What determins quality of sound?

qim · 12-28-2018, 10:35 AM

If I want to connect a cell phone to an amplifier and speakers does the quality of the cell phone influence the quality of the sound that comes out of the speakers?

If the music is digitalized is the code read in the amplifier or is the sound card the first to decide what the quality will be like? and no matter how good the amplifier/speakers are, if the cell phone is rubbish the outcome is rubbish.

Plankton · 12-28-2018, 11:13 AM

Most often it's the speakers, but in some rare cases the sound coming from the phone could have a weak signal due to poor/cheap/inferior electronics, so it won't truly reflect the original recording quality, but that's rare with today's electronic component standards. Another thing to throw into the mix is compression. For example: If you take a lossless format audio file you've purchased and upload it to YouTube, you'll lose sound quality when listening to it through YouTube since YouTube compresses the file to a smaller size for bandwidth purposes, and this means some of the quality suffers, which is usually the lower end frequencies because they take up more room in the mix. So, the quality of the source audio file is the main issue with sound, the speakers would be secondary. Bad speakers mean bad sound. Cell phone quality is a rare issue.

swamptoad · 12-28-2018, 10:30 PM

If you are trying to find a good amplifier for a headphone but you do not intend on spending lots of money ...then you can either shop online at Wish or other shopping apps that you trust for electronics or you can go to certain stores like Marshalls, Ross, TJ Max, Burkes Outlet, Burlington Coat Factory where they have a small electronic section with discount prices. You can get portable speakers with blue tooth functionality and the sound quality is still great.

I would probably trust smaller electronic devices over larger electronic devices like guitar amplifiers. But there's even more up-to-date amplifiers that make it simpler on newer devices like android phones because of the added USB.

(Wav.) files are higher quality than (Mp3s) simply because they are uncompressed and they use more megs of RAM. If you get your music in HD (from youtube for example) and it is still recorded as an mp3 then you might have a better chance of quality a music file.

12-28-2018, 10:35 AM	#1 (permalink)
qim Groupie Join Date: Dec 2018 Posts: 1	What determins quality of sound? If I want to connect a cell phone to an amplifier and speakers does the quality of the cell phone influence the quality of the sound that comes out of the speakers? If the music is digitalized is the code read in the amplifier or is the sound card the first to decide what the quality will be like? and no matter how good the amplifier/speakers are, if the cell phone is rubbish the outcome is rubbish.

12-28-2018, 11:13 AM	#2 (permalink)
Plankton Just Keep Swimming... Join Date: Apr 2012 Location: See signature... Posts: 7,765	Most often it's the speakers, but in some rare cases the sound coming from the phone could have a weak signal due to poor/cheap/inferior electronics, so it won't truly reflect the original recording quality, but that's rare with today's electronic component standards. Another thing to throw into the mix is compression. For example: If you take a lossless format audio file you've purchased and upload it to YouTube, you'll lose sound quality when listening to it through YouTube since YouTube compresses the file to a smaller size for bandwidth purposes, and this means some of the quality suffers, which is usually the lower end frequencies because they take up more room in the mix. So, the quality of the source audio file is the main issue with sound, the speakers would be secondary. Bad speakers mean bad sound. Cell phone quality is a rare issue. __________________ See location...

12-28-2018, 10:30 PM	#3 (permalink)
swamptoad Groupie Join Date: Dec 2018 Posts: 19	If you are trying to find a good amplifier for a headphone but you do not intend on spending lots of money ...then you can either shop online at Wish or other shopping apps that you trust for electronics or you can go to certain stores like Marshalls, Ross, TJ Max, Burkes Outlet, Burlington Coat Factory where they have a small electronic section with discount prices. You can get portable speakers with blue tooth functionality and the sound quality is still great. I would probably trust smaller electronic devices over larger electronic devices like guitar amplifiers. But there's even more up-to-date amplifiers that make it simpler on newer devices like android phones because of the added USB. (Wav.) files are higher quality than (Mp3s) simply because they are uncompressed and they use more megs of RAM. If you get your music in HD (from youtube for example) and it is still recorded as an mp3 then you might have a better chance of quality a music file.