yes. If you use [Winamp](http://www.winamp.com), push CTRL-P to get into the Preferences. Then, under “Plug-ins… Output”, choose the Nulllsoft Disk Writer plug-in. Configure it (the only thing you should have to change is the output directory), play the song, and you’ll get a .WAV. Change the output plugin back to DirectSound or WaveOut after you’re done to get normal playback back. If you don’t use Winamp, you can either download it for this purpose or find a utility made to do this. ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2005, 7:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mp3-q/335554/4 "2005-12-14T07:57:18Z")
> [@](#): > > You’ll likely lose quality though. Are you sure about that? I didn’t think there was quality loss since you’re not re-encoding anything, just decompressing the MP3 like you would if you wanted to simply play it back. ---
**Author:** ![Declan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecae2f/32.png) [@Declan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Declan)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2005, 8:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mp3-q/335554/5 "2005-12-14T08:02:06Z")
> [@Garfield226](#): > > Yes. Google “mp3 to wav”. You’ll likely lose quality though. I get nothing on the car stereo anyways with mp3’s, thanks for the replys all Declan ---
**Author:** ![Billy\_Powell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e8c25b/32.png) [@Billy\_Powell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Billy_Powell)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2005, 8:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mp3-q/335554/6 "2005-12-14T08:08:07Z")
No necessary loss in quality. If you were to take that uncompressed WAV and recompress it, however, you might miss some of that important information. If you don’t like Winamp – try Foobar2000 or RazorLAME (frontend for lame.exe, which is _the_ mp3 encoder to download – likely Winamp uses it as well). No real point, unless you want an audio CD made of the material or you want to import it into an editing program. You won’t gain any information that was already lost during the initial encoding(s). So, actually, the answer is, “No, you can’t convert an mp3 _back_ to a WAV” – you can just switch formats and make the same file bigger. ---
**Author:** ![Declan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecae2f/32.png) [@Declan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Declan)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2005, 9:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mp3-q/335554/7 "2005-12-14T09:21:09Z")
> [@Billy Powell](#): > > No real point, unless you want an audio CD made of the material or you want to import it into an editing program. You won’t gain any information that was already lost during the initial encoding(s). So, actually, the answer is, “No, you can’t convert an mp3 _back_ to a WAV” – you can just switch formats and make the same file bigger. Thanks again Declan ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2005, 10:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mp3-q/335554/8 "2005-12-14T10:00:59Z")
You shouldn’t actually lose anything by converting an MP3 to a WAV, as long as the sampling rate remains constant (this isn’t the same as the bit rate), however, in the process of _originally encoding the MP3_, information has already been discarded; converting back to WAV will not bring it back.