Your observation is accurate. An MP3 is a compressed file, a wave is not. MP3s leave out certain information that the human ear is less likely to hear, which results in a conveniently smaller file, but lower quality. If you do not need a small file, stick with the wave file. If you do need a small file for the web or an MP3 player, you are somewhat stuck with the degraded quality, though MP3s at a rate of about 160 kb/sec or higher are much closer to the original in terms of quality.