Bits & KhZ?

[MrRX7]

Someone please explain what audio / sound Bits and KhZ are and mean and how they differ and pros and cons and everything please?

[Samdb]

Hz are the frequency of the sound wave and bits is the sampling rate.

[MrRX7]

ok go into more depth please but so far good thanks @Samdb

[Guest GRRigger]

ok go into more depth please but so far good thanks @Samdb

more hz, higher tone, low hz lower tone ( 20 - 20,000 hz that can hear human ) , low bit low quality, big bit high quality ( but 320kbit/s rate is enough )

 

there is also sampling rate, that i have no idea about its on wiki

[simtransporter]

ok go into more depth please but so far good thanks @Samdb

Hz is pretty self explanatory, its the frequency of the wave like @Samdb mentioned. A low frequency is a bassy sound and a high frequency is higher pitched.

 

The bit rate refers to how much information there is per second, for example if an audio file has a high bit rate it will have more information per second stored meaning that it's probably a higher quality file as there is more information stored within it.

 

Hope this makes sense, I tried to make it as simple as I could.

[MayflowerElectronics]

There's a whole lecture I can go over this on bits and hz in depth. Long story short, you want higher bits, and anything over 48khz is overkill.

[Godlygamer23]

Hz is pretty self explanatory, its the frequency of the wave like @Samdb mentioned. A low frequency is a bassy sound and a high frequency is higher pitched.

 

The bit rate or sample rate refers to how much information there is per second, for example if an audio file has a high bit rate it will have more information per second stored meaning that it's probably a higher quality file as there is more information stored within it.

 

Hope this makes sense, I tried to make it as simple as I could.

Some songs I own have a bit rate of 256kb/s but then a sample rate of 44.1kHz.

[simtransporter]

Some songs I own have a bit rate of 256kb/s but then a sample rate of 44.1kHz.

sample rate is the frequency of the samples taken

bit rate is the amount of information taken per sample.

Sorry if I worded my post in a way that makes it seem misleading. I have fixed it now.

[t0wer]

alright there's a few different specs people are talking about here, so I'm just going to cover them all.

 

sound frequency - typically human hearing goes between 20hz and 20kz(the audible high range gets lower as you get older) here you can play with a few frequencies and see how high you can hear http://www.freemosquitoringtones.org/

low frequencies = bass, high frequencies = treble.

 

bit rate - relates to the bit rate of the sound file (128kbps, 256kbps, 320kbps), you want as high as you can go there. flac is typically around 900kbps as it's a lossless codec so all the data from the wav file is there.

 

bit depth - cd is 16bit and dvd/blue ray is 24bit, the biggest difference there is noise floor. you aren't going to get 24bit depth out of a 16bit music file.

 

sampling rate - cd is 44.1khz and dvd/blu ray is 48khz, this is how often the sound wave was sampled during recording

I want to say 44.1khz can get sound waves as high as 20khz, and 48khz can go up to 22khz.

as I said in the sound frequency section, you can only hear 20hz up to 20khz so the extra 2khz range that 48khz sampling gets you won't even be heard.

 

pretty much, unless you have a reason to lower the bit depth and sampling rate, just keep them as high as they will go.

[pierrelucsav]

To add to what's already been said:

 

Working with 24bit/196kHz is essential for recording, mixing and mastering . The effects applied will be of better quality and you'll get rid of any form of aliasing.

But there is absolutely no reason to go above 16bit/48kHz for the final product (the file you play). It has been proved in blind tests with high grade audio equipment over and over again. 24bit/196kHz Blu-ray audio is a gimmick.

[h264]

http://downloads.xiph.org/video/A_Digital_Media_Primer_For_Geeks-720p.webm

 

well, that's the basics...

 

http://downloads.xiph.org/video/Digital_Show_and_Tell-720p.webm

 

and some more interesting stuff.

 

should explain it in a pretty easy to understand way.  If you have any more questions about Nyquist-Shannon sampling theorm or any of the other ways we create digital audio, just ask.

 

All of this in the FAQ btw...