Evaluation of the quality of encoded Quran digital audio recording

Abstract

Digital audio compression is applied to reduce the data rate required to send audio stream through band limited communication networks, as well as reducing the size of data storage in case of recording audio streams. It is common to apply lossy audio compression algorithms in many applications, which provide higher compression at the expense of the fidelity. MPEG-1&2 Audio Layer III, or MP3, is encoding format for digital audio that uses a form of lossy data compression. It is a regular audio format for consumer audio streaming or storage, and a standard of digital audio compression for the transfer and playback of music on the majority of digital audio players. However, the quality of audio encoding depends on the phonemes of sound that distinguish one word from another in a particular language. Most of speech models applied in audio compression relies on phonemes of English language, rather than those of Arabic language. Therefore, audio encoding of Holly Quran for recording on digital media is highly affected by these differences in the models used. Consequently, serious errors could be produced during the playback of Quran Kareem, which may change the meaning and quality of the output stream. The main objective of this paper is to discuss and evaluate encoding methods for speech in Arabic language accents, focusing on deterioration occurs in producing correct and clear Quran digital audio recording.