 CD, SACD, DVD Audio, Pure Audio Blu-ray, mp3, Flak, Weft, A-Lang, DSD, DSF, dat nummer van audiovormen is ongeveer, en veel vinden het moeilijk om te kiezen waar eigenlijk er drie groepen van audio encoding kan worden gestorven op een bepaald nummer van carriers. Nou dat is waarschijnlijk niet klaar, tijd voor een explicatie. Er zijn ongeveer twee manieren om audio-digitie te storen, linear pulsecode modulatie of linear PCM en pulse density modulatie die onder de brandname Digital Stream Direct of DSD is. Er zijn andere methoden, maar deze zijn niet gebruikt voor muziek distributie. Laten we beginnen met de latter. DSD is gebruikt op Superaudio CD en nu ook downloaden in DSD zijn er available. Deze informatie kan worden gestorven in files die DFF of DSF als extentie hebben. De techniek geeft hoog kwaliteit audio maar nooit naar een brede markt-expectatie. Voor SACDs moet je een speciaal SACD-player hebben en SACDs kunnen niet gemakkelijk worden. DSD files bought online kan op veel moderne streamers en computer DAC combinaties worden geplaatst. In SACDs, de DSD64 variant is gebruikt waar de 64 stent voor een samplingfrequentie, dat is 64x dat van een CD. De heel hoge samplingrate kan worden gebruikt sinds alleen 1 bit per sample is gebruikt. De kwaliteit is vaak bepaald tot 24 bit 352.8 kHz PCM. Ik kom terug naar PCM. Er zijn ook DSD128 en DSD256 files voor sale, hoewel hun nummer is erg bepaald. Objezijds zijn de samplingrate 2 en 4x dat van de DSD64. In theorie een hoge samplingrate biedt meer precies registratie op tot een punt waar de precies meer is dan nodig. De jury is nog steeds uit op dit subject. Van de Sony en Philips SACD format, de DVD audio was developed. In essence een DVD-Disc dat alleen contains PCM files at a higher resolution. Usually 24 bit 96 kHz zijn gebruikt, althou 24 bit 192 kHz versions are offered too, maar never of the same album an artist. Waar een limited catalog of SACD-Disc is stil voor sale, DVD audio discs are not or at least almost not. Maar de industrie tried the same trick again with pure audio blu-rays. These are blu-ray discs that contain up to 192 kHz 24 bit audio files in stereo, but can also contain surround and even doubly atmosphere files. Again with very limited success though. In the meantime, the internet had already started promoting the proletarian sharing of music, using techniques to get smaller audio files. The files on SACD are so called WAV files and are relatively big for the information they contain. When the files are copied to a hard disk, often called ripping, it therefore results in a file that has the WAV extension. Back in the day when bandwidth was scarce, the internet was slow and hard disk capacity was very expensive, the Emotion Picture Expert Group, MPEG for short, developed a system to compress video and audio files by leaving out information that will not be missed. That resulted in the MPEG 1 standard that was followed up by the MPEG 2 standard and used for DVDs. At that time the audio part, called MPEG 2 Layer 3, abbreviated to MP3, became popular met youngsters to share music over the web. They often used the 128 kbps setting that reduced the file by a factor of 10 or more. It also reduced the audio quality but when playback over PC speakers, no one will notice. The compression can be set at a higher bitrate, leading to larger files, 256 kbps is already better and 384 kbps sounds identical to the original to many that own a simple stereo in a box system. It reduces the file size to about one fifth, but the development at MPEG led to MPEG 4. There never was an MPEG 3 standard published. The MPEG 4 compression allegedly is twice as efficient as MPEG 2, meaning that for the same quality the file will be twice as small, or for the same file size you get twice the quality. For video, this codec, the technical name for such a mechanism, was called Advanced Video Codec, AVC, and is used for Blu-rays. The Audio Codec is called Advanced Audio Codec abbreviated to AAC. Apple adapted this codec and initially applied a proprietary copy protection to it. This made people believe it was an Apple format, Apple Audio Codec. It isn't. The copyright free version, also now used by Apple, is an original MPEG standard and since it is supposed to be twice as efficient as MPEG 3, I use this for mobile use, like in the car. There, the 256 kbps setting produces sufficient audio quality, but not for the home. Then a file format named Free Loslust Audio Codec, flag for short, became available dat was able to reduce a file size of a WAF file by 40-60% without degrading the sound. There have been people that heard differences between WAF and flag files and they were right. At that time decompressing flag files was not done properly on some players. Flag works about the same as zip compression on a computer. If you compress a big spreadsheet using zip and send it around the world, on the other side it can be unzipped and will contain exactly the same info. With audio, this unpacking needs to be done at sufficient speed and nowadays that's no problem at all. At the same time Apple developed their own Loslust Codec, called Apple Loslust Audio Codec or ALAC for short, or just called Apple Loslust. It's about the same as Flag and since Flag is open source, it is preferred by many. Two years ago a new way of encoding music was introduced, called Master Quality Authenticated. It comes from the understanding that our auditory system doesn't function as electronics in a linear way but has its own set of properties that we still only know and understand partly. Although it uses a mild form of lossy compression above 45 kHz and thus is not lossless in the technical bit counting sense, to me and many colleagues it does a better job in storing and reproducing audio, which to me is the point of it all. But as with any change there is a group of protesters that use all kinds of arguments to prove MQA is bad news. Please watch my playlist on MQA for more information. Thanks to the audio quality it also has the feature to store high resolution files in a file size that is about equal to WAV while it can further be compressed using FLAC. This way a high resolution audio file, say 24 bit 192 kHz, can be stored in a file that is almost equal in size to a 44.1 kHz 16 bit file. When the CD was introduced you needed to buy a CD player and CDs. Then when SACD and DVD Audio were introduced you needed to buy another player yet again. Luckily most SACD players also played DVD Audio on vice versa. Then streaming became popular and you could use your computer to play music. But since computers are not optimized for audio quality, they do sound very poor, also when you play, for instance, high quality FLAC files. So an external digital to analog converter was needed unless you use a network renderer, a playback device that is part of your stereo but gets the music over the home network from your computer or NAS. Then high res audio files became available and you needed a device that was suited for 96 kHz and later on even higher sampling rates. And for MQA you need yet another DAC or player. You might not like that, but it's the reality of a tech driven world. People that complain about having to buy a new MQA DAC should realize that they don't have to buy anything. Your old gear still works. And have been working a lot longer than their smartphone that is often replaced after only two years of use. If it isn't broken or lost sooner. If you switched to streaming, this might be of interest for you. I ripped a track from a CD and then converted it to all formats except for MQA since that can only be encoded in the studio. The track I used appeared to be one that could easily be compressed to a high degree so the FLAC and ALAC files were smaller than usual. But that's fine. Let's see. When we set the WAF file to 100%, the MQA file compressed in FLAC as usual would be around 49%. For lossless about 46%, the normal WAF file compressed with FLAC around 45%, AAC at 256kbps around 18%, MP3 at 256kbps around 16% and MP3 at 128kbps around 9%. These figures might vary depending on the music chosen and the encoding software and thus are a rough indication. Maar they are clear enough to see that using WAF is a waste of space. But it gets even more interesting if we compare the file size to the sound quality as perceived by me. I know this is purely subjective but it is also based on 45 years of listening experience and thus not completely useless. WAF is a starting point and thus is 100% audio quality. In good equipment, ALAC and FLAC sound the same and thus also score 100% while producing clearly smaller files. MQA, also based on the same WAF, has the ability to sound better since the mastering in the studio is done differently and scores 125% to my ears while the file size is almost as small as a normal FLAC. WAAC at 256kbps produces considerable smaller files at the expense of some audio quality and scores 80%. MP3 at the same bitrate produces even slightly smaller files but also further reduces the audio quality scoring 50% while MP3 at 128kbps has by far the smallest file size but also the lowest audio quality rated at 30%. Wat does this all mean? From a technical standpoint, higher sampling rates using the same technique offer potentially higher quality. That doesn't necessarily mean a recording at a higher sampling rate will absolutely sound better. A bad recording cannot be improved by a higher sampling rate nor will it compensate for poor audio equipment, although some equipment might sound better since those files are easier to convert. Maar generally higher sampling rates will offer higher audio quality. Watch my video The Truth About Nyquist and Why 192 kHz does make sense for further explanation. Now how can you obtain those files? Let me give you an overview starting with PCM44.1 kHz files that can be bought on a CD and as WAF, FLAC, ALAC and MQA files. These files might also contain 48 kHz files. The content of MQA files differs somewhat, see my video is MQA lossless for more information. 88.2 and 96 kHz 24 bit files are available on DVD Audio, Pure Audio Blu-ray and the aforementioned audio file formats. The same goes for 172.4 and 192 kHz files at 24 bit. 352.8 and 384 kHz 24 bit files are not available on disk but are supported by file formats. DSD64 is available on SACD and as DFF and DSF computer files. DSD128 en 256 are not available on disk but are scarcely available as DFF or DSF files. If you can live with lower quality, for instance for mobile use, AAC is the best choice but for home use AAC and mp3 are not for those that want quality. Let me also mention that there are many other file formats around but the ones I mention are the popular ones. If you are happy with your CD player, that's great. As long as you enjoy the music, you're fine. Seriously. And the same goes for any other system. Getting newer technologies always mean you have to invest. I already mentioned the smartphone but for a car it's the same. Whether you want airbags in every corner, distance control, hybrid tech and so on. It means you have to invest. That is the reason new tech is developed, to keep you buying and when done with some sense it is a good system. You really wouldn't like to listen to a wax roll recorder from the 8080s. A problem arises when the so called added value kicks in, also called snake oil. Whether something is snake oil or not is often hard to say without evaluating the product. I see some manufacturers getting very popular on the web by using all the right words and a too low price. Anyhow, depending on your need for quality, you can now make your own choices. I use MQA files where possible. Since you can't make MQA files yourself, you depend on what you can buy or stream. And you do need a DAC or streamer that can decode MQA. For all other music I use Flack at Home. For portable use I use AAC256. I almost never listen to headphones or in ears. I only use my smartphone for music in my car. There I find AAC256 more inadequate. In this video I mentioned some other videos I made. When you watch this video in a browser you have seen links to the right of me and you will see them at the end of this video after the book promotion. The links are also listed below this video in YouTube. If you have enjoyed this video, give it a thumbs up. You can also subscribe to this channel or follow me on Twitter, Facebook or Google Plus for info or more videos. See the show notes for the links. Please consider supporting the channel through Patreon or Paypal. Any financial support is much appreciated. De links zijn in de show notes, just as the links to the description of my three setups. Help me to help even more people enjoying music at home by telling your friends on the web about this channel. I am Hans Beekhuyzen, thank you for watching and see you in the next show or on theHBproject.com. And whatever you do, enjoy the music.