All music fans, club owners, event runners, sound system owners LISTEN UP! Below is a general breakdown of sound quality and how your ears and brain work in relation to its quality... It’s fairly straight forward, but it does go for a while, and might seem a bit monotonous, so you might be in for a bit of a commitment. This is important stuff to know, as your time on that dancefloor is obviously as important as the love and appreciation for music that you possess! :) And guess what!!! You need your ears for that ;) All Digital Audio Files are compiled of 3 things. 1. Sample Rate = Hz (Hertz) or kHz (Kilo Hertz) = The frequency of which data is processed every second. 2. Bit Rate = Bits = The amount of data that is processed for each frequency. 3. Channels = Mono/Stereo = The number of ‘tracks’ which are recorded over the frequency duration (time). For mono this means the track is only recorded ONCE throughout the recording, and is sent through both Output channels (Left and Right) at the same time. For Stereo this means the track is recorded TWICE throughout the recording, and each Output is sent separately through the Output channels. Combining the three you get the overall ‘bps’ rating (bits per second) aka ‘kbps’ (kilobits per second), which is the overall amount of ‘data’ or ‘sound’, that is being processed each second. This determines the QUALITY of the sound that reaches the speakers. Here is the math for common Digital Audio Files- Standard .wav Format (Also CD Audio Format): 44100Hz 16Bit 2 Channel- 44100 x 16 x 2 = 1,411,200bps or 1,411.2kbps Other High Quality .wav Formats: 44,1100Hz 24Bit 2Channel- 44,100 x 24 x 2 = 2,116,800bps or 2,116.8kbps 44,100Hz 32Bit 2Channel- 44,110 x 32 x 2 = 2,822,400bps or 2,822.4kbps 48,000Hz 16Bit 2Channel- 48,000 x 16 x 2 = 1,536,000bps or 1,536kbps 48,000Hz 24Bit 2Channel- 48,000 x 24 x 2 = 2,304,000bps or 2,304kbps 48,000Hz 32Bit 2Channel- 48,000 x 32 x 2 = 3,072,000bps or 3,072kbps 96,000Hz 16Bit 2Channel- 96,000 x 16 x 2 = 3,072,000bps or 3,072kbps 96,000Hz 24Bit 2Channel- 96,000 x 24 x 2 = 4,608,000bps or 4,608kbps 96,000Hz 32Bit 2Channel- 96,000 x 32 x 2 = 6,144,000bps or 6,144kbps (Highest possible quality) Standard .mp3 Formats 44,100Hz 1.45Bit (rounded) 2Channel - 44,100 x 1.45 x 2 = 128,000bps or 128kbps 44,100Hz 2.20Bit (rounded) 2Channel- 44,100 x 2.20 x 2 = 192,000bps or 192kbps 44,100Hz 2.90Bit (rounded) 2Channel- 44,100 x 2.90 x 2 = 256,000bps or 256kbps 44,100Hz 3.65Bit (rounded) 2 Channel- 44,100 x 3.65 x 2 = 320,000bps or 320kbps (Highest possible quality) Now that we know that the overall bit rate is directly linked to sound quality. You should have noticed that .mp3’s, in ALL aspects, regardless of what kind of equipment is used, can only produce a mere fraction of what a .wav file can! The human brain functions at speeds exponentially faster than any digital processor (Including Pc’s/Laptops). So since any standard audio file is easy work for any processor, the brain therefore can easily detect absolutely EVERYTHING and ANYTHING that any processor can process. Even while we sleep, our auditory sensory processing never stops functioning, and ALL sound input is transmitted to almost EVERY part of our brains in order to detect things like danger/emergency or any other reason to wake up. While we are awake, we give even more brain power to that processing for all means of interacting with the world around us. Even more than we do for our vision! The stats are 360 perceptible degrees of auditory processing VS. 120 perceptible degrees of visual processing. Hearing actually makes up for more information for what we know is around us than any other sensory process that we have! If you still don’t believe it, and some won’t. Consider this… You can’t always see what you can hear. But if you can hear something, you always have a relative idea of where it is, even if you can’t see it… This processing is like all other input processing where; the input is received, reviewed, filtered & unscrambled (made sense of) and then stored temporarily or permanently if needed (which is another process again). If we didn’t have this process, we would not be able to distinguish what one sound is compared to another, what the sound is in the first place, where it is or how far away it is (or was). Besides the processing part of things, your ears themselves actually have no special secret to how they work. In fact, the inner workings of the ears is so simple, and so direct, that it has more of a link to what is around you than any other sense, even touch! And this is also why it’s so accurate and so important and so easily damaged. Every sense uses a form of chemical reaction to develop the message that is sent to the brain. Whereas your ears actually have a mechanical function from start to finish! It’s as simple as a moving object creating a vibration in the air, which are called ‘pressure waves’ that move through your ear cannel, which makes the ear drum deep inside your ear rattle in a certain way. The rattling is then amplified by a certain arrangements of tiny bones which move like levers to create a back and forth ‘plunging’ effect at the beginning of the cochlea. This is all just transfer of energy for the purpose of amplification. The amplified vibrations are then transferred to a very special membrane in the cochlea. It has a rigid surface that is fine-tuned to react to certain frequencies according to its thickness along its length. The length starts thick at beginning where the ‘plunging’ starts, and ends up very thin at the end. Its function is to carry the vibration form the beginning of itself, to the end of itself. This becomes the sound you hear by a very special method where the vibration will match up with, and resonate with only one part of the membrane for which it is tuned for. High pitched frequencies have a fast vibration, and will only resonate with the base of the membrane. As the frequency gets lower, so does the vibration, and will only resonate with thinner parts of the membrane. Treble is detected by thicker parts because those parts move less. Bass is detected by thinner parts because those parts move more. When those parts resonate, millions of microscopic hairs which are attached to that part, jiggle around, which are then detected by the brain by an electrical signal that those particular hairs create. The brain knows the strength of that signal by how many ‘alike’ hairs are resonating at the same time in the same way. This is how we know how loud something is. Each hair has its own link to the brain, just like each light cone in the eye does. But there are many more hairs in the ear, than there are cones in the eye. Amplified sound is not a natural thing for us to hear, so treating it with respect is very important! High quality sound is the main point here, where all this jargon is just trying to make everyone aware of the potential harm of poor quality sound, and the benefits of high quality sound to you and your ears. Which is very very very very very simple. The poorer the quality of sound you listen to means the more hardship is done to your eardrum and the hairs, because the vibrations are not ‘clean’ or ‘natural’. They are very much artificial and create a lot of unnatural vibration. Generally it does not contain enough information for it to be ‘clear’ enough for your brain to soak up without having to fill in the blanks. This for your brain means a lot more work. Remember it has to filter and unscramble everything it hears, and if what it hears is not clear it has to ‘clean it up’. A trained ear can easily notice the difference, and therefore will find it difficult to enjoy that sound, if it were music for example! The more work your brain has to do, the more energy is put into the processing, meaning you are less engaged with the music, and the quicker you’ll become tired, both physically and psychologically… This is just from the starting point from the file itself. Without going into the same details as the importance of system/speaker quality. In a nutshell, system/speaker quality will do the exact same to your engagement with the music, and your level of energy while you are engaged with it! Also, on a more important note, poor sound quality will also destroy your ears, even at medium volume. It will lessen what you can hear over time, significantly more rapidly than high quality sound will... Basically the vibrations are too strong and can cause rupturing of the eardrum, and over time, will work the microscopic hairs too hard. This means they will die, causing that part of the ear to never work again, meaning that vibration can never be detected, ever again. In a perfect world, perfect or ‘clean’ sound quality will not damage your ears unless you are listening to it close to, or above the volume the human ear can handle. So getting it as close to natural as possible makes a lot more sense now to the average listener… So the next time you are dancing your ass off… Or even having a blast in the car, consider what is happening to your ears and the amount of work your brain has to do to even know what you’re hearing. One day you might not be able to appreciate the things you do now! DEMAND BETTER QAULITY!!!! YOU DO HAVE A CHOICE!!!! IT’S YOUR MONEY AND YOUR EARS!!!! There is a price tag that comes with it though… So be prepared for that too :) I wrote this all myself, so please feel free to test this information and definitely feel free to speculate :)
Posted on: Thu, 25 Jul 2013 12:26:27 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015