So you went out to find professionals who know how to work with car stereos in Draper and now have a shiny new audio system in your ride. How do you get the most out of it? Vinyl has made a successful resurgence and is known to produce high-quality sound. But its moving parts and their considerably bulky frame is not suited for the road.
We’ve now been in the digital age for quite a while. The digital format has valuable traits such as portability and convenience, which are perfect for your car. Take a look at some of the electronic ways you can enjoy your tunes today:
Streaming
The smartphone is essentially a mobile computer. It is a very versatile device. Among other things, it lets you browse the Internet, watch videos, and play music. Almost two decades ago, download speeds were struggling to even meet 1 Mbps. Today, the LTE standard is capable of up to 100 Mbps. But in practice, it’s safe to say that you can expect around 30 Mbps on average. With this at your fingertips, you can start streaming music. Just pop in your earphones or continue to listen in your car using your sound system.
Streaming is akin to accessing media remotely. In comparison, with downloading, you can save the media to local storage such as a hard drive. The former requires you to have an Internet connection. The latter means that files are accessible even when offline.
The speedy mobile Internet of today is capable of handling the demands of streaming media. It is also a popular choice to consume digital content. Audio and video can be experienced at high bitrates, which dictates their quality. The higher the bitrate, the more detailed your video images look and your audio crisper.
Optical Media
The Internet revolution has led the shift to digital delivery. It used to be that content was stored in physical media such as a compact disc. The CD was once the stalwart of the music industry. Although its relevance has faded, CDs are still around. There are still many who collect them. Music artists also spend time thinking about their album artwork, and buying physical media is the only way to have a piece of it.
The CD enjoyed mainstream success, but it is not the only disc format around. Its successors, the DVD and Blu-ray, have their own audio offerings respectively dubbed “DVD-Audio” and “High Fidelity Pure Audio.” These two offer higher bitrates and multi-channel support, enabling you to enjoy music in a surround setup.
These discs have higher capacities. The DVD can store 4.7 GB in a single layer, while Blu-ray can store 25 GB. Both can also be processed with two layers, effectively doubling their capacities. To put it into perspective, the CD can handle 700 MB.
There’s something for each music fan. If you like to just go and blast some tunes anywhere, streaming is your jam. If you have a favorite musical artist and want to keep something from them as a collection, go with CDs. Either way, you’ll get to enjoy awesome music.
