![]() Now, you may have heard of sample rates higher than 44.1 kHz (from 48 kHz all the way up to 192 kHz). So, at the same time that 16-bit was chosen as the standard bit depth for CDs, 44.1kHz was chosen as the standard sample rate because it includes the full range of frequencies that humans can hear. For a human with absolutely perfect hearing, that range is from 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz (or 20 kHz). You’re probably familiar with a dog whistle, which produces a sound at such a high frequency that we as humans cannot hear it, while dogs can.Īs with the range of quiet-to-loud sounds that a human can hear (discussed above), there is also a finite range of frequencies we can hear. Our ears can only hear within a certain range of frequencies. Sample Rate (or: Can you hear the really high elements and the really low elements?)įirst off, a quick refresher on frequencies. Why would a song be recorded at a bit depth higher than 16-bit then, if 16-bit covers the full range of loudness that we would want to hear in music? We’ll get to that in a moment. At this bit depth, we should be able to hear the absolute quietest sound in a track, as well as the absolute loudest. It is also the bit depth at which a music file you’re listening to is considered “hi-res.”ġ6-bit: This bit depth is often referred to as “CD-quality.” If you’re listening to a song on a CD, you’re listening to a 16-bit song. The two most common bit depths that you’ll hear about are 24-bit and 16-bit.Ģ4-bit: This is the bit depth at which digital music is recorded in the studio. When you’re listening to music, there are two different bit-depths that matter: the bit depth at which the original song was recorded in the studio and the bit depth of the actual music file you’re listening to, which is either streamed, downloaded, or played from a CD. ![]() (Probably why you never want to stand next to a jet engine.) Between those two extremes is a range of sound that humans can hear and enjoy.īit depth is the measurement that tells us whether we can hear the quietest sound in a song, all the way up to the very loudest sound-from the faintest whisper to the loudest cymbal crash. ![]() ![]() And conversely, there are sounds that are so loud that listening to them would do damage to our ears. To begin, we need to state something obvious: There are some sounds too quiet for humans to hear, like a wispy feather drawn across a pane of glass. Whenever you’re discussing hi-res audio, you’re ultimately trying to answer one central question: How accurately does the audio track I’m listening to reflect what the song sounded like when it was recorded in the studio? The best way to determine that is to evaluate a digital audio track using two different measurements: bit depth (which is expressed in “bits”) and sample rate (expressed in kilohertz, or “kHz”).īit Depth (or: Can you hear the really loud elements and the really quiet elements?) With this blog post, we’re going to walk you through the basics so that by the end, you’ll have a solid understanding of what hi-res actually means, setting you up with the knowledge to make an informed decision on what kind of audio you want to stream. And as the industry evolves, streaming services are applying their own terms to brand their higher-resolution tiers. While some aspects of what constitutes hi-res audio are clearly defined, some are not. You may be wondering, Is hi-res the same as HiFi or HD? What’s the difference between 16-bit and 24-bit? Does the number of kHz matter? And is lossless better than lossy? If you’re confused, you’re not alone. In this post, we break down what “hi-res” means and help you decide if you want to be streaming hi-res music.Īs more and more streaming music services offer tiers of higher-resolution audio, a lot of numbers, terms, and abbreviations are tossed around. Sonos now supports high-resolution audio from Amazon Music Unlimited.
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