What Contributes to Audio Quality?
Audio quality has come a long way from the days of handheld transistor radios and mono tunes issuing from the AM dial. Today’s home and portable audio devices not only offer stereo and surround sound, but also employ digital technology to replicate original recordings exactly. Add to this the ability to carry an entire music library on a small chip, and we seem to have entered the perfect audio world. However, there are still things we can do to tweak audio quality. For portable devices, it comes down to file type, as compression can degrade audio quality. For home theater systems, hardware makes the difference. Portable audio quality: Audio files come in different formats, with larger files generally maintaining the highest audio quality. Wave files, for example, are a popular format for ripping compact disc (CD) music because they maintain the same audio quality as the original recording. Every variance in every note and every nuance and tone is preserved in a lengthy trail of bits.
Audio quality has come a long way from the days of handheld transistor radios and mono tunes issuing from the AM dial. Today’s home and portable audio devices not only offer stereo and surround sound, but also employ digital technology to replicate original recordings exactly. Add to this the ability to carry an entire music library on a small chip, and we seem to have entered the perfect audio world. However, there are still things we can do to tweak audio quality. For portable devices, it comes down to file type, as compression can degrade audio quality. For home theater systems, hardware makes the difference. Portable audio quality: Audio files come in different formats, with larger files generally maintaining the highest audio quality. Wave files, for example, are a popular format for ripping compact disc (CD) music because they maintain the same audio quality as the original recording. Every variance in every note and every nuance and tone is preserved in a lengthy trail of bits
