You don't have to be an audiophile to recognize that "compression" and "good sound" are not mutually compatible. When it comes to compression in audio, think hydraulics. Hydraulics? Hang in there.
Liquids are virtually incompressible. If you want to fit 10 gallons of water into a five gallon jug, there's only one solution; get rid of five gallons. Not much of a solution, is it? It's like that with audio. If you want to compress an audio file, something has to go. This raises several questions. How much of the file can you remove? Which bits? How high is the resolution of the playback system? How much do you care?The people at Bluesound care a lot.
There are numerous companies making music streaming products. None other than Bluesound started with audio quality as their prime directive. Early on, computer engineers designed these systems. Their focus was on moving the bits around in the most efficient way possible, Quality of playback was not their concern. The people at NAD Electronics and PSB loudspeakers saw it differently and established a different paradigm. They brought in software engineers to make it possible to deliver all possible formats from the most basic to the finest, and then they took over, designing hardware to allow playback at any desired sound quality. You can stream starting at low-resolution Internet Radio all the way to MQA, which offers studio-master-quality sound. No other company has such a broad range of offerings.
Music at your fingertips. All you have to do is choose.
Liquids are virtually incompressible. If you want to fit 10 gallons of water into a five gallon jug, there's only one solution; get rid of five gallons. Not much of a solution, is it? It's like that with audio. If you want to compress an audio file, something has to go. This raises several questions. How much of the file can you remove? Which bits? How high is the resolution of the playback system? How much do you care?The people at Bluesound care a lot.
There are numerous companies making music streaming products. None other than Bluesound started with audio quality as their prime directive. Early on, computer engineers designed these systems. Their focus was on moving the bits around in the most efficient way possible, Quality of playback was not their concern. The people at NAD Electronics and PSB loudspeakers saw it differently and established a different paradigm. They brought in software engineers to make it possible to deliver all possible formats from the most basic to the finest, and then they took over, designing hardware to allow playback at any desired sound quality. You can stream starting at low-resolution Internet Radio all the way to MQA, which offers studio-master-quality sound. No other company has such a broad range of offerings.
Music at your fingertips. All you have to do is choose.