Explaining Audio Fidelity

Audio fidelity is the degree to which a recording or transmission of sound reproduces the original sound.

The term “fidelity” is often used as a synonym for “quality” in discussions of audio equipment and recordings. The term can be applied to any type of recording, including those made with analog or digital technology, but it is most commonly used in reference to digital recordings. We can measure the quality of an audio recording by how closely it approaches the original sound that was captured when the audio was first recorded.

What any engineer should be doing is trying to capture that sound as accurately as possible. From there (processing, etc.) is by choice and may ‘sound’ great to one person and terrible to another. Thus, that leaves the original premise of the question to be subjective to whatever they are using to create the reproduction (or capture the original). In audio, there is no ‘wrong way’ to do anything. It becomes ‘your way’ and if that is perfectly acceptable to you, the listener of the audio and you are happy, that is all that matters. Taking that premise one step further, if you are looking to make a studio ‘sound better’, we need to understand what you are using today and what the room looks like (from a sound perspective)… live, dead, etc. It is impossible to comment on better fidelity until those factors become known.

How do you increase audio fidelity?

How do you increase audio fidelity is a common question we get here at Slick Audio? So it’s time to put a post together to help new musicians and engineers understand this concept a bit better. First, we need to define and refine the question a bit more. Of course, the original performance, live, is the ‘true’ fidelity, which consists of all the variables surrounding the original sound… instruments, mics, room, etc. This is ‘the sound’.

How do I fix low quality audio?

There are a few ways to fix inferior quality audio. One way is to use a noise reduction plugin. This will remove any background noise and make the audio clearer. Another way is to use an equalizer plugin. This will help you adjust the frequencies of the audio so that it sounds better.

Better gear to fix bad audio.

If you are trying to increase a home stereo systems fidelity… get better equipment than you have today and spend 2X the amount of money on your speakers than any other single component (rule of thumb).

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