Are your ears worthy of your headphones?


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Are your ears worthy of your headphones?…

Audio Quality
Audio Quality

The process of human hearing sound is very complicated.

Audio Quality
Audio Quality

But compared to the metaphysics of headphones and audio, the complexity of the human ear is basically not worth mentioning. But before we get into whether Beats is shallow, whether Sony is good, and whether headphone noise reduction is good for your ears, let’s take a look at what we’re talking about when it comes to sound quality. It may be that when you feel that the sound quality of a certain headset is not good, the problem is in your ears or in the sound file itself.

01 What is sound quality?

The essence of music and sound is the vibration of air, and sound quality is generally attributed to three aspects: volume, pitch, and timbre.

Everyone knows the volume and the tone is Do Re Mi Fa Sol La Ti. And what is the tone?

The American National Standards Institute defines timbre as “…a sensory attribute by which a listener can judge that two tones of the same volume and pitch are not the same.” We can tell the difference between a guitar playing a 440Hz tone and a piano playing a 440Hz tone.

The sound reproduced by different headphones is different, and the timbre is also different. However, in terms of volume, different headphones will also have a certain volume difference due to different internal circuitry; as for the tone, there is no obvious change without accident.

02Digital recording and analog recording

There is no doubt that pre-CD audio carriers: magnetic tapes, vinyl records, etc., are all analog recording products. The word “analog” is also translated as “analog”, in short, it restores and reproduces the vibration in the air at that moment in a physical way. Whether it’s vinyl or tape, physical features such as bumps, depressions, or magnetic dust splits on tape or disc are used to restore the vibrance detail of the audio.

But in the age of CDs and computers, all audio vibrations are converted to 0 or 1 on the surface of the disc and go into the so-called binary algorithm. After decoding, it is restored to physical vibration.

In popular music recordings, there are probably three most common formats:

44.1 kHz, 16-bit waveform

320kb mp3

128kb mp3


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Mp3, is it the best format for music and sound?

Mp3, is it the best format for music and sound?

best format for music and sound
best format for music and sound

People are looking for the best audio and video quality in 2022, what is it?

best format for music and sound
best format for music and sound

If you are seriously looking for high-quality audio and video, we advise you to stay away from the data-throwing fundamentalists and adopt a more practical attitude.

First of all you must ask yourself, on which devices will you listen to the audio or see the videos.

We have listened to dozens of fundamentalists who use numbers and certain statements as dogmas and have turned even this discussion of quality into a dogma.

And that is diametrically different from the simple my real aspiration to really enjoy the best audio and video quality that your equipment can deliver and that your eyes and ears are capable of detecting.

Mathematical statements are useless if you do not have an HD computer to listen to your audios and watch your videos.

Nor if the extreme is reached where the difference is already indistinguishable for 99.99% of the population.

It is fully demonstrated that for 99.99% of the population, even for those who have auditory training, an mp3 with 320 kbps and 48000 as sample rate is indistinguishable from a WAV or FLAC.

You can improve your audio with Mp4Gain regardless if you decide to continue using mp3s or prefer to switch to FLAC (Mp4Gain can convert and use these and other formats like ogg, m4a, etc)

In short, the discussion of sound quality should be based more on actually hearing the best possible audio and not a fundamentalist discussion about numbers.

The audio formats with the best sound quality

The audio formats with the best sound quality

audio formats

 

In addition, when editing, because some details have been compressed and sacrificed, the editing space is relatively small.

audio formats

It should be noted that the sound quality will be compromised every time these formats are output. After too many output programs, the quality can be terrible, so the number of times of recompression and conversion should be reduced.

Pros: small file size, maximum device compatibility

Disadvantages: destructive compression leads to loss of sound quality, less spatial flexibility for reissue

 

Resume
When it comes to sound files for editing, it’s ideal to work with uncompressed formats like .WAV or .AIFF. Such a format allows users to get the greatest degree of tolerance and freedom when editing, and most of these file formats are still supported, regardless of software or equipment. Also, when the video is output at the end of the project, the music file will still be compressed, so it’s ideal to use a file format with higher sound quality from the start, which is ideal for a project that needs to go through post-edit layers. But if it is based on the premise of convenient, fast and easy-to-use transmission, .MP3 can still meet your needs without sacrificing sound quality.

Mp4Gain is a program that allows you not only to normalize the audio of your sound or cvideo files, but also to improve the quality and offers you to perform a whole series of modifications so that you have better audio quality used.

The audio formats with the best sound quality

The audio formats with the best sound quality

audio formats
audio formats

First of all, divide all types of music files into three parts as follows:

audio formats
audio formats

 

Uncompressed file formats: .WAV, .AIFF

Lossless compression formats: .FLAC, .ALAC (Apple Lossless)

Destructive compression formats: .MP3, .AAC, .WMA, .OGG

Below are their respective advantages and disadvantages.

 

1. Uncompressed file format
Uncompressed music files are just like the concept of Raw files. Essentially no compression will of course have the best sound quality. (The sample rate and bit rate of the original recording are also very important. If the compressed music file is converted to an uncompressed file, the music won’t magically improve the sound quality.)

The most common disadvantage of uncompressed files is the file size. Generally, the file size of a song is around 25 ~ 40 MB. While that capacity is no longer an issue for cloud hard drives, it is still an issue for email. Also big (25MB max for Gmail attachments). Also, some portable music players or devices may not be able to play such music files.

Advantages: original sound reproduction, no compression, lossless, easier to use in post production

Disadvantages: large file format, fewer supported devices

 

2. Lossless compression format
The term “compressed and lossless” seems contradictory, but compression does not necessarily affect sound quality. More precisely, it’s more like “compressed to save space”. It’s like compressing a high quality file into a .ZIP and decompressing it when you want to use it, the quality of the file will not be affected.

Therefore, this type of file has a compressed capacity, but the file will be decompressed during playback to restore sound quality. Although the concept of reducing capacity without affecting sound quality is great, the downside is that support for this format is extremely low and in order to decompress the file during playback, an additional codec is required to use it, and it will. also take some performance.

Advantages: small file capacity (about 1/2 ~ 1/3 lossless files), good sound quality

Disadvantages: Decompression can eat performance when used, and support from hardware or software is extremely low

 

3. Destructive compression format
The destructive compression format is currently the most common music file format, the main reason is that it has the greatest compatibility with portable devices (mobile phones, MP3 players, etc.), and the files are small and have a space of limited storage. , users can store more music (compressed capacity is about one-tenth of lossless sound quality), and most of the music provided by today’s streaming media is files in this format. There is always a price to pay for smaller files. Compared to lossless formats, this destructive compression will affect the audio range that the original sound can present and will cause some distortion. So, to be safe, keep the compression rate above 320 kbps as much as possible.

What sound quality is best for the music we listen to in the car?

What sound quality is best for the music we listen to in the car?

Listen music in the car

There are two suggestions for car music sound quality:

Listen music in the car

1. Many music lovers, who are looking for extremely high music quality, will be interested in high quality and lossless formats like OGG, FLAC or AAC.

However, due to the limited music formats that the car can recognize, music files of the above formats may not be recognized by the car.

Let alone play it.

2. In general, in the field of car music, the most commonly used formats are MP3 and WMA.

Although these formats are not as good as the ones mentioned above in terms of sound quality, they are expensive because almost all car systems can recognize them.

So, if you want to say which music file format is the best in car music, it has to be MP3 and WMA.

What sound quality is best for the music we listen to in the car?

What sound quality is best for the music we listen to in the car?

Listen music in the car
Listen music in the car

The best audio hardware equipment is one of the most important factors that determine sound quality.

Listen music in the car
Listen music in the car

 

This is also related to the degree of distortion of the music being played, that is, how well the sound reproduction is restored.

This directly affects the mood of the listener. Because if the sound is loud and has no sense of hierarchy,

If you listen to it for a longer time, it will irritate you or make you feel dizzy when driving.

The other is to adjust the sound effect by yourself. After all, everyone’s sense of hearing is different.

It depends on what you adjust to make it comfortable to listen to. Adjust different parameters according to different types of music.

There will be unexpected effects.

I myself belong to the latter, although I am not a professional,

But with lossless sound quality (my car supports it, but it’s not a luxury car)

It can also bring out the feeling of fat low-frequency, clear mid-range, and bright highs (this takes some skill to distinguish),

But not all cars have sound quality adjustment.

As for the best car music sound quality, as mentioned in the article above, car music can download music with sound quality wav, ape, flac,

This is lossless sound quality, better than MP3 (as long as the device supports it).

Although now it connects via Bluetooth mobile phone or Baidu Carlife

Playing music online on mobile phones has become mainstream, but there are still a small number of people,

Insist on downloading via U disk, and use the car USB interface to play music.

What is the best audio format to get the best sound quality?

What is the best audio format to get the best sound quality?

Best Audio Format

Mp3, Wav, Flac… Which one is better?

Best Audio Format

We’ve heard so many discussions about whether mp3 can sound the same as wav or flac and there are advocates for both.

There are people who staunchly defend mp3 and show and prove that an mp3 generated with certain settings can sound so similar to a WAV that not even 1% of people with ear training can distinguish it.

Others, on the contrary, argue that the method used by the mp3, causes a lot of information to be discarded in order to make the file smaller and this necessarily causes the quality to be diminished.

But everyone forgets that the number one point is to think about what kind of device or audio player we will listen to the music. Because for all these niceties mentioned above to make sense, we’ll have to have equipment that can play HD audio, otherwise we won’t easily tell one from the other.

And the truth is that most people play music on a medium quality equipment in a car on a phone or on a laptop, which makes the question of whether an mp3 sounds very different from a wav is unnecessary.

Mp4Gain is a program that manages to make audio, whatever the format, sound the best it can be.

What is the best sounding audio format? Is it MP3?

What is the best sounding audio format? Is it MP3?

Best Audio Format
Best Audio Format

The audio formats with the best sound quality are

Best Audio Format
Best Audio Format

 

mp3
b, wav
c, wma
d.rm

Answer: The

B wav format files are usually stored on the computer The most widely used file format is an uncompressed format, which stores the most authentic and original sampled data, that is, the sampled data of the set frequency and bit depth they are true and lossless, like 44.1 kh/16-bit audio CD quality, other frequencies and bit depths can of course be stored.

Below are other audio file formats:

1. Format

MP3 MP3 is an audio compression technology that compresses files to a small volume on the premise of losing a certain amount of high-frequency timbre data. The highest bitrate can only reach 320K. The frequency part is basically lost.

2. Format

WMA WMA is Windows Media Audio from Microsoft. The WMA format has a higher compression rate than MP3 and the generated files are smaller. It is suitable for transmission in low-speed networks many years ago.

3. Format

FLAC FLAC is lossless audio compression. Since it is lossless compression, it will not destroy any original audio data information and can restore the sound quality of the music on the CD. FLAC is very similar to MP3, but it is lossless compression.

4. The format

APE APE is similar to FLAC and is also a lossless audio compression technology.

Something very important, that we will develop in another article and that is almost always ignored when it comes to comparing audio formats, is the equipment or device that we use to play music.

That is the point from which we should start.

Digital Audio Quality

Digital Audio Quality

Digital Audio Quality
Digital Audio Quality

Data rate refers to the data flow used by a video file in a unit of time, also called bit rate or bit stream rate.

Digital Audio Quality
Digital Audio Quality

The popular interpretation is the sampling rate, which is the most important part of image quality control in video encoding. Generally, the units we use are kb/s or Mb/s. Generally speaking, at the same resolution, the higher the code stream of the video file, the lower the compression ratio and the higher the image quality. The higher the code stream, the higher the sampling rate per unit time, the higher the data stream, the higher the accuracy, the closer the processed file is to the original file, the better the image quality, the clearer the image quality and the higher the decoding capability of the playback device is required.

Of course, the larger the code stream, the larger the file size. The calculation formula is file size = time X code rate/8. For example, a 720P RMVB file with a 1 Mbps stream of 90 minutes is common on the Internet and its volume is = 5400 seconds × 1 Mb/8 = 675 MB.

Generally speaking, a video file includes images and sounds, just like an RMVB video file, which contains video information and audio information. Audio and video have their own sampling methods and different bit rates, that is, the same video Audio and video file bit rate is not the same. And what we’re talking about is the bitrate of a video file, which generally refers to the sum of the bitrate of the audio and video information in the video file.

Taking the most popular and familiar RMVB video file in China as an example, VB in RMVB refers to VBR, which is short for Variable Bit Rate. The Chinese meaning is variable bit rate, which means that RMVB adopts dynamic encoding. In this way, a higher sample rate is used for complex dynamic images (singing and dancing, flying cars, wars, actions, etc.), while a lower sample rate is used for static images, and the resources are use rationally to achieve image quality and volume .Effect.

The most fundamental difference between code rate and sample rate is that the code rate is for the source file.

 

2. Sampling rate

Sample rate (also called sample rate or sample rate) defines the number of samples per second taken from a continuous signal to form a discrete signal, and is expressed in hertz (Hz). Sampling rate refers to the sampling frequency when converting an analog signal to a digital signal, i.e. how many points are sampled per unit of time. How many bits are in the data for a sample point? Bit rate refers to the number of bits (bits) transmitted per second. The unit is bps (bit per second). The higher the bitrate, the more data transmitted and the better the sound quality. Bit rate = sample rate x number of bits used x number of channels.

The sample rate is similar to the number of frames of moving images. For example, the sampling rate of movies is 24 Hz, the sampling rate of PAL format is 25 Hz, and the sampling rate of NTSC format is 30 Hz. When we play back the still images sampled at the same rate as the sampling frequency, we see a continuous image. In the same way, when a CD recorded at a sampling rate of 44.1 kHz is played back at the same rate, a continuous sound can be heard. Obviously, the higher the sample rate, the more coherent the sound will be heard and the picture will be seen. Of course, the sampling rate that human auditory and visual organs can distinguish is limited, which is basically higher than sound sampled at 44.1 kHz, and most people haven’t noticed the difference.

The number of digits in the sound is equivalent to the number of colors on the screen, indicating the amount of data per sample. Of course, the larger the amount of data, the more accurate the playback sound, so as not to confuse the sound. of the teapot with the train whistle. In the same way, it is more clear and precise for the image, so as not to confuse blood and ketchup. However, limited by the function of human organs, 16-bit sound and 24-bit image are basically the limits of ordinary humans, and the highest digits can only be distinguished by instruments.

Detailed Music Format Part 2

Detailed Music Format Part 2

Music Format
Music Format

Music CD

Music Format
Music Format

 

That is, CD records. A CD can play sound files of approximately 74 minutes. The Windows system comes with a CD player. Also, the software that comes with most sound cards provides CD playback functionality, and even some CD-ROM drives are offline. from computer Can be used as a stand-alone CD player when powered on.

WMA with unlimited potential

In developing its own network media service platform, Microsoft primarily promotes ASF (Audio Streaming Format), which is an open standard that supports data transmission over various networks and protocols. It supports audio, video, and a variety of other types of multimedia. And WMA is short for Windows Media Audio, which is equivalent to an ASF file that contains only audio.
The compression ratio of WMA files can be as high as 1:18 in 80kbps 44kHz mode, which is basically the same as VQF. And the compression speed is doubled compared to MP3. So it should be more competitive than VQF.

Vorbis free music format

To avoid rising royalties charged by MP3 music companies, programmers at GMGI’s iCast company developed a new free music format, Vorbis, that rivals or even exceeds MP3 in sound quality. And it will be released over the internet and can be downloaded for free without worrying about infringement issues. But MP3 has become very popular on the Internet, and Microsoft’s Windows Media technology has also started to spread, and Vorbis’s outlook is still not optimistic.

Other audio formats

AIF/AIFF: A sound file format developed by Apple, supported by the MAC platform, and supports 16-bit stereo at 44.1 kHz.
AU: SUN’s AU Compressed Sound File Format, which only supports 8-bit sound, is a commonly used sound file format on the Internet, mainly created by SUN workstations.
CDA: CD audio track file.
CMF: A MIDI-like sound file developed by CREATIVE.
DSP: Abbreviation for digital signal processing. By improving the signal processing method, sound quality will be greatly improved and songs will be more pleasing to the ear.
S3U: MP3 playback file list
RMI: MIDI Instrument Sequence

Lossy compression:

AAC – Sound quality is second only to MPC at high bit rates and looks good at both high and low bit rates. The encoding speed is too slow!
MPC: Performance is average at low bitrate, not as good as MP3 and OGG encoded by Mp3Pro, sound quality is best at high bitrate, and encoding speed is
fast.OGG: The sound quality is better at a low bitrate, and the same is true at a high bitrate. Encoding is slightly slower.
MP3 (MP3Pro): Sound quality is lower than OGG at low bit rate and other aspects are the same as MP3
WMA: High and low bit rates are average, VBR is not supported and the highest is 192Kbit/s

lossless compression:

FLAC – Worst compression ratio of the four, decent encoding speed, good platform support.
PAC: Slightly slower encoding speed, third in compression ratio, good platform support.
APE: The fastest encoding speed, the best compression rate, and the platform is generally supported.
WV: The encoding speed is very fast, the compression rate is second among the four types, and it is only supported by the Windows platform.