Howtosignalprocessing
- Does compression affect audio quality?
- Is audio compression lossy?
- When should you use lossy compression?
- How does lossy compression reduce the size of a sound file?
Does compression affect audio quality?
Compressing to lossy formats such as MP3s will use a lower audio bitrate—meaning you will lose a good chunk of the audio file data. You'll get a much smaller file, making it easier to share and to play or stream, but you'll also lose some of the overall sound quality.
Is audio compression lossy?
For starters, almost all audio compression codecs are lossy—as opposed to lossless—meaning that some information is removed and discarded. This data reduction is not considered to be a big detriment to sound quality, provided the removed data is deemed inaudible to the vast majority of listeners.
When should you use lossy compression?
You may want to consider using lossy compression if you have an image-heavy site, such as an online store or a large blog. This compression method can help you optimize your product images, thumbnails, banners, and other JPEG files on your website.
How does lossy compression reduce the size of a sound file?
Lossy compression removes some of a file's original data in order to reduce the file size. This might mean reducing the numbers of colours in an image or reducing the number of samples in a sound file. This can result in a small loss of quality of an image or sound file.
