Everything on Hi-Res audio headphones and earbuds
What's Hi-Res audio?
Sound quality is expressed in sample speed and bit depth. The higher the speed, the more detailed the music sounds. The higher the bit depth, the more dynamic the music sounds. Hi-Res audio has a higher sample speed and more bit depth than CD quality. So Hi-Res audio offers a higher sound quality than CD. This way, you listen to favorite artist the way they intended.
How does Hi-Res audio sound?
Hi-Res audio sounds more detailed, more dynamic, more spatial, and more accurate than standard audio quality such as MP3 and even CD. When compressing an MP3 audio file, the file size is decreased, which results in a loss of quality. With Hi-Res audio, there is no loss of quality. All information that was recorded in the studio is reproduced.
Are Hi-Res headphones and earbuds better than regular ones?
Hi-Res is just one part, while the quality of audio depends on other aspects such as timing and balance as well. So affordable headphones and earbuds with Hi-Res can still produce a worse audio quality than more expensive headphones or earbuds without Hi-Res. This means Hi-Res models aren't necessarily better.
What do you need?
To get the most out of Hi-Res audio, you need high resolution audio files. The most common file formats are flac and wav. More and more music streaming services offer these kind of Hi-Res audio files, such as Tidal and Qobuz. But the streaming service Spotify only offers mp3 files. So you'll notice little to no difference with Hi-Res audio headphones or earbuds while listening to Spotify.
Conclusion
Hi-Res audio has a higher sample speed and more bit depth than standard audio. This makes the audio sound more detailed, dynamic, spatial, and accurate than standard audio such as MP3s and even CD. But you do need to have high resolution audio files, such as flac and wav.
