Rio Audio Rio Nitrus 41000855-004_B - Manual (Page 43)

Table of Contents Index
39 Rio Nitrus
:: Glossary of Digital Audio Terms
Bass
Bass is the particular low-range area of the sound spectrum where low musical notes and sounds are located.
Increasing the bass value will make the low vocals and drums more prominent in your music. You can select the
amount of bass in your music by selecting various Equalizer options.
Bitrate
Bitrate denotes the number of bits per second used by a digital music file. The size and quality of a compressed
digital audio file is determined by the bitrate used when encoding the file. Generally, the higher the bitrate used
the higher the sound quality and the larger the file size. For example, a bitrate of 96kbps (96,000 bits per second)
is generally thought of as “CD quality” for WMA audio files, and takes up about 0.75 megabytes (MB) per minute of
music. At a 64kbps bitrate, the sound quality of WMA is similar to that of an FM radio signal, but approximately two
minutes of music will fit in 1MB of space.
Codec
Depending on the context and kind of technology involved, codec can be defined as a compressed digital audio file
format (like MP3, WMA, etc.), a “coding/decoding” chip used to translate between digital and analog transmissions
(used in modems), or a compression/decompression algorithm. Codecs compress audio data into a file, often for
efficient transmission over a network, and then decode it for playback. While all the codecs perform similar
compression of digital audio, there are differences in the technology.
The Rio Nitrus supports the following digital audio codecs:
• MP3
• WMA
Firmware
Firmware is the read-only software that is installed on the player. Like software it can be updated, but unlike
software, it can never be deleted from the player.
Gain
Gain is a measurement of the amplitude of frequency ranges. Gain adjustments boost or reduce frequencies to
provide a more desirable audio output.