Enjoying music is something that many of us do when we are stressed and want to disconnect. However, the digitization of it meant the loss of nuances and textures in many songs. Fortunately, with the advancement of technology we can now enjoy our favorite songs as they should be heard. That is, in all its splendor. That is why we are going to give you a quick review of the different music formats that currently exist.
What music formats can we find?
When we talk about codec, we are actually talking about the encryption in which the information of the songs is stored, that is, the file format with which they are saved and, therefore, formats such as the well-known MP3. However, today the processing and storage capacities of our computers have increased by several dozen compared to then and it no longer makes sense to store music on our PC at a lower quality and consequently listen to it worse.
However, there are a large number of music formats and, therefore, of information encryption, although today they are mainly divided into three types. We will leave the first one aside, since it is nothing more than the raw recorded data, so it can be played without problems in a CD player. The other two types, on the other hand, need a decryption process that requires a processor and some power, although today it is minimal and playing music on your computer is using a percentage of a single number of a single core.
Lossy Music Formats
The first of such formats to become popular it was the mp3, which has the peculiarity of eliminating sound information above the frequency spectrum that the user can hear in theory. Unfortunately, the algorithm is not perfect and in the process information can be lost that affects the sound integrity of the songs. Although it is true that they can be heard by music lovers who have a trained ear, the differences are noticeable. As for the alternatives, the most popular ones are related to different operating systems and proposals and the most famous are:
- OGG Vorbis is another format, normally associated with GNU/Linux, it was very popular in its time, but the lack of support from manufacturers of portable music players and not being part of the formats supported by default on Windows and Mac.
- We can’t forget either CCAstands for Apple Audio Codec, which is used as a lossy music format on bitten apple devices.
- As for Windows, the format WMA has a lossy version of that file format.
Because the lowest common rules in the end, MP3 is what has come to dominate the landscape for several decades. In any case, they are formats designed to be heard in stereo and are good enough to take music anywhere with us.
Lossless music formats
When we talk about lossless we refer to digital formats that take advantage of the processing and storage capabilities of current computers, however, these formats do discard information, so their name is technically a lie, but not to the human ear. That is, they give the same audio quality as uncompressed music, but occupy much less space. However, the popularity of these formats has come from the ability to play music on more than two output channels, allowing us to use our advanced speaker equipment. And believe us, this was one of the most impressive things about the failed SuperAudio CD and DVD Audio back in the day.
Among the best known we can find:
- FLAC It is the most famous format of all. Considered by many to be the new MP3, libraries in this format rule the Internet and in the homes of most users. Your biggest handicap? The fact that Apple does not support this format in its devices and its operating system in order to benefit its proprietary format. It can encode audio files at a frequency of 192 KHz and 32 bits of information, that is, 12288 Kbps in stereo bitrate.
- A THE C, on the other hand, is the famous lossless format of Apple, and, therefore, the most used in its devices, it can operate at a higher frequency and consequently can give a better sound quality than FLAC, since it encodes at 384 KHz The problem is that you will need the Apple ecosystem to use it.
The audio configuration of our computer is important
Okay, you have your music library in FLAC format and in good quality, however, the most important thing is to make sure that the configuration of your computer is adequate. This means having a good sound card and the right speakers or headphones to be able to enjoy it without problems and that it does not become a bottleneck.
We have to start from the fact that when it comes to deciphering the different music formats, what the audio DSP does, or failing that, the CPU, is to create a PCM file in real time. In other words, on the one hand, we have the codec that is responsible for transferring to PCM, which is a digital signal that the audio hardware’s analog converter will later convert to an analog signal. So the quality of the ADC that we have installed in our system will be the most important.
