Milan, 9 december 2018 -The way we listen to music has changed over the years. Digital files have replaced physical formats. It doesn’t matter if your stream your music or download it.

There are different formats like MP3 and AAC. Each is compressed in small file sizes. The issue is, they possibly sound different while having the same content. Why does it happen? And how can we fix it? Following, we will explain it in detail.

How Does Compression Work?

Digital Music Loses Lossy Compression. Some data may be stripped from the original file to compress it. The lost data can never be restored.  But the data is not removed randomly. The file format software uses Psychoacoustics to work around the restrictions of human hearing.

Therefore, these programs strip out the data we were not able to realize existed in the first place.

The Human Issue

Human hearing is only effective within the range of 20Hz-20kHz. Therefore, anything beyond the given range is nearly impossible for us to notice.

We lose our hearing ability with age. Therefore, we can’t hear the same thing the same way over again and again.

There are certain frequencies that the human ear can listen. If you try to listen to these frequencies, these can damage your ear.  Higher frequencies are hard to hear if loud and low frequencies surround them. A persistent drum beat is mostly down out by subtleties in a recording.

How does it work?

Compression takes advantage of this with Masking. Masking is where the louder and lower frequency covers up the loss of a higher but quieter frequency.

This is done throughout the frequencies range but sounds with over 15kHz are more prone to it. Therefore, most of the data that is stripped of compression is useless.

Possible Issues?

Yes, some music junkies argue that compression removes fewer tangible aspects which are ambiance or space. It leaves only 2D sound. However, they miss the point completely which is to get the balance between size and quality. If you want the best quality, don’t convert,use youtube video downloader.

Bitrate

Also known as Bit Rate, this plays an important role to determine the size of a file. This is simply not the indicator of sound quality. It only shows the level of compression. Therefore, you can have a vague idea of what to expect.

• Different Codec has different levels of efficiency. The two file formats are encoded at the same bitrate so that the quality will be different
• Even if you have the same format, the software used for compress matters. Some encoders are better than others. Some encoders even have different quality settings with the same bitrate Faster Processing most of the time impairs quality output
• Its imperative that you process the right type of audio. The human voice has the frequency of 85Hz to 300Hz It can handle more compress without losing quality, unlike orchestral music

Bitrate is measured in KBPS. A CD has 1411KBPs bitrate; this suggests area re 1,411,00 bits of data for every second of the song. The MP3 format is compressed at 320 kbps. This Bitrate is believed to be the best quality available for the common audience.

L. M.