If you have even a passing interest in listening to digital music - whether it's playing CDs or streaming Spotify tunes on your smartphone - you will probably have heard of the term 'high-resolution audio' (or 'hi-res audio'). In the last few years, hi-res audio has slowly but surely, thanks to the release of more products, streaming services and even smartphones supporting the hi-res standards. Why should you care? If you want the best music experience possible or, at least, better sound quality than you're currently used to, we think hi-res audio is worth investigating. It can be a daunting prospect, and there are many factors involved: what exactly constitutes hi-res audio, what do all the different file formats and numbers mean, where can you get these high quality files, and what devices do you need to play it?

The veritable Mac Daddy (or is it Daddy Mac?) of online stores, HDtracks has one of the most extensive collections of high-resolution pop, rock, classical, and jazz music on the web. Best Quality and Origin Audio Files This high quality audio recorder allows you to get the original high quality audio just through several simple steps. Due to its virtual sound card, the recorded MP3 or M4A audio is 100% same as its original look without quality loss.

Where do you even begin? That's where we come in - our handy guide will take you through the ins and outs of hi-res audio. By the end, we hope you'll know everything you need to know (and then some) about hi-res audio, and be well on your way to enjoying your new and improved sonic lifestyle. • What is high-resolution audio? Unlike, there’s no single universal standard for hi-res audio. The Digital Entertainment Group, Consumer Electronics Association and The Recording Academy, together with record labels, have as: “Lossless audio that is capable of reproducing the full range of sound from recordings that have been mastered from better than CD quality music sources.” In its simplest terms, hi-res audio tends to refer to music files that have a higher sampling frequency and/or bit depth than CD - which is specified at 16bit/44.1kHz. Sampling frequency (or sample rate) refers to the number of times samples of the signal are taken per second during the analogue-to-digital conversion process.

The more bits there are, the more accurately the signal can be measured in the first instance, so going 16bit to 24bit can deliver a noticeable leap in quality. Hi-res audio files usually use a sampling frequency of 96kHz or 192kHz at 24bit. You can also have 88.2kHz and 176.4kHz files too. Hi-res audio does come with a downside though: file size. A hi-res file can typically be tens of megabytes in size, and a few tracks can quickly eat up the storage on your device. Thankfully, storage is much cheaper than it used to be, so it's easier to get higher-capacity devices.

That said, the size of the files can still make hi-res audio cumbersome to stream over your wi-fi or mobile network. That's not all: there are also several different hi-res audio file formats to choose from, all of which have their own compatibility requirements. They include the popular FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) and ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Codec) formats, both of which are compressed but in a way which means that, in theory, no information is lost.

Other formats include the uncompressed WAV and AIFF formats, (the format used for Super Audio CDs) and the more recent. The relative merits of each of the formats can be argued, but the most crucial issue will be the file's compatibility with your chosen products and software. Here's a breakdown of all the main file formats: MP3 (not hi-res): Popular, lossy compressed format ensures small file size, but far from the best sound quality.

Convenient for storing music on smartphones and iPods, but doesn't support hi-res. AAC (not hi-res): An alternative to MP3s, it's lossy and compressed but sounds better.

Microsoft office word 2011 download for mac. Used for iTunes downloads, Apple Music streaming (at 256kbps) and YouTube streaming. WAV (hi-res): The standard format all CDs are encoded in. Great sound quality but it's uncompressed, meaning huge file sizes (especially for hi-res files).

It has poor metadata support (that is, album artwork, artist and song title information). AIFF (hi-res): Apple's alternative to WAV, with better metadata support. Videos like this download wow free for mac. It is lossless and uncompressed (so big file sizes), but not massively popular. FLAC (hi-res): This lossless compression format supports hi-res sample rates, takes up about half the space of WAV, and stores metadata. It's royalty-free and widely supported (though not by Apple) and is considered the preferred format for downloading and storing hi-res albums.