The Distortion Of Sound -- rise of music accessability, decline of audio quality

[Plenum n Heather]

I think there are bigger drawbacks to mp3 than just audio quality.

This. My thoughts exactly.

mp3 was a necessary evil when 'bandwidth' was an issue, but now even THAT notion is becoming out of date in most of the world, certainly in the countries with enough disposable cash to purchase music for casual listening.

There really is no excuse to NOT have have the consumer have a choice between mp3 and AIFF or WAV now; but it's akin to fighting City Hall at this point.

After Sony's mainstream failure with MiniDisc, they concluded that a consumer will only support 2 major purchase formats of music in their lifetime -- LP > CD, CD > mp3 ... to ask someone who owned the CD, then the Apple "Lossless"  to also purchase the album as FLAC, AIFF, or WAV? Probably not going to happen.

So I think we are still a ways away from consumer MENTALITY to embrace the notion of higher quality audio formats.

Re: Redbook WAV/CD vs higher formats ... 16 bit/44.1 is good. 24 bit is noticeably better. I haven't heard any real improvement with upsampling; and some VERY slight sonic improvements with oversampling. But not enough to risk all the clocking and pitch issues that come along with 48k and above.

Lively discussion folks! Keep it up! :)

[Dmoney]

video compression is even worse. ha.

Like I said, I quite like buying an LP that also comes with a download code for some digital format. I think that's a really good way of doing it. Doesn't seem a point in doing that with CD since you can rip it yourself and use whatever to do it. But then I'm the kind of guy that would go for that. Or I'd buy tracks direct from bands on bandcamp maybe. I get MP3's for the convenience of them being portable. I rarely buy from itunes and thats the only place I've bought an mp3 from. So 'the consumer' here means the mojority of people, who i assume buy singles and aren't really concerned with things like ablums, album art, thanks lists or lyric books for example. I doubt they really care about bit depth either. They just want to hear Kate Nash's latest catchy number, and ironically, if you want to be a big pop artist, those are the people you need to appeal to. So it's a Catch 22 I think.

[AndyR]

Interesting discussion. Haven't got time to watch the vid - but I get the drift from you guys' comments.

I was anti-CD until I bought a CD player. Can't remember when it was exactly, but Queen's Innuendo had been out for a year or so. The first CDs I bought were Innuendo, Free's Highway, Thin Lizzy's Jailbreak, and Judas Priest's Stained Class. I'd been all "but vinyl sounds so much more natural..." before that. I got the buggers home, plugged the CD player into the same set-up the turn-table was attached to and... I was BLOWN AWAY!!

I miss the sleeves, the 12" of black plastic, all the ritual, etc... but to me, the CD version of Jailbreak and Highway sounded so much more preferable than the records. I was converted in minutes...

Mp3s, I dunno... For years, everything I ripped from CD for my portable thingie was 64K wma!! Yeah, I could hear some of the degradation, but the music was still there. And, funnily enough, plug the portable thingie into the stereo - and the degradation was a LOT less noticable than on ear-buds...

I do mp3 nowadays, but it takes more space (my portable thingie is still a 1Gb usb stick player).

Something else I've observed with both commercial recordings and my own sh1t - some stuff survives whatever audio-format/speakers/rooms/ears you throw at it... the spirit, vibe, and performance is there no matter what... It'd probably sound OK if you transmitted between two baked bean cans with a piece of string...

But some stuff doesn't - it needs good speakers and a good room and a high quality format to prop it up. I can imagine the performers/authors sitting there listening with me and going "omigod! It's not meant to sound like that!! your system's sh1t - you need to get decent stuff if you want to listen to my music". I find myself thinking "well, how come other artistes/producers have managed to create a product that sounds cool no matter what I do to it?"

If they want to create music just for their own amusement, yeah, fine... But if they want a whole bunch of people to be impressed enough to buy it and give them an income, then they really ought to be thinking about what's going to happen to it when it leaves the big speakers in the control room. Yeah, mixes can be optimised for different deliveries, but the impression that I have at the moment is that GOOD mixes sound OK/good on cheap stuff (including mono) and they still sound good on the expensive stuff...

And what they ALL seem to be missing is the one thing that no-one has any control over whatsoever - ears, and how the brain interprets whatever signals those ears can pick up.

With my stuff, someone, on a low quality mp3 and shite speakers/room, can go "hey that's fab!"... and I go "but it's a bit disappointing... it should have more [wotever]". I drag them up to my room and play the original through the big speakers... they go "hey! nice system... song's still fab, though"... and I go "can't you hear the more [wotever] on the song?"... and they go "no not really, it's just a better stereo... song still sounds fab" (Sometimes the word fab can be substituted with the word cr@p - the experience is the same!!)

I dunno, after my experience of vinyl to CD conversion years ago, and subsequent experiences with recording, etc... musicians/producers complaining about audio quality seems a bit like the farmer who produces the eggs complaining about the fat I fry them in...



One thing, though, I know it's only a typo Dmoney , but I reckon that "mojority" really should be a word!

eg: "the spirit, vibe, mojority and performance is there no matter what..."

[Ian Price]

I don't really have much to add to this debate, I don't really understand ten ought about the science behind it. I have recently been given (yes, given - free of charge) a c--ktail audio music player. The first decision I had to make was what format did I want to store the music in - i did some very light research and plumped for FLAC. Through the speakers and at a decent volume it sounds pretty damn good. Maybe I should A/B against an MP3.

Also, earlier today I was in HMV looking for some bargains and noticed they had some demo headphones out on display. I gave some Beats a go (not sure if they are rated highly or if they are just a 'name'). To my ears they sounded absolutely stunning. A few sample tracks (Sheryl Crow, Rolling Stones) were listened to and the clarity of all instruments and vocals was pretty impressive. Not sure what audio equipment they had handling the playback though.

I decided not to purchase them - £350 for some headphones is a bit steep for me at the moment. They definitely got my attention though.

[juansolo]

Going back to the sequence in the film where they followed the timeline from vinyl to 8-track to cassette etc, before getting to the nitty-gritty about the horrors of compressed audio.... I did find it a little odd that all the "talking heads" got all nostalgic about mix tapes and the Sony Walkman. 

Cassette tape may not be a deliberately, brutally compressed audio format (I know very little about the science!) but it always sounded bloody awful.  Even more so when listened to via the sh!tty headphones which came with personal stereos.  In a film about decline of audio quality, looking at the cassette through rose-tinted spectacles seemed more than a bit contradictory.

The things recording tapes did was teach the recorder about levels and clipping. They don't have that now... With a good HiFi and tape deck, you could make very good recordings. Not many people did, but it was possible. I miss records though... I miss the way they sounded, I miss the interaction and I miss the big gatefold sleeves.

But still do my best to buy everything on CD. I will admit that to get around Afghan's problem of albums being one awesome track and a load of filler, I tend to download, then if I like it, legitimise it with a CD.

It is all about convenience now. I'll admit that I do most of my listening now whilst at the computer, or while building pedals. Both on MP3s. Every now and then I'll stick a CD in my HiFi and I'm blown away by the difference (and it's not like I've got shite speakers on my computer). It's a shame that I don't make time for listening to music as much as I used to when I was younger.

[Toe-Knee]

I think a reason why a lot of people had a distaste for cassettes was more the fact that a lot were recorded using long play techniques which was half the quality.

Singles on cassette always sounded far better than albums imho.

[gwEm]

Interesting documentary, very bias and I disagree with a bunch of it, but at least it sparks debate.

The tape part of the documentary was kind of against the grain of the rest of the message, which was pushing audio quality. Those old cassette tapes stretch, compress dynamic range and lose high frequency information.. Also, it's not exactly as if ghetto blasters had fine audio quality.

Personally speaking, except maybe for my first and maybe second release, the benefits of MP3 have given much to me as an artist, and I have to say I probably wouldn't have done many of the things I've done without it.

When I was younger I did sit down in an easy chair and listen to an album and appreciate the nuances. Today I am always doing something else when listening to music. And background noise hides a lot of the details of even the highest fidelity recording.

[gwEm]

I was anti-CD until I bought a CD player. Can't remember when it was exactly, but Queen's Innuendo had been out for a year or so. The first CDs I bought were Innuendo, Free's Highway, Thin Lizzy's Jailbreak, and Judas Priest's Stained Class. I'd been all "but vinyl sounds so much more natural..." before that. I got the buggers home, plugged the CD player into the same set-up the turn-table was attached to and... I was BLOWN AWAY!!

Agree!! I was blown away when I first listened to a CD too. It was a big step forward.

[gwEm]

When I listen to the uncompressed WAV I've just lovingly rendered from my DAW and then compare it to the MP3 I produced from it, the difference is clear though. Even at 320kps (though this bit rate is pretty good quality I think) you can hear it even in lower quality gear.

I do think the benefits outweigh this though.

[Dmoney]

Personally speaking, except maybe for my first and maybe second release, the benefits of MP3 have given much to me as an artist, and I have to say I probably wouldn't have done many of the things I've done without it.

When I was younger I did sit down in an easy chair and listen to an album and appreciate the nuances. Today I am always doing something else when listening to music. And background noise hides a lot of the details of even the highest fidelity recording.

MP3 and digital distribution defo helped me out with my band, and I imagine countless others too! I do find myself getting tired of music more quickly and moving on faster, given its so easy for me to find something new. At least I feel I consume faster. Anyone else feel like that?  I'm also usually doing something while listening.

[gwEm]

MP3 and digital distribution defo helped me out with my band, and I imagine countless others too! I do find myself getting tired of music more quickly and moving on faster, given its so easy for me to find something new. At least I feel I consume faster. Anyone else feel like that?  I'm also usually doing something while listening.

It certainly has affected my listening habits and in a big way. In fact, rather than investigating new music as I used to do, I find myself going back in time and following up recommendations found by research. There is a lot of new stuff, and sadly it's not always very good, as Afghan pointed out.. So (much to my own shame) I have ignored much of it..

[38thBeatle]

I am a fairly simple soul and I rather like the idea of being able to access my entire CD collection on my Ipod (even though Itunes has degenerated into a useless pile of cr*p)and the compromise on recording quality , which frankly I've never been too bothered about, is a price I've been prepered to pay. I can add much to the bate as some of you guys know far amore about the technicalities that I do. What I do know, however, is that my Ipod sounds far better than my old cassette walkman and better than the "hi fi" I had in the 1980's . I tend to buy CD's and copy them for the Ipod and listen to the CD in the car or on my home system when Mrs 38th is out.

[Andrew W]

I do find myself getting tired of music more quickly and moving on faster, given its so easy for me to find something new. At least I feel I consume faster. Anyone else feel like that?  I'm also usually doing something while listening.

I've had a bit of a reverse on this recently. I was a pretty early adopter of iPods and ripping my music to have in a massive library instantly available. The lure of shuffle and easily made playlists certainly heavily shaped the way I've listened to music for the last 15 years or so.

I've recently (last four months or so) got a properly decent portable DAC and headphone amp combo to go with my iPod and good headphones. I got this kit because I travel for work a lot, it gets very stressful, and I wanted to be able to listen to music at the end of the working day in high fidelity so I really get the most out of it. The thing I've found is that by listening, in hi-fi, on headphones I'm less disturbable than I am when listening over speakers, and I'm actually listening to albums from beginning to end again. Not only that I'm consciously seeking out new music and then giving it a proper listen, rather than half listening while mucking about on the internet or what-have-you as I was before.

I'm sure this wouldn't be everyone's experience but I found it really interesting that having really good portable hi-fi made brought this change on me.

[JDC]

I don't really have much to add to this debate, I don't really understand ten ought about the science behind it. I have recently been given (yes, given - free of charge) a c--ktail audio music player. The first decision I had to make was what format did I want to store the music in - i did some very light research and plumped for FLAC. Through the speakers and at a decent volume it sounds pretty damn good. Maybe I should A/B against an MP3.

Also, earlier today I was in HMV looking for some bargains and noticed they had some demo headphones out on display. I gave some Beats a go (not sure if they are rated highly or if they are just a 'name'). To my ears they sounded absolutely stunning. A few sample tracks (Sheryl Crow, Rolling Stones) were listened to and the clarity of all instruments and vocals was pretty impressive. Not sure what audio equipment they had handling the playback though.

I decided not to purchase them - £350 for some headphones is a bit steep for me at the moment. They definitely got my attention though.

I have listened to beats in that price range so I'm guessing they were the same pair, for me the clarity was just as good as my Sennheiser HD650s but the beats were a lot more coloured which I hated. Much prefer my HD650s and they also cost less but you need to run them with a headphone amp to get the most out of them.

[dvorak]

I get the point you are trying to get across, but in the big picture I don't agree at all.

If you bought a stereo kit in the 80s for £500 it would sounds pretty bad. Today that money gives you some good gear.

Even the earbuds bundled with telephones sound pretty good. When were the last time you guys listened to a set of speakers from the 70s? I think that era get way to hyped today, got to put it into perspective. Play the good old music through modern equipment and it soudns great. Play it through an old stereo from the era and it sounds quite bad. I'd rather listen to a 160kbps mp3 in a modern stereo that a Vinyl through an old one.

Still though, a FLAC through a modern setup is great!