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Audio Formats


Audio Audio Audio Audio Audio Audio
44 kHz, 16 bit, Stereo 44 kHz, 16 bit, Mono 44 kHz, 8 bit, Mono 22 kHz, 16 bit, Mono 22 kHz, 8 bit, Mono 11 kHz, 8 bit, Mono
Size: 2,444 kB Size: 1,228 kB Size: 617 kB Size: 617 kB Size: 311 kB Size: 153 kB

Part 1

    These are arranged in degrading quality.  The first one (44kHz, 16 bit, stereo) is the original and highest quality.  The reason why the stereo sounds slighly better/fuller than the next mono file is because you can compare the two seperate audio channels;  they are slightly different in appearance on the sine graph.  They are not duplicate clones.

    A sine wave is generated from an analog signal, and must be converted to digital numbers so computers can use them.  A sine wave is a continuous curve with infinitesimal points, and must be converted to a discrete number of points.  The sampling rate is basically the x-axis resolution, and the bit depth is the resolution of the y-axis. 

    Even our lowest quality 11 kHz, 8 bit would look pretty smooth I imagine on a graph with all those points (11,000 samples per second on the x-axis and 8 bits would give you 256 values on the y-axis).  Yet most 8-bit files sound terrible with lots of static & noise.

    Two of the files are identical file size, yet one sounds much better. It's 44 kHz, 8 bit, Mono compared to 22 kHz, 16 bit, Mono.  If I look at the appearance of the sine waves in Adobe Audition, they look roughly similar, but the 8 bit file looks slightly blockier (more rounding) on the y-axis.  The reason for this is 8 bits can only represent 256 values, and 16 bits has 65,536 different combinations of values.
This tells me it's more important to choose a higher bit depth over a higher sampling rate.



Part 2

Audio Audio Audio
44 kHz, 16 bit, Stereo, wav 44 kHz, 16 bit, Stereo, 128 mp3 44 kHz, 16 bit, Stereo, 96 mp3
Size: 2,444 kB Size: 229 kB Size: 173 kB


    Here is the original, uncompressed .wav file.  I saved it as .mp3 files in 128 kbps and 96.  I cannot tell the difference in between the .wav and 128 kbps mp3 file.  But I can notice a slightly lower quality in the 96 kbps mp3 file.  I'm using decent audio gear ($110 Audio Technica ATH-AD700 headphones and a $100 soundblaster Z sound card).


Part 3

Audio Audio
48 kHz, 16 bit, Stereo, aif 48 kHz, 16 bit, Stereo, 128 mp3
Size: 3,168 kB Size:342 kB


    Here I use Audition to remove background noise, and convert a lossless format to a compressed mp3 file.