How to improve SQ - part 1

The Meat of the System - Source File


Okay here I wanna talk about the first of the many methods of how to improve the sound from your music system, by improving the source file. Good news is that this is one of the most effective upgrade you can make so here we go.

There are numerous digital formats in which sound files are stored in a computer (I'm assuming that no one is using analog files such as tapes anymore). However, there are just two that I would recommend as they are fairly compatible now with most digital music players. They also do not have any digital rights management (DRM) features that may make them difficult or impossible to copy and play.

.mp3 – By far the most common way music is stored on computers and portable music players. This is a “lossy” format, which means that the stored music is not a bit-for-bit perfect copy of the original. A complex algorithm is used to reduce the amount of data it takes to store the music. The advantage is that it takes less hard drive space to store your music; the disadvantage is that the quality of audio will be reduced quite significantly depending on the encoding bitrate selected.

.flac (Free Lossless Audio Codec) - Is a "lossless" digital audio format that is compressed such that the file size is reduced significantly without any information being lost. Digital audio compressed by FLAC's algorithm can typically be reduced to 50–60% of its original size, and can be decompressed into an identical copy of the original audio data. Since this format replicates exactly the original sound file while being compressed, it is usually the format of choice for archiving music collection. It takes a lot of disk space though.

If you’re a dedicated MAC, iPhone, iPad or iPod user, and are willing to accept that some file formats may not be playable on your oh-so-wondrous Apple hardware, there are three more formats worth considering: .aiff, .aac or .alac




End words, so to Lossy or Lossless?
Hard drive space is quite inexpensive these days, so there is little penalty for storing all your music in lossless .flac files for your music system. However, since it lets you put four times as much music on your portable player I generally recommend high bit-rate (192-320 kbps) .mp3 files for your music library if you’re going to be using a portable player regularly. Personally, I'd go for the best. Cheers.

Introduction

Hi there, let me start of with a brief introduction of myself. My name is Jonathan, and I live in a beautiful and peaceful country in the southeast of Asia called Malaysia. As of this post I'm 22 years of age and currently a student taking Financial Accounting.

My journey in the audiophilia world started out back in the year 2010, it was when I bought a full sized headphone with built-in mic for Skype usage priced around RM50. Then it struck me, the headphone sounded very harsh to the point it was annoying and the bass were very minimal in both quality and quantity. Since then I've been in this journey of getting the best sound quality out of just a decent budget. :) 

Photo courtesy of headphonia.com 

By now you should have guessed that I enjoy my music by using headphones. You asked why? Well, because while headphones are very small in size in comparison to their full size 'Hi-Fi' brothers, I think they (headphones) have the ability to produce the same sound quality at a way lower price point. And not forgetting some of them are small enough to be portable, meaning you can enjoy high fidelity music anywhere you go. Ain't that cool?


From Wikipedia:
Headphones are a pair of small loudspeakers which are designed to be held in place close to a user's ears. Headphones have wires which allow them to be connected to a signal source such as an audio amplifier, radio, CD player, or portable media player. They are also known asstereophones or, colloquially, cans. The in-ear versions are known as earphones or earbuds. In terms of telecommunication, the term headset is used to describe a combination of headphone and microphone.


Read more about headphones here





Plain and simple, because most of them sound "G 'double-O' D"
If you love listening to music, then you owe it to yourself to listen to them in the way it was meant to be heard, how it was originally compose by the musician. Because seriously, listening music through cheap headphone that comes with your mp3 player or smartphone, you're missing a lot on the musicality of music.


A lot of people asked me, is getting expensive headphone worth the money? The answer is not always plain and simple 'yes'. Sure, chances of getting a good sounding headphone that costs a lot are high. But if we're talking about headphones that are overrated like "Beats by Dr. Dre" then it's a whole different story. Well, they don't actually sound bad, but for the money that you're paying for them you can actually get something a lot better. So in simple words, not worth it.


This simply means that you don't really need to spend a fortune in order to enjoy high quality music. Just do some research online for what's good and what's not or head to your local store to try out some headphones that fit your budget then let your ears decide for you.


As always, enjoy the music.. :)