High level decoding chip can be used to restore high resolution audio

Among many digital products, smart phones can be said to be one of the most functional and integrated products. We can find that mobile phone products are changing almost every year, which will be reflected in all aspects. In recent years, high fidelity sound quality has become another selling point of mobile phone products after screens, photos and points. In particular, domestic mobile phone brands have indeed made a lot of efforts in hifi functions, which has also led some overseas brands to follow up, which is really a good thing for consumers. However, when introducing their products, these mobile phone manufacturers almost all focus on decoding chips.
We can often see that when some domestic brands introduce their hifi mobile phones at the press conference, they will announce that they use a very excellent decoding chip. For example, in 2014, Meizu introduced the chip ess9018k2m when it released the mx4pro. By the way, it connected with hifiman's flagship hm-901 at that time, and claimed that the overall sound performance was four times that of hifiman; While ZTE released axon Tianji 7, it also mentioned that the machine uses the same ak4490 decoding chip as the 10000 yuan player ak380.
In addition to mobile phone products, the decoding chip is also the favorite feature of audio manufacturers. However, in the introduction of audio products, the function of decoding chip will be more specific. You may see some more difficult words, such as multi decoding chip, audio format supporting decoding, sampling frequency supporting decoding, signal-to-noise ratio, total harmonic distortion, etc. I believe most people don't know these data, let alone the impact on sound.
Main functions of decoding chip
In fact, the content just mentioned by the author may not be what most consumers really care about. Generally speaking, public users are only interested in things that can be heard and touched, and do not want to further understand the inner meaning of the product. For digital enthusiasts or enthusiasts, these materials may be more interesting.
Friends who like to play digital products are generally particularly sensitive to parameters. For example, SOC specifications in smart phones, running points of computer hardware, resolution of displays and pixels of cameras can become topics of discussion between them. Audio is a different kind in the digital industry. There are very few products that can respond through objective information, and the audio decoding chip is just the original that can measure the quality with data, which is also the reason why many brands like it. Introducing the decoding chip is much more reliable than talking about the subjective sense of hearing.
Of course, in addition to having objective indicators, the decoding chip is indeed an indispensable and important part of the digital audio system. In short, the decoding chip is responsible for converting digital signals that people can't perceive into audible analog signals, and this process can be expressed indirectly. In recent years, hi res audio (high resolution audio) is becoming a new trend in the audio industry. This audio standard is much higher than CD level lossless sound quality, but if you want to really hear this high-quality music, high-quality decoding chips in the system must be indispensable.
High level decoding chip can be used to restore high resolution audio
Similar to the definition of lossy audio and lossless audio, high resolution audio can also be divided into different grades. The minimum standard is 24bit / 44.1KHz audio file, and its bit rate (code rate) is 2116kbps. This audio file can be played through the audio decoding chip integrated in most smart phones. Like DSD files in high-resolution format, the bit rate (code rate) of the lowest level dsd64 reaches 5645kbps, and most decoding chips cannot play audio if they are not decoded after software conversion, and the sound heard after soft decoding cannot reflect the details of real high-resolution music. Therefore, the gap between decoding chips is obvious, and it is related to the most basic requirement whether music can be played.
SNR is an important index to measure the quality of decoding chip
SNR is also an important index in the decoding chip. It reflects the ratio of normal sound signal to noise signal in the playback process. High signal-to-noise ratio indicates that the audio signal is subject to less interference and high sound restoration. If the signal-to-noise ratio is low, you may hear some noise that does not exist in the original sound, and the sound distortion is high. Therefore, decoding chips with high signal-to-noise ratio are usually better.
Audio decoding is not expensive
There is no doubt about these price information. The price of decoding chips is almost the same. There are no false bids or fake goods. Tens of thousands of decoding or players use these things. Therefore, only with common sense, we can judge that the decoding chip is not the core of the whole audio system, or even the key part of the decoder. Indeed, the audio system is a complex whole. Take the decoder for example. The core part of an excellent audio decoding is not placed on the decoding chip. Analog circuit design, clock signal, digital signal processing and power supply will have a greater impact on the sound. In many aspects, manufacturers need to spend several times more cost and time than the decoding chip.
Decoding chip is not the core
The decoding chip is not the core. The decoding chip a few years ago can also reach a high standard
On the other hand, the decoding chip itself is a very mature product. A few years ago, the indicators of the decoding chip have reached a very excellent level, so the sound performance will not change qualitatively due to different decoding chips, and there are many products with the latest and most expensive chips but extremely mediocre sound in the market. Therefore, it is not surprising that we will see the price difference of different products using the same decoding chip several times or even more than ten times in the future, and other influencing factors are more critical.

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Keyword：Audio   Decoding Chip   Smartphone   Sampling Frequency   Signal to Noise Ratio   Total Harmonic Distortion   SOC Specification   Computer Hardware Running Score   Display Resolution   Camera Pixels   Signal to Noise Ratio   Commax-Tech Electronic