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What Is Hi-Res Audio?

If you want to elevate your music listening experience, tapping into hi-res audio is an easy way to make your favourite songs sound better than ever before.

Hi-res or lossless music brings you closer to the studio recording sound than CDs, lower-quality streams, and lossy MP3 files, acting as a gateway to audio perfection from digital sources. 

As music obsessives, we understand the desire to reproduce the “perfect sound”. That’s why every Ruark model is designed from the ground up to deliver the very best listening experience – and for our 100 Series range, that meant including support for hi-res audio was a no-brainer.

Experiencing music just as the artist intended has long been the goal of audiophiles equipped with complex hi-fi setups, but advancements in streaming and wireless technology mean even casual fans can hear every minute detail of the albums they love.

Read on for everything you need to know about lossless formats and how to get them on your R610 Music Console, R410 Integrated Music System or R810 High Fidelity Radiogram.

Hi-Res Audio: Loud and Quiet, High and Low

High resolution or hi-res audio is usually defined as ‘a better-than-CD sound quality’.

CDs come with a bit-depth and sample rate of 16-bit/44.1kHz. That first figure denotes the number of amplitude values per second that are captured to recreate the original audio signal. In layman’s terms? That’s a measurement of whether you can hear the loudest and quietest elements of recording.

The second is the ‘sample rate’, which represents the average number of samples taken per second as the analogue signal is converted to digital. That’s a measurement of the highest and lowest notes you can hear in the recording, from a piccolo flute to a booming bass line.

Essentially, these measurements define how faithfully an audio source replicates what the musicians and sound engineers in the studio would have heard at the time of recording. For reference, most pro music engineers record in at least 24-bit/48kHz, going all the way up to 192 kHz for some movie soundtracks.

Any digital audio source that offers more than 16-bit/44.1kHz is generally considered high resolution - and with many streaming services now providing hi-res audio, it’s never been easier to hear it at home.

For instance, TIDAL’s ‘Max’ streams deliver up to 24-bit/192 kHz audio, while the entirety of Apple Music’s hi-res catalogue comes in 24-bit, with sample rates from 48kHz to 192kHz.

Before we get too technical, all you really need to know is that the higher those figures, the more information and the ‘higher quality’ the sound.

The Benefits of Hi-Res Audio

So, what do those numbers actually mean in terms of the listening experience?

Hi-res audio can be tricky to explain in words but imagine the difference between watching a movie on a fuzzy standard definition TV and a state-of-the-art 8K HD panel. With the latter, you can see every detail in stunning clarity, with colours, contrast, and brightness optimised to bring the filmmaker’s vision to life.

Hi-res audio is much the same, but for sound. We’ve all listened to a low-res MP3 on a pair of hastily purchased supermarket headphones. Formats like MP3 and AAC are compressed for smaller file sizes and faster download times, losing huge amounts of data and leaving out much of the sonic detail.

Listen to the same track in 24-bit /192 kHz on a Ruark 100 Series music system, and the full picture of the song is revealed, with more detail and texture to closely replicate the sound quality you’d hear at the time of recording.

The scientifically minded among you may be wondering whether it’s even possible to perceive these differences. After all, the bit-depth and sample rate of CDs was specifically selected to replicate the normal boundaries of human hearing.

Essentially, it’s all about being able to guarantee you’re hearing a song exactly as it would have sounded in the studio without any lossy compression getting in the way of a good time – and even though music played on a CD sounds fantastic, you can’t exactly always carry your entire catalogue with you. Hi-res audio tracks, on the other hand, provide even better clarity and can be accessed instantly at the tap of a button.

Ruark 100 Series

Above: the Ruark R610, R410 and R810 music systems support hi-res audio up to 32-bit/384kHz.

Where to Find Hi-Res Audio

You need two things to get started – a hi-res audio file (such as FLAC, WAV, AIFF, ALAC) and a playback device capable of handling these formats, like the Ruark R410,R610 or R810.

If you want to compile your own hi-res music library, you can purchase and download music files online. However, the easiest and cheapest way to get your hi-res audio fix, is to stream hi-res tracks via TIDAL, Apple Music, Amazon Music, or Qobuz. Spotify has been teasing a hi-res catalogue for a while, but this is yet to materialise.

Which Ruark Music Systems Support Hi-Res Audio?

The Ruark R610, R410 and R810 music systems support hi-res audio up to 32-bit/384kHz.

If you’re streaming over Bluetooth, aptX HD support means you can wirelessly transmit hi-res audio files from your device to your 100 Series model; most newer Android smartphones come with the required Qualcomm Bluetooth audio SOCs (system-on-chip).

While iPhone doesn’t currently support aptX HD, you can still enjoy hi-res audio if you opt to stream over Apple AirPlay. This, alongside Google Cast and TIDAL Connect built-in, means you can cast hi-res audio to your Ruark 100 Series system over your home Wi-Fi network.

Ruark Sabre-R Bookshelf Speakers

Prefer a stereo setup? Try our new Sabre-R Bookshelf Speakers (shown above), or the multi-award-winning MR1 Bluetooth Speaker System which features an optical input with 24-bit/192kHz capabilities, which means you can hook it up to a hi-res audio streamer.

Alternatively, the built-in aptX Bluetooth receiver allows for CD-quality wireless streaming from mobile devices and desktops; that not quite as data-rich as true hi-res audio, but it comes pretty close.