What is HD music?

We’re all listening to lossy compressed music streams on our computers and mobile devices, so before discussing HD music, what exactly are we listening to when we listen to compressed music? I wrote an article back in 1999 about the future of MP3 vs higher resolution music formats: "MP3 not the endgame for music delivery over the internet"

In this article, I describe compressed music this way:

What is MP3?

MP3 is a file format that lets you stream or store music on your hard drive, compressing it to about 1/10 the size, so it’s faster to download. It is a compression scheme based on an understanding of human audio perception that removes components of the audio signal that are "not heard" and considered redundant. These sophisticated algorithms discard up to 90% of the data contained in CD audio, reducing the data rate from 1.5Mbits/s to under 150kbits/s).

Although the sound of MP3 is considered good by many, it is not “as good as CD audio”, as many MP3 proponents claim.

Further on, I concluded that:

“Uncompressed CD audio will replace MP3 audio for music distribution over the Gigabit networks which will soon be available to consumers. MP3′s popularity will continue to grow as a local storage medium which provides adequate sound quality for applications where portability is the primary concern.” 

Well, that was then and this is now! I am very excited that more and more music is now available in high resolution, lossless formats from Deezer, Tidal and others, and that there are many people out there who care about the sound quality of their music sources. Of course this is great news for an audio design engineer like myself because “HD music” requires great amplifiers and speakers to reach its full potential.

I created the website m42homeaudio.ca to share my passion and bring great music into your daily life using a music provider like Deezer, and high quality integrated amplifiers and speakers to bring true HD music into your home.