What is the bit rate?
Bit rate is the amount of data per unit of time used to transmit an audio stream. For example, a bit rate of 128 kbps means 128 kilobits per second and means that 128 thousand bits are used to encode one second of audio (1 byte = 8 bits). If we translate this value into kilobytes, it turns out that one second of sound occupies about 16 KB.
Therefore, the higher the bit rate of the track, the more space it will take up on your computer. But at the same time, within the framework of a format, a higher bit rate allows you to record sound with higher quality. For example, if you convert audio-cd to mp3, then at 256 kbps bit rate, the sound will be much better than at 64 kbps bit rate.
Since now disk space has become quite cheap, we recommend converting to mp3 with a bitrate of at least 192 kbps.
Also distinguish between constant and variable bit rates.
Variable (VBR) constant bit rate difference (CBR)
With a constant bit rate, the same number of bits is used to encode all sections of the sound. But the structure of the sound is usually different and, for example, encoding silence requires significantly fewer bits than encoding rich sound. The variable bit rate, in contrast to the constant one, automatically adjusts the quality of the encoding, depending on the complexity of the sound at certain intervals. That is, for sections that are simple from the point of view of encoding, a lower bit rate will be used, and for complex ones, a higher value will be used. Using a variable bit rate allows you to achieve higher sound quality with a smaller file size.
What is the sample rate?
This concept arises when converting an analog signal into digital and means the number of samples (signal level measurements) per second that are carried out to convert the signal.
What is the number of responsible channels?
A channel for audio encoding is a separate audio stream. Mono: one stream, stereo: two streams. The abbreviation nm is often used to indicate the number of channels, where n is the number of full audio channels and m is the number of low-frequency channels (for example, 5.1).
