Digital data formats have long been part of our daily lives. Originally, this way of storing and transmitting information was developed for unification. Text or numeric arrays are immediately adapted for digitization, but how to "believe with algebra harmony", that is, to transfer to units and zeros images and sounds?
Content:
How to digitize analog information.
To the average user, a graphic representation of any analog signal looks like a sine wave.
To represent it in digital form, the smooth curve should be broken into a broken line, of peculiar steps. Each horizontal element determines the signal level (brightness, volume) and duration.
When digitizing, the smoothness of the sinusoid is lost. Obviously, the more often the steps are formed, the more accurately the shape of the original signal is transmitted - the quality improves.
The downside of the technology is an increase in the amount of information.
Many professional recording companies have been looking for a long time for a compromise: how to keep acceptable sound quality without turning musical fragments into huge storages of digital information, inaccessible for household use.
SONY, together with PHILIPS, found the golden mean by introducing to the world the CD DA (Compact Disc Digital Audio) format.
The duration of the digitized music was 74 minutes. Beethoven's ninth symphony was taken as the time reference: the developers set themselves the task to provide continuous sounding of this work on one side of the disc (originally all CD DA were one-sided, on the front plane there was a picture with information).
The main parameter of digitization is sampling rate: in CD DA format it is 44.1 kHz: 22.05 kHz per channel in stereo. In theory, this was enough for the vast majority of listeners: a normal person without unique abilities perceives the frequency no higher than 20 kHz. Without going into technical details, a 16-bit recording format was required to provide this sampling rate.
Further, the development of technology was aimed at data compaction, in order to fit as much music as possible into the CD format. This made it possible to "squeeze in" a sound track for video segments, and most importantly, to transmit sounds over the Internet. Of course, the inevitable decline in sound quality caused a wave of dissatisfaction among music lovers, so new digitization formats were developed in parallel, where data size did not matter.
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Hi-res music - what is it?
Originally, the term (as well as the format) was born in recording studios. The original original original digitization (the so-called "master") is made exactly at 24 bits. The sampling rate for such recording ranges from 44.2 to 88.2 kHz, or even from 48 to 192 kHz. Of course, to create and play back such a volume of digital information requires special equipment.
After obtaining the 24-bit master, the original recording was reformatted into cheaper formats for replication on CD DA or more compact mp3.
To meet the needs of true music lovers, a format has been developed that brings high-resolution art "to the masses": FLAC 24. Free Lossless Audio Codec (FLAC) technology makes it possible to create digital audio files of the same quality as a 24-bit studio master.
For clarity, let's compare a schematic digitization of the analog sine wave at different sampling rates:
The number of ones and zeros increases progressively. Hence the only disadvantage is size. Standard music composition in mp3 format with the highest possible quality (320 kbps), takes no more than 5-10 MB on the disk. The same fragment saved in the FLAC 24-bit format with a sampling rate of 192 kHz has a "weight" of 25-30 MB.
However, modern storage media are already capable of storing such volumes. And most importantly, most household equipment (including computer systems running Windows, Android, etc.) is able to play Hi-res music without delays or loss of quality.
Somewhat aside is Apple Inc, with its standalone ALAC formats, and the older AIFF, but essentially the same technology, just under a different brand name.
Where to store, and how to listen to Hi-res music?
On a modern laptop or desktop computer, hard drives are used, measured in terabytes. There seems to be no limit on capacity. But CD, DVD, and even Blu-ray video and audio libraries are slowly becoming a thing of the past, and you don't want to erase the music (or movie) you once recorded, especially if it was downloaded legally, for a fee.
There is a way out: NAS. These are relatively small boxes, with high-capacity storage devices inside. A simple network connection is sufficient to access the information.
Another advantage: to listen to your favorite fragment, you do not need to turn on a personal computer with a screen and a powerful processor. Music equipment is connected to the storage and you can get simultaneous access to different pieces of music.
What to listen to?
Have you ever seen a television set standing next to each other in a store with different physical screen resolutions, and the same Full HD picture? The TV set labeled as "Full HD compatible" has a real resolution of 1366x768 pixels. The same picture on a TV with a real Full HD screen (1920x1080) looks different, to say the least.
The same thing happens with high resolution Hi-res music. If the final sound source (speaker system or headphones) is not able to reproduce a signal of such quality - other technologies become useless. The sound will still be at the level of mp3, at best - CD DA.
Therefore, both the digital-to-analog converter, amplifier, and acoustics must match the chosen recording format.
We are not talking about mahogany with gilding. It's just that the output level of quality should be consistent with the Hi-End analog standard.
The inputs of such equipment must be digital in order to eliminate distortions in low-quality converters (standard DACs in computers, smartphones and tablets). That is, the digital data stream via a special cable (most often fiber optic) goes to the input of the amplifying equipment, and is converted there.
If you do not want to use a personal computer or mobile devices for this purpose, there are special players for high resolution Hi-res music.
Bottom line: All of the above technologies are available for all budgets. An entry level can be achieved with a computer and quality headphones (the technical level of the sound card matters!). Fans of surround sound will have to shell out money for a decent acoustic system.
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