If you consider yourself an audiophile or a serious music lover, would you want to hear your music in the best possible format to make sure you’re truly hearing all the music, the way it was meant to be enjoyed? That’s the basic idea behind the recent growth in high resolution audio, both in the digital music files themselves and the hardware (speakers, DACs, preamps, headphones…) to play it.
High resolution audio is not exactly a new thing—there have been high quality digital music files and systems to play them around for years, but now the trend is catching on with more people? Why? Because highly compressed and streamed (over the Internet) music is missing something, and the high-resolution audio movement wants to put it back.
An article in the new issue of Electronic House explains all about high-resolution audio and what you need to enjoy it—here’s a tip, you really don’t need much more than what you already have. Lots of stereo components and home theater receivers can play back high resolution audio.
Sometimes talk of high-resolution audio sounds more like math—-bit rates, and sampling rates. This article breaks down what the numbers really mean and why you should care.
The high-resolution audio article also discusses the necessary equipment you’ll need for your high-resolution home stereo system. A good DAC is a critical component of that stereo system. Luckily you probably don’t have to replace all your gear to upgrade to a high-res playback system. Outboard DACs, which convert the digital audio signals to analog audio signals, can be added to an existing stereo.
After the hardware, you’ll need music. Where do you get high-resolution music files? Because true high resolution music is better quality than a CD, you can’t simply rip it yourself (you can rip CD lossless files). There are a number of web sites that sell downloads of high resolution music. Learn more about those in this article on high-resolution audio.
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