Sound quality
Although sound quality can be objectively measured with special instruments and devices, most people do not have such tools or knowledge to use them. To some extent, quality can be judged subjectively, but this is not a reliable method. This article will help you decide what to focus on in terms of sound quality.
MP3 is one of the most popular audio formats and a significant part of music is stored / distributed in this format. It is a lossy audio compression format, which means that the MP3 copy is slightly worse than the original. Some parts of the audio information are discarded when converting audio to MP3. Like other modern lossy audio compression formats, it uses what is called “perceptual encoding.” This method mainly discards audio data that the human ear cannot pick up.
The main advantage of all lossy formats is the small file size (compared to lossless formats). Due to “perceptual encoding”, this does not always mean that “lossy” files sound worse than “lossless” files. An MP3 file with a decent bit rate and frequency can only lose inaudible information. However, it should be noted that ear sensitivity is different for different people, so “inaudible” is a relative property.
An MP3 file has three main parameters: number of channels (stereo, mono, and joint stereo options), frequency (sampling), and bit rate. Stereo MP3 files of 44 kHz and 128 kbps are considered “sufficient” for music (at lower bit rates and frequencies, the quality decreases too much), but 192 kbps and more are recommended. Using bit rates higher than 320 Kbps is pointless as the size of such files is close to the size of “lossless” files, but compression is still lossy.
Lossless compression formats retain all the information in the original audio file, which means that they are identical copies of the audio. On the other hand, they are larger (sometimes significantly larger) than the same audio in lossy formats. Examples of lossless audio compression formats: FLAC, APE, WAV, MPC, etc.
For backups, lossless compression formats are the best option. Lossy formats are ideal for portable devices – the smaller file size allows you to store more songs in the limited space of the device. Although some portable players support lossless formats, the use of such formats on such devices is rarely justified.
It is possible to convert from lossy to lossless format, but we will get large files with the same quality. Even though this kind of conversion doesn’t make sense, at least it won’t do any harm. As another example, we can consider converting a 128 Kbps MP3 to 320 Kbps. In this case, we not only get large files, but also of poorer quality. Remember that MP3 is a lossy audio compression format, which means that every time we convert to this format, some of the audio data is discarded.
