background image

MP3 Decoding in Harman Kardon Products

Harman Kardon has long been a technological leader in the

audio industry, with a long list of “firsts” that includes the 

first stereo receiver, the first use of Dolby* Type B noise reduction

in a cassette player and, more recently, the world’s first receiver 

to feature HDCD

®

, Logic 7

®

and VMAx

®

digital audio processing.

Continuing this tradition of innovation, Harman Kardon was 

the first brand to fully embrace MP3 technology by offering 

MP3 playback in both a five-disc DVD changer and a CD-R/RW

recorder. Harman Kardon’s audio/video receivers are the first 

to integrate MP3 with built-in decoding and both coaxial 

and optical front-panel digital inputs. Now, enjoying the 

wide variety of MP3 audio content is as simple as playing 

an MP3-encoded CD in a DVD 50 or CDR 30, or connecting 

the output of a compatible computer sound card to the digital

input of an AVR 110, AVR 210, AVR 310 or AVR 510.

The Basics of MP3 Audio

From a technical definition standpoint, what is popularly referred to as “MP3” is more 

precisely the “Level 3” format for recording audio in the MPEG-1 video compression standard.

In simple terms, this means that an MP3 file is a digitally compressed version of an audio track.

The original audio may be a file initially created for distribution in the MP3 form, or it may be

created from an existing source, such as a CD. The difference between standard digital audio

files and an MP3 file is that the average 3-minute song takes up about 32 megabytes of space,

but the MP3 takes up considerably less memory, enabling more songs to be placed on a single 

disc or memory card, with little compromise in sound quality. The compression process relies 

on oddities of human perceptions of sound. For example, louder sounds mask softer sounds 

so that we don’t hear them, and sometimes the same material is repeated in both channels 

of a stereo recording. 

Power for the Digital Revolution.

TM

Reviews: