9Compression
9.1 Introduction to compression
Compression, bit rate reduction and data reduction are all terms which mean basically the same thing in this context. In essence the same (or nearly the same) information is carried using a smaller quantity or rate of data. It should be pointed out that, in audio, compression traditionally means a process in which the dynamic range of the sound is reduced. Provided the context is clear, the two meanings can co-exist without a great deal of confusion.
There are several reasons why compression techniques are popular:
(a)Compression extends the playing time of storage devices such as file servers.
(b)Compression allows miniaturization. With less data to store, the same playing time is obtained with ...
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