About Hi Res Audio

[Saketh Adhikarla]

Will Hi Res Option in Poweramp increase quality of audio output irrespective of the audio file quality ( 24 Bit or 16 bit)

[Bencherished]

No, in my own experience, I only have mp3 files and before now, most of them were 128kbp and some 320kbps, using Poweramp to play both, Hi-Res brings out more details that I never noticed before, so in using Hi-Res to play 128kbps mp3 files, sounds empty, more like hissing. 

Hi-Res separate and brings out every individual sound in a file format. 

Just make sure your files are in good quality, then you will appreciate Hi-Res. 

[maxmp]

The interesting part about mdct/fft based compression formats (mp3, aac, etc. where audio is stored as cosine/sine set of frequencies), is that when audio is decompressed, we can generate wave of any bitwidth, so Poweramp uses at 32/24bits there (and for hi-res output this is passed without extra conversions). You get more bits than the song was probably compressed from, but this of course doesn't bring any additional information to the audio.

[Ozzyy]

Hi-res output cannot add additional data to low res files, but decompression to hi-res output makes decompression much better, music sounds richer, you can hear additional details if you use good headphones or speakers.

I agree that from mathematical point of view it doesn't make sense but maybe not all factors are taken into account?

I have mostly 320 MP3, very few Hi-res albums.

Not sure if it is applicable to low res audio files.

Edited December 18, 2020 by Ozzyy