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Don't know much about audio formats at a deep level.

Is it possible to convert a 320kbps mp3 into a 48k wav without losing quality? Or, is 48k wav a superior quality format? Trying to optimize my workflow.

Yes. You will not lose the quality that is contained in the mp3. Why you would do that I don't know unless you were going to mix it with other wavs. You've already lost the quality when it was converted from wav to mp3. Probably won't make much difference if you then mix down to mp3 again. I suppose it depends on how you parse the word quality and how accurate you think the mp3 processed the parts that weren't considered quality.

As far as bit rate kbps, the mp3 44.1khz 16 bit stereo = 320kbps, a wav 44.1khz, 16 bit stereo = 1411kbps, a wav 48khz, 16bit stereo = 1536kbps, and a wav 48khz, 24bit stereo = 2304kbps
Of course you can have mp3 44.1khz 16 bit stereo that are 128kbps, ...

It almost seems silly now, with all the cheap space and faster internet to even consider mp3 anymore.

That's backwards. Why would you convert an mp3 to a wav?

Yea bro if a lib or anyone needs a hifi wav from you, you have to rebounce the wav. Once converted to mp3 it's already been squashed. To convert back to wav will definitely give u a wav file but the audio quality will match the mp3.

Len911 wrote:As far as bit rate kbps, the mp3 44.1khz 16 bit stereo = 320kbps, a wav 44.1khz, 16 bit stereo = 1411kbps, a wav 48khz, 16bit stereo = 1536kbps, and a wav 48khz, 24bit stereo = 2304kbps

THIS is the meat I was looking for.

As to the WHY I would do this: I bounce projects to .mp3 320k. If a track gets signed I go back to the project to create the various edits and bounce it to the format the library wants, some want 44.1 wav, others want 48 wav, some want AIFF. Earlier this year I lost a hard drive that had a lot of my 2015 projects on it. Some of those tracks were accepted by a library this year but without the project files I couldn't go back and recreate them in the proper format. So, I wanted to convert them to meet the library format need.

This, of course, leads me to the question: how many people can actually hear the difference between a 320kbps mp3 and a 48k wav? Perhaps a few audiophiles out there, but based on my librarian/supervisor interaction I don't think many can. While we are at it we can also debate Windows vs. Mac, National League vs American League, old Star Trek vs. TNG, Coke vs. Pepsi, and who is the best Bond actor.

Len911 wrote:
As far as bit rate kbps, the mp3 44.1khz 16 bit stereo = 320kbps, a wav 44.1khz, 16 bit stereo = 1411kbps, a wav 48khz, 16bit stereo = 1536kbps, and a wav 48khz, 24bit stereo = 2304kbps
Of course you can have mp3 44.1khz 16 bit stereo that are 128kbps, ...

Len's post is correct except for this quote; the only way the first statement is true is if you take out all the "=" signs. They are in no way, shape or form equivalent because MP3 is a lossy format, meaning information is thrown out; WAV, BWAV and AIFF are lossless formats regardless of bit depth (actually the length of a data word) and sample rate.

Kbps means kilobits per second or how many thousand bits represent one second of audio, post-conversion; a measure of resulting file size OR exactly how much data got thrown out.

But mainly, reconverting back to WAV or AIFF shouldn't sound any worse. I know people say 320kBPS is indistinguishable from 16-bit 44.1kHz CD quality, but it just ain't so, at least not if your monitors are any good, and with dither, higher-resolution files can retain a lot of their finer details when downsampling to the CD standard, if there are any left after all the compressing and auto-tuning. Sooo, theoretically a CD can have better than CD quality audio, but an MP3 cannot, unless it's the same size as the original file, and probably not even then.

I recommend you dither when downsampling and back up your high-res files.

This, of course, leads me to the question: how many people can actually hear the difference between a 320kbps mp3 and a 48k wav? Perhaps a few audiophiles out there, but based on my librarian/supervisor interaction I don't think many can.

https://youtu.be/3VJsNb5YquQ

There's a way to find out for sure,lol! You can even listen to the difference. In Wavelab you can also compare the difference in the files.

Paulie wrote: This, of course, leads me to the question: how many people can actually hear the difference between a 320kbps mp3 and a 48k wav?

Actually more distinguishable than you may think. Throw the 2 tracks into an equalizer with an analyser and you will see very clearly how much top end gets rolled off. Even if the lib doesn't notice, someone down the line might when choosing your track for placement. Also depends on type of dither used and other factors during bouncedown. I'll send u a funny meme about this. Ozone 7 has a nice feature where u can listen to what the mix will sound like as an mp3, at diff rates, and can adjust your mix accordingly since you know it will end up being an mp3 at some point.

In your situation you don't have much choice but to convert back to wav and hope for the best. Maybe bring your mp3 back into daw and upconvert and oversample as well as hishelf a bit...before bouncing back to wav...