Music Compression Format and Acoustics

Feb 12, 2013 | 0 comments posted by Vincent Zhang

Most of us like to enjoy HIFI music from speaker reproduction in our living room or a dedicated listening room .However, no matter how hard you try, music will never sound as good at home as it does in the studio. That’s not because consumers don’t have great speakers. It’s because of file compression. While it’s an in-depth subject perhaps suited for another time, it is worth noting that video files endure the same compression process. Ever find a noticeable difference in audio and visual quality when playing a video on a tablet versus a TV? Compression is to blame as well.

Wistao is passionate about audio quality. Why? Because a great song can be inspirational, spark dreams, and may change your lives. While compression standards allow users to carry more media with them, it can also directly affect the quality of the audio. Understanding compression is key to creating a high quality listening experience.

Generally, there is two kinds of music format .Let’s start to take a look those file compressions: Lossy and Lossless.

Lossy is the most common type of compression. It’s responsible for MP3, AAC, and WMA formats you’ll find most when downloading or ripping music. It works by sorting through the file’s code and eliminating redundancies, which is similar to removing extraneous “and’s” or “the’s” in a written paragraph. Those redundancies are often not perceptible to the human ear until a song is amplified on a well-built speaker. But while often frustrating, this allows files to be compressed 10 to 12 times smaller than the original.

Lossless is the compression type most favored by audiophiles because like the name implies, it doesn’t lose any of the quality. The process is more complicated than using a Lossy method. Algorithms create reference points throughout the file, stores them in a digital catalogue, and then sends that catalogue down the line to its final state as a fully compressed file in either a ALAC, FLAC, or AIFF format.

In February 2012, Apple quietly released this new addition to the iTunes store. It features songs that Apple technicians have personally ”encoded as AACs, rather than relying on a standardized encoding process, to handle the compression correction.” , the person of Apple said. Basically, users get the same benefits of song portability without compromising audio quality. This is why you can hear better acoustics of iPhone 5 than other smart phones. And Wistao Bluetooth speaker is always a partner of Apple Bluetooth enabled devices.

In the world of instant gratification, many consumers probably don’t care to spend time distinguishing between compressed song files. That Maroon 5 song just has to be played. Luckily there’s a decent alternative that provides the utmost quality: “Mastered for iTunes.”