"only sad musicians and technoheads like to listen to music with full quality and range", according to this article.
For those in here who would not touch an interface that works at fewer than 24 bits etc.. this must come as a shock!


The Guardian

--------------------
www.bugiolacchi.com
Songwriter/guitarist

The only shocking thing is that the Guardian employs people who have developed the ability to type without engaging their synapses or checking their 'facts'.

Blogs -- the IT equivalent of landfill!

Hugh

--------------------
Technical Editor, Sound On Sound

Quote bugiolacchi:

---

"only sad musicians and technoheads like to listen to music with full quality and range", according to this article.
For those in here who would not touch an interface that works at fewer than 24 bits etc.. this must come as a shock!


The Guardian

---

The quality of mp3s is pretty good really. Technically it has huge advantages over vinyl and is pretty damn close to CD quality when encoded at 320. As for the mastering process, that's a different issue. Mastering engineers are doing a lot more damage to audio quality than data compression algorithms.

well - it IS only a blog.

Having supplied equipment for a shoot for the Guardian, I can honestly say - they themselves, have VERY high standards !!!!
But then, its very rare to find a "personality" who understands the equipment they use.....

>Blogs -- the IT equivalent of landfill!

Don't agree. This isn't really a 'blog' anyway. It's a newspaper article packaged as a 'blog' to save money (call a writer a blogger and you can pay him less) and to make it look as though the newspaper is 'with it'.

Most kids don't KNOW what good quality audio is. Low bit rate mp3's and crappy phone speakers etc.

Things are getting better and technology moves on. Quality audio will always be in demand because music is inherent in human DNA.

Quote _ Six _:

---

Quality audio will always be in demand because music is inherent in human DNA.

---

So how big is your SACD collection then?

However I do agree with the bit above the quoted part!

--------------------
ScanProAudio & 3XS Audio Systems
ScanProAudio Blog

This sounds suspiciously like what my old mum used to call "inverted snobbery". I'll just carry on enjoying music to the best quality I can find, without getting obsessive about it.

--------------------
It wasn't me!
(Well, actually, it probably was)

Quote _ Six _:

---

....because music is inherent in human DNA.

---

Actually, no.

Music is a much higher order process....

Quote Gone To Lunch:

---

Quote _ Six _:

---

....because music is inherent in human DNA.

---

Actually, no.

Music is a much higher order process....

---

You haven't actually formed a contradiction there.

--------------------
Composer;
www.ogonline.org

Quote johnny h:

---

The quality of mp3s is pretty good really. Technically it has huge advantages over vinyl and is pretty damn close to CD quality when encoded at 320. As for the mastering process, that's a different issue. Mastering engineers are doing a lot more damage to audio quality than data compression algorithms.

---

Oh bollocks! Johnny H and I are in complete agreement.

That has to a first - alert the press.

On second thoughts, don't bother - they will only misrepresent it!

--------------------
Website / Music Lab Machines / Blog

Quote oggyb:

---

Quote Gone To Lunch:

---

Quote _ Six _:

---

....because music is inherent in human DNA.

---

Actually, no.

Music is a much higher order process....

---

You haven't actually formed a contradiction there.

---

I mean that I disagree that 'music is inherent in human DNA'

Quote Gone To Lunch:

---

Quote oggyb:

---

Quote Gone To Lunch:

---

Quote _ Six _:

---

....because music is inherent in human DNA.

---

Actually, no.

Music is a much higher order process....

---

You haven't actually formed a contradiction there.

---

I mean that I disagree that 'music is inherent in human DNA'

---

I see.

Well, on the one hand you can't program musicality like eye colour, but you can program the big brain necessary to support it. I guess that's why I questioned you

--------------------
Composer;
www.ogonline.org

Quote hollowsun:

---

Quote johnny h:

---

The quality of mp3s is pretty good really. Technically it has huge advantages over vinyl and is pretty damn close to CD quality when encoded at 320. As for the mastering process, that's a different issue. Mastering engineers are doing a lot more damage to audio quality than data compression algorithms.

---

Oh bollocks! Johnny H and I are in complete agreement.

That has to a first - alert the press.

On second thoughts, don't bother - they will only misrepresent it!

---

That's not true, we also agreed about the poor sound of Arturia's CS80 plugin.

Politics isn't so harmonious, but lets keep that to the music lounge.

Quote oggyb:

---

Quote Gone To Lunch:

---

Quote oggyb:

---

Quote Gone To Lunch:

---

Quote _ Six _:

---

....because music is inherent in human DNA.

---

Actually, no.

Music is a much higher order process....

---

You haven't actually formed a contradiction there.

---

I mean that I disagree that 'music is inherent in human DNA'

---

I see.

Well, on the one hand you can't program musicality like eye colour, but you can program the big brain necessary to support it. I guess that's why I questioned you

---

I disagree with that as well !

Well as much as I like higher quality files..the truth is that an HD telly doesn't transform a crap film into a good one!..so in that regard I am not that bothered. Dave

--------------------
My head hurts!

Quote johnny h:

---

That's not true, we also agreed about the poor sound of Arturia's CS80 plugin.

---

Ah! True

Quote johnny h:

---

Politics isn't so harmonious

---

Well, I could agree with your politics but then we'd both be wrong!

--------------------
Website / Music Lab Machines / Blog

Not the best-written article

It's clear there has been a huge shift in the way that many people consume music..... At one point, the industry sold different formats based on 'Audio Quality' or the perception thereof. If you'd told any of us 15 years ago that the predominent system in years to come would go backwards from CD's in terms of audio quality then you'd have had a hard time getting anyone to believe it.

I think SACD's failed due to not knowing what they wanted to be / choice / expense. The person who had the Amstrad stereo couldn't play it and didn't care. The audiophile who had thousands invested in a 2 channel system with a CD player / vinyl was unlikely to jump ship (the marketing folks spent half their time talking about multichannel which meant yet more cash or an 'inferior' home cinema amp so a very mixed message!). Using the SACD failure to say 'people don't want it' is crazy. What is needed is for a superb quality digital format that plays on an iPod and is readilly available at a price people are willing to pay. It's not that people do not 'want' quality. Consumers always want high quality - but it is ONE buying factor. If you can pair quality with convenience with compatibility and sell it right then it's potentially a winner.

I still buy CD's. I rip them to FLAC and to 320k MP3 because 90% of my listening these days is in the car. I think a lot of people care about audio quality but the lure of convenience is strong and, for non-ideal environments, MP3 at a decent bitrate is fine. At home, I listen to the FLAC by one means or another.

There was a discussion on here recently about the difficulty of obtaining decent quality audio files immediately. If Neil Young is able to push higher quality without foresaking convenience then good on him. I received £40 worth of CD's from Amazon this morning; I ordered them last Thursday. I now have to sit and rip them. I don't have anywhere left to store them. For these reasons, I'd much rather have spent that £40 downloading FLACS or similar but, for these artists, could not find them. The whole process is frustrating, wasteful and unneccessary If I can get FLACs or (if Neil Young has his way) better as a download then I'll be a happy consumer.

I'm not sure anything much has really actually changed for the worst in practice, in terms of "quality" and "fidelity", on the consumer end.

Sure, kids are listening to music through iPhones and laptop speakers etc, because they want to listen to music and that's often all that's available to them.

But I remember as a young kid listening to AM radio through a tiny clock radio, recording the radio through a cheap mono microphone onto a crappy tape recorder, buying second hand vinyl and playing them on awful turntables and other such things - the quality was *way* worse than listening through an iPhone - and I still managed to develop a deep love and fascination of music in spite of the poor quality available to me back then.

I clearly remember the first time I listened to a personal stereo cassette player (Aiwa, Donal Lunny Live).

It blew my tiny mind.

--------------------
Ohm's Law states, "Your PA isn't as powerful as you think it is".

All true, Desmond. I was the same Used to camp next to the mono radio with a borrowed mono cassette deck and a microphone when the top 40 was on. But we knew it was pants (the announcement that it was tea time spilling over onto the mic was very much of its time ) and lusted after better quality (I did anyway).

Not so sure that everyone these days with an MP3 player is quite as aware that 'better is available' as the marketing messages are focussed on 'get it now, and lots of it with no hassle' and fail to mention the quality aspect. The 'need creation' these days is missing the quality trick on the MP3 front which I hope can come back

Having said that, you are correct - the 'poor quality' of MP3 is a heck of a lot better than most of us had growing up in both quality and quantity terms.

My brother was 10 years older than me. He bought a stereo in the 70's and had it in his room (where I was forbidden to go). I badly wanted that thing, especially as his taste in music was s***e.

It took 2 years of a Saturday job for me to finally buy a MIDI system. It was pants but I loved that thing. Following years saw many upgrades. I only really cottoned on to the 'law of diminishing returns' when I treated the study here for recording purposes. I don't now gladly listen to music in our living room.... Despite it being a reasonable setup, the abundance of rockwool in here makes my little den system sound a lot more expensive than it is

I don’t think anything has really changed. The mass population has always been content with mediocre sound quality provided the music itself is good. In the 50s they were quite happy with knackered 45rpm singles in jukeboxes played through rubbish speakers, and mono AM radio. In the 80s they were quite happy with cassette Walkmans and FM radio through tiny portable radios. In the 2000s they are quite happy with modest rate MP3s.

Most can appreciate better quality if it’s presented to them, but convenience is usually more important. The inherent cost and domestic compromises required to benefit from high quality music reproduction is what stops people from embracing it. 24 bit downloads won’t change that because it doesn’t offer anything usefully new or convenient.

I doubt Young’s 24 bit downloads will go anywhere, because people can already download adequate quality AAC files from iTunes, and the 24 bit aspect is utterly irrelevant to anyone other than the marketing people. I’ve been using 256 and 320kbps MP3s on my iPod for years without any concerns at all – it was more than good enough for listening to on over ear-buds on trains and planes. I can hear the slight quality loss on a decent monitoring system in a decent room, but that’s not a typical situation for most people.

In reality there are precious few listening environments where you can actually enjoy the full dynamic range of a 16 bit system – CD was always and remains perfectly appropriate for domestic music reproduction as far as dynamic range is concerned. Added to which most music is battered to death in mastering and barely uses more than 20dB dynamic range anyway. (I agree with the comments that the breed of ‘mastering engineer’ has done more to damage music than anything else.) The 24 bit option is very handy when you need to record and mix with decent headroom margins, but utterly pointless once that margin is no longer required after mastering. (And let’s not forget that few converters can really achieve more than 21 bit performance anyway…)
SACDs are still being made and purchased in reasonable numbers, largely because the ubiquitous hybrid form is usable as a stereo red-book CD. But the format is flawed (24/96 is technically better…) and few people are interested in surround music at all for the simple reason that it’s just not convenient to use.

Like Gary, I still buy CDs – probably averaging 8 a month. I rip them to Apple Lossless (because of the convenient metadata facilities and compatibility with my iPods) and play them from a NAS via Sonos Connect boxes into my various monitoring systems. Since doing that I’ve actually listened to a lot more music than when I had to go and dig out specific CDs. The convenience is superb, the quality is superb (on decently produced material), and the only thing lacking is the ability to read the sleeve and booklet notes. But at least I’ve got those with the CDs which I wouldn’t have if I just bought downloads…

Hugh

--------------------
Technical Editor, Sound On Sound

--------------------
Website / Music Lab Machines / Blog

Quote Hugh Robjohns:

---

the only thing lacking is the ability to read the sleeve and booklet notes. But at least I’ve got those with the CDs which I wouldn’t have if I just bought downloads…

---

I'm with you 100%.

There will be a generation of people left with no physical products because of downloads (music, games, books and films). Some time in the future historians will wonder why there is nothing from this century!

--------------------
http://soundcloud.com/richie-royale
http://www.mixcrate.com/richieroyale

Quote Richie Royale:

---

Quote Hugh Robjohns:

---

the only thing lacking is the ability to read the sleeve and booklet notes. But at least I’ve got those with the CDs which I wouldn’t have if I just bought downloads…

---

I'm with you 100%.

There will be a generation of people left with no physical products because of downloads (music, games, books and films). Some time in the future historians will wonder why there is nothing from this century!

---

...and then they will discover Hugh's buried time capsule of CD releases and all with become clear


Martin

--------------------
YewTreeMagic

High Hugh

Myself I never stop listening to CD's in my modest hi-end system (I don't even own a DAC - yet). The wonderful surprise is that as time goes by, more people seem to join me in music listening evenings. First, it was my family, then my best friends and recently I have people visiting just to listen to music. Most of them had never listened to music on a hi-end system. All of them like it so much that they come back for more. I have become something like a small scale hi-fi evangelist.

I think that the one battle the music industry has to win, in order to continue its existence, is to lure people back to listening to music on their living rooms with decent hifi systems. If they achieved that then the sales would increase.

Regards,

my children now seem to be into vinyl as are friends kids - funny story of a friend searching the house for his old record deck - his wife had thrown it out - but all was not lost she had kept her Dansette!

--------------------
Nick

Edited by N.icholas (11/10/12 08:05 PM)

Wish I'd known about this sooner, could have avoided equipping for blew ray and just picked up some old videeyo seedy production discards instead.

Wonder if many people would notice if their CDs/downloads were only 8-bit/22k, that could save me some cash too...

this says it all: http://ravehumor.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/sounds-good-bro.jpg

--------------------
www.soundcloud.com/blackmagicdisco

Someone should really come up with a way of making mp3's sound just as good at half the bitrate. I'm sure that would be so impressive (just think, more space for more mp3's!) it will become widely adopted in no time at all.

Oh, wait...

http://www.mp3prozone.com/

I honestly don't understand why people bother with the mp3 format anymore... It's not like storage or bandwidth is premium. It ain't 1997.

--------------------
www.thediplomatz.com

Nothing new there. Even when vinyl was king the average hifi setup was pretty dire and for most people if it was loud it was good.
Not many paid out the few thousand squids needed for pristine hifi on stilts so you could hear the tea boy whistling in the corridor behind John Lennon on the White Album.

And besides it depends whether you like a bit of ambient filth behind your music like you get at a rock or folk concert compared to a classical concert where everyone shuts up or gets kicked out so they hold their breath in the violin solo.
Jazz is never recorded properly as there's never any clapping after every solo.

--------------------
Success is round the corner. It's also round the bend.

'97 was a particularly good vintage for mp3pro's! Much fruitier than the '95 and '96, with a nice dry finish and a hint of caramel overcompression. Nicely accompanied cheezy pop.

No matter how much storage capacity or bandwidth is available, in time (or even immediately) it soon enough becomes full and inadequate to requirements. This is immutable tech law, and has meant fortunes to be made for compression specialists and storage media manufacturers.

I see the move to offering "lossless" versions as a good thing, and hope it trends higher. Mebbe just needs some prestige premium branding and upmarket imaging. Gold (platinum, titanium, unobtainium) ear buds might move it mainstream.

Meanwhile, can I interest anyone in a pristine barely-used RCA (very prestigious brand!) Lyra Mp3Pro player? Latest updated firmware already installed. I'll even throw in a free armband holster and memory card upgrade! Batteries not included.

MP3 is fine for most people under general music listening circumstances. Many people only listen to music whilst doing something else, so top quality is not a priority. Those who actually take time to sit and listen to a piece of music are a minority, so top quality HIFI will always be a minority taste, just like most folk wouldn't know the difference between a good wine and a vintage wine.

Anyone who spent formative years listening to fantastic new music on radio Caroline (fading in and out) on a transistor radio, under the bed covers, and still enjoying it, believe me... MP3 is a perfectly acceptable medium!

--------------------

...and you can still listen to Radio Caroline today over the hinternet... and it's just as good! ;-)

H

--------------------
Technical Editor, Sound On Sound

And it isn't a sin.

--------------------
Success is round the corner. It's also round the bend.

Quote tex:

---

And it isn't a sin.

---

Kind a takes the fun out of it though

--------------------

i'll take my crappy sounding low-fi please

--------------------
My Facebook and Twitter pages