Prior to the digital age there were all kinds of specs to look at to determine if your audio equipment would add noise to the recording like turntable rumble, wow, flutter, tape deck hiss, preamp/amplifier hum, THD. So if your music presentations were noisy or distorted you could for the most part identify the cause. Today in the digital age we have THD, jitter, timing, and filters. So when a file doesn't sound right like it has changed from the original to too many highs and lows and not enough mid or the instruments don't sound right what is the problem.
When analog is changed something is added to the recording, the electrical signal get distorted or a noisy recording (pops clicks etc.) When a digital file becomes a problem what happened. A song is created in a stream is 1s and 0s and then formatted into an FLAC, WAV, MP3 where it sits on a medium until played. Then a digital player cues up where the song is then streamed ( 1s and 0S ) into a DAC. The DAC feeds an analog signal into the preamp > amp > speakers. Let's assume the analog signal is not the problem i.e. the preamp out are fine. What in the digital section could cause the song to change? What changes the bits and bytes (1s and 0s) to alter the music? Where would I look to get the music back to sound as it should?
Since I'm limited in my understanding of digital processing please, if possible, keep the answers simple.
When analog is changed something is added to the recording, the electrical signal get distorted or a noisy recording (pops clicks etc.) When a digital file becomes a problem what happened. A song is created in a stream is 1s and 0s and then formatted into an FLAC, WAV, MP3 where it sits on a medium until played. Then a digital player cues up where the song is then streamed ( 1s and 0S ) into a DAC. The DAC feeds an analog signal into the preamp > amp > speakers. Let's assume the analog signal is not the problem i.e. the preamp out are fine. What in the digital section could cause the song to change? What changes the bits and bytes (1s and 0s) to alter the music? Where would I look to get the music back to sound as it should?
Since I'm limited in my understanding of digital processing please, if possible, keep the answers simple.