Since we went from dumping the songs from a CD that we have bought to listen to them on Windows Media Players, it has rained a lot. The MP3 format continues to be used because it is lightweight and multiplatform, so that it fits in many MP3 players on the market, on many SD cards or USB storage. But today we have a wide variety of formats that give a higher quality of sound such as FLAC, which is basically sound without compression losses.
But having compression or not, is not the only thing that influences to have a sound quality. It is well known that headphones, if they do not have good wiring and high quality speakers, will cause loss of sound with some details. And in this case it does not matter if they are old or modern, because studio helmets that were used in the eighties, with good adapters can continue to have the same quality as before in modern equipment.
The sound program that we are using also matters. The typical Windows Media Player or Audacity give us a good sound quality, but very surely more professional music programs such as Win Amp or a more versatile player, or Adobe Audition will be more suitable for reproduction or sound montage. If you need help to know which programs to use, in Perfect Acoustic you will find many tests on music programs: http://perfectacoustic.es
The Evolution of Home Sound Outlets
But many of us are not using sound capacity to listen to music, series or movies properly. The sound bars have come out in response to the low quality of sound offered by the screens, emitting the sound towards the wall so that it bounces, but this causes details and even volume to be lost. This is why sound bars are becoming popular as an alternative to computer speakers, which with the move to individual rooms have replaced their speakers with headphones.
Here we have talked a lot about gaming helmets. There are cheaper and more functional ones and there are more expensive ones, with additional elements such as a built-in microphone and volume control. But it is not necessary for the helmets to be qualified as gamers to play well, because good helmets designed to listen to quality music serve the same purpose. It is true that gamers helmets have a preference to slightly focus the bass so that in games you can better hear the footsteps of the enemy and the shots, but except in those types of action games and unless you have an ear specially trained for it, the difference they offer is testimonial. It is useless to hear the shots better in a platform game or a turn-based role-playing game, where a lot of atmosphere is offered thanks to the soundtrack.
The last point is wireless. especially the Bluetooth protocol, which has made helmets now go free, and there are even wireless speakers that are the nightmare of public transport users. Yes, they are capable of playing music remotely and wirelessly, but the Bluetopoth protocol has bandwidth limits that mean that the quality of uncompressed formats cannot be fully appreciated. And this damages the sound quality a lot, more than the format or the drivers. That is why it is recommended that if we want to listen to quality music, try that all connection is by cable and interleaving fewer digitization and analogous steps.
How to have a good sound at home?
As always, it depends on what you have and what you can. It depends on what you are going to use the most with the equipment, because watching movies is not the same as music production. It depends on the sound insulation so as not to disturb the neighbors. It depends on whether the space is a personal room or you want to convert your living room to the closest thing to a home theater.
As we are reading this, we imagine that you are interested in sound quality. A good way to have a good sound is to have a music program that plays your favorite songs from your Spotify playlist or your personal collection.
Some easy advice that we can give is that you try to use an audio connection through SPDI / F, that you try to have music locally instead of streaming, and that although it seems to be years old and is in disuse, Win Amp is still one of the best music software for its lightness and equalization options.
