(Though, as you can see in the screenshot below, the actual bit rate of a high-resolution audio file is much higher than that of a CD or of a file ripped in a lossless format.)Ī good example of music with a very broad dynamic range is Mahler’s third symphony. This is the number of bits in each sample, and it mostly affects dynamic range, which is the difference between the softest and loudest parts of the music. When we talk about bits in high-resolution audio, we’re not looking at the bit rate, which I discussed above, but the bit depth. What iTunes calls the sample size is the bit depth.
You can see that the bit rate is much higher than for a standard lossless file. ITunes showing information about a high-resolution audio file.
DSD is used on SACDs, or Super Audio CDs, a format designed by Sony and Philips that is pretty much deceased. And there are also several types of DSD (direct-stream digital) files, which use a different recording method. Some companies sell files at 24/192 and 24/384. Much high-resolution audio is 24-bit, 96 kHz, often abbreviated as 24/96. So high-resolution audio has a bit depth and/or sample rate that exceeds that of the CD specification (known as the Red Book standard). High-resolution audio is defined by certain numbers: the bit depth of files, and their sample rate.ĬDs contain 16-bit audio at a sample rate of 44,100 Hz. Strictly speaking, high-resolution audio is distributed in files that are “better” than CD quality. Neil Young’s beleaguered PonoPlayer raised awareness of this type of digital audio. High-resolution audio, once a niche format, has gotten a lot of press recently. Audiobooks are often ripped at 32 kbps, and they sound fine. If you’re ripping audiobooks or other spoken word recordings, you can use much lower bit rates, since the range of the human voice is quite narrow.
256 vs 320 kbps portable#
If you’re ripping music to a lossy format, it’s good to choose the iTunes default of 256 kbps, unless you need to cram a lot of music onto your portable devices. The complexity and volume of the music affect the final bit rate needed for lossless compression. The first album is a chamber ensemble, and the second solo piano. You can see the bit rates vary from 353 kbps to 845 kbps. Here are two albums I converted to Apple Lossless. Lossless compression uses as many bits as needed, and no more. Two tracks on the same album, ripped to a lossless format, may have bit rates of, say, 400 kbps and 900 kbps, yet when played back, they both reproduce the original audio from CD at the same level of quality. The bit rate of a lossless file depends on the density and the volume of its music. However, with lossless files, this isn’t true. As such, you can convert from one lossless format to another with no loss of quality.Ī higher bit rate is better, so a 256 kbps MP3 or AAC file is better than a 128 kbps file. When you rip or convert an uncompressed audio file to a lossless format, and then play that file, it is a bit-perfect copy of the original (assuming the data was read correctly from a CD). Choose the one you want to use in iTunes > Preferences > General > Import Settings. ITunes can rip or import audio files in these formats. However, if you use iTunes and Apple hardware, you’ll only encounter WAV, AIFF, MP3, AAC, and Apple Lossless, at least for music. Some of these codecs are lossy, and some are lossless. These include Ogg Vorbis, Monkey’s Audio, Shorten, and others. You may see other audio formats too, though they are less common. While Apple adopted it early on in iTunes, Apple was not involved in its creation, and has no ownership of this format.)
256 vs 320 kbps mp4#
(AAC, which stands for Advanced Audio Coding, is, in reality, the MP4 format, the successor to the older MP3. Lossy includes the ubiquitous MP3 and AAC formats.
256 vs 320 kbps free#
Lossless includes formats (or codecs, short for coder-decoder algorithms) such as Apple Lossless and FLAC (the Free Lossless Audio Codec). There are two types of compression: lossless and lossy. As such, digital audio files are compressed to save space.