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What is lossless? Part 3

AAC abbreviation

Advanced Audio Coding. Lossy compressed audio file format used by the iTunes Store. The extension is “.m4a”. One of the audio data compression methods included in the video data succeeding MP3 (MPEG-1 Audio Layer-3), which is a method of compressing audio data. The number of quantization bits/sampling rate supports up to 24 bits/96 kHz. However, due to lossy compression, the sound quality is lower than lossless or uncompressed audio files. Also, because it is a lossy compression, it is not called lossless or high resolution.

If I compare AAC with a letter,
I wrote a message on a new sheet of paper, but I wanted to inform the other party of the important things as soon as possible, so I cut the “beginning/end” of “beginning/middle/end” with scissors and only the ” naka”. To pass to The person receiving the letter reads the letters without knowing what the new paper and “Begin/End” text is like.

● Click here for a more detailed explanation of the above audio codec.

■ An audio codec is
a device or software that encodes sent data in the format of an audio file and decodes the encoded data back to its original state.

Let’s compare the sound quality.
How do you listen to “ALAC lossless”, “ALAC hi-res” and “AAC”? This time the singer-songwriter Moeka Giga appeared and she made us experiment listening and comparing the sound quality. We will deliver a realistic voice of Moeka Giga, if the way the sound is actually heard differs depending on the format of the sound source.

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What is lossless? Part 2

Lossy compressed sound source ⇒ Typical format: AAC, MP3

Lossy Compressed Sound Font Illustration
A format that cuts out sounds that are difficult for human audiovisual to hear and compresses the capacity to a small size. Sound quality is sacrificed and deteriorated by that amount. Since the data is actually cut, once compressed, the original sound quality will not be restored even if you return to the uncompressed format.

■ What is compression?:
Reduce the capacity of data that contains a large amount of information and preserve it as much as possible.
Also, compression can reduce the load on the terminal, but the quality is lower than the original information because the capacity is reduced.

audio codec
Abbreviation for ALAC
Apple Lossless Audio Codec. Lossless compression audio file format used in “Apple Music” music and video distribution service developed by Apple and iTunes in media player. The extension is “.m4a”. The number of quantization bits is 16, 20, 24, 32 bits. The sample rate supports from 1kHz to 384kHz. (In OTOTOY, the number of quantization bits/sampling frequency supports up to 32 integer bits/384 kHz)

If you compare ALAC with a letter,
write a message on new paper, fold it vertically and hand it to the other party. The person receiving the letter can open it when he knows that it is folded once vertically. However, after the paper is folded, a single wrinkle is formed, and although it cannot be read in the state of new paper, the characters can be read firmly.

Abbreviation for FLAC
Free Lossless Audio Codec. A lossless compressed audio file format provided free of charge. The extension is “.flac”. The number of quantization bits is from 4 bits to 32 bits. The sample rate supports from 1 Hz to 655.3 kHz. (In OTOTOY, the number of quantization bits/sampling frequency supports up to 24bit/192kHz)

If you compare FLAC with a letter, the
situation is similar to ALAC. To explain the difference, FLAC is a state where the card is folded sideways. Also, the recipient can tell that it is folded to one side and open it.

WAV
A type of RIFF (Resource Interchange File Format), which is an audio file format jointly developed by Microsoft and IBM, and defines a method of storing various data in a file. It is generally an uncompressed audio file format, but the data format is free and it is also possible to store compressed data such as MP3 and WMA. In RIFF, the identifier is “WAVE”, but the extension is “.wav”, and it has come to be called WAV to distinguish the pronunciation sound from the web.

If you compare WAV with a letter,
write a message on new paper and deliver it to the other party without wrinkles. The person receiving the letter can read the letters in new paper condition.

What is lossless?

In June 2021, Apple Music lifted the ban on hi-res and lossless, with “lossless” attracting attention.

Do you correctly understand the meaning of the word “lossless” when looking at this page? What does “lossless” mean here? Higashihara, a new editor, had doubts about the meaning and sound quality of the word “lossless”, so I did some serious research. We also have a sound source that you can download for free, so let’s get to know each other while listening to them.

sound quality

Sound source data equivalent to a lossless CD sound source (16-bit/44.1 kHz). There are uncompressed sound sources and lossless compressed sound sources that can be compressed and stored without deterioration. In the sense that there is no “loss” due to compression (less), CD sound quality data is generally referred to as such.

Sound source data with a quantization bit rate/sampling frequency (24 bit/44.1 kHz or higher) that exceeds Hi-Res CD sound source (16 bit/44.1 kHz). For that amount, the capacity will be larger than the CD sound quality sound source data, but since the data can express more delicate expressions, a deeper sound can be heard.

● Click here for a more detailed explanation of the above high resolution.

■ The sound quality is
sound and voice quality. Sound has the following three aspects, and sound quality is determined by exerting these properties on each other.
1. Aspects such as physical signs
2. Aspects of auditory psychoacoustics of hearing humans
3. Aspects of expression expressed by a collection of sounds such as voice and music

Also, the following three units are important for measuring sound quality. ..

(1) bit (quantization bit number)
A value that shows how precisely the intensity of the sound can be expressed (large and small). The lower the number, the smaller the sound will be recognized as noise, and the higher the number, the more detailed the sound will be reproduced.

(2) kHz (sampling frequency)
A value indicating how many times per second the original sound is sampled (sampled) when digitizing. The greater the number of samples (the larger the value), the finer the data can be.

③ Bit rate
Abbreviation for bit per second. A value indicating how much data was transferred per second when sending and receiving data. If the pulse rate is high, a lot of data can be transferred and smooth data can be received, and if it is low, little data can be transferred and the data will be interrupted.

compression performance
Reversible compression sound source ⇒ Representative form な: ALAC, FLAC

Lossless compressed sound source diagram
* This diagram shows the quality of the sound when it is compressed and then uncompressed.
A data format that reproduces the quality of the original sound by reducing the storage capacity (compression) of the sound source data according to the rules of each format (codec) and expanding it according to the playback rules. It has less capacity than the uncompressed format, but it cannot reduce data capacity as much as the lossy compressed format. Since data capacity can be reduced without degrading sound quality, this compression format is often used when dealing with lossless (CD-equivalent sound quality) and high-resolution sound sources.

Uncompressed sound source ⇒ Typical format: WAV, AIFF

Uncompressed sound source diagram
The original data format of CD sound quality (16 bit/44.1 kHz) and high resolution (24 bit/44 kHz or higher). You can of course listen to the sound quality as it is. In the old days, the amount of data was said to be relatively large depending on the compressed sound source, but that was 20 years ago too.