[vorbis-dev] Can compressed music sound better than uncompressed?

[Lourens Veen]

Robert Voigt wrote:
> 
> I quote from "Principles of Digital Audio" by Ken C. Pohlmann:
> 
> "Because perceptual coders tailor the coded signal to the ear's acuity, they
> similarly tailor the required response of the playback system itself. Live
> music does not pass through amplifiers and loudspeakers, it goes directly to
> the ear. But recorded music must pass through the playback signal chain. Much
> of the original signal present in a live recording merely degrades the
> playback system's ability to reproduce the audible signal. Because a
> perceptual coder removes inaudible signal content, the playback system's
> ability to convey audible music logically should improve. In short, a
> perceptual coder more properly codes an audio signal for passage through an
> audio system."
> 
> Is this bullshit or an interesting thought?

Interesting thought I think. It's important to remember that
uncompressed does not mean perfect quality. According to the Shannons
sampling theorem any frequencies smaller than 0.5*samplerate (the
Nyquist frequency) are encoded in the signal, higher frequencies are cut
off. Also, samples are quantized representations of the original signal,
and the dynamic range is limited. If we'd send the data compressed, but
at the same data rate, we'd certainly get better quality because the
available bandwidth is allocated to things you can hear, rather than a
simple limited linearly-described portion of the sound.

But I'm not a real expert :).

Lourens

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