What does the quality of an mp3 or audio file depend on?
How to improve audio quality?
In essence and in a very synthetic way we could say that there are two basic factors, always assuming that the original had quality.
We also assume that high quality software such as Mp4Gain is used.
The first thing is to understand that music or sound is generated by a vibration in the air, which draws waves or can be represented by waves with different curvatures.
Quality would be, strictly speaking, being able to capture those waves with the greatest detail in order to reproduce them basically identical.
If we understand that as the most simplified, but descriptive, definition of quality of an mp3 or audio, then we can begin to understand where the issue is going.
If we have a file using 8-bit values we have the possibility of having a maximum value of 255 (which is 0 dBfs), anything above those 255 (0 db) would be clipping, distortion, saturation.
Any sound that clips or saturates would be poor quality.
We can have two combinations, made up of many different options, if we talk about gain/volume.
Gain, to put it more simply, is the power of a sound input. If the sound has a weak input power, we increase the gain… we increase the input.
Volume would be, again simplifying, the output power of that signal or sound and for this we adjust the output, the amplification.
Again, Mp4Gain can handle all of this in a very advanced way.
