If MP3s Could Kill They Probably Will
NCPR's Sound-Daddy #1, Joel Hurd (cool video, Joel!), is going to hate this post.
I'm the anti-sound geek. If it sounds good enough to not bother or distract me, I'm fine. This is probably the product of the "get-the-news-to-air" mentality of reporting. I occasionally use cell phone interviews in my news stories, record my voice tracks in my echoey kitchen late at night, use sound stuttered with blowing wind -- if it'll help me tell the story and get it out quickly to listeners. I try my best to get good sound, but hey, sometimes you just gotta deal. On the Beat Authority, I use my iPod to play lots of songs - can you tell the difference between that and a CD? Joel and Radio Bob say they can.
Peter Gabriel, who, aside from his own musical credentials, owns the groundbreaking world music label Real World, is not happy with the MP3 downloadable world. From an e-newsletter he sent out:
One of the things that's frustrating about the digital revolution of which I am a huge fan is that the audio quality has taken a giant step backwards. A lot of what we hear on iPods and so on is super-compressed and people have got used to this. For those of us who have really worked hard to get things to sound good and full and rich and build landscapes out of sound, it's very frustrating, so I'm very happy that with these Music Club releases are going to be without compression and full quality." Peter GabrielHe's talking about a collaboration between Real World and B&W Music Club to distribute loss-less audio files of his releases.
Apple launched a similar effort to release higher quality audio files awhile back, too.
Are you an audiophile? A technophile or -phobe? In the digital age, do you care about the quality of your music files? What will your iPod songs sound like 20 years from now? Peter Gabriel's betting you care.
Labels: mp3, technology
posted by David Sommerstein @ 11:28 AM
4 Comments
4 Comments:
I certainly do care, even to the degree I keep my lps to listen to the music of my youth. Even CDs could not stand up to the quality of vinyl - and when it is the Ramones you need every little bit of goodness!
Alan
Kingston
When I was in high school, I insisted on vinyl over cassette. It did sound better. But that was cassettes!
Is there THAT much of a difference between MP3 and loss-less "plus" format?
When I was working with the young IT wizards at a Canadian firm called silverorange (who run my blogs on their servers) I had to have them over to my house to listen to vinyl - much to their late teenaged astonishment...even if it was layered with hip irony and the labelling me as "Oldie Olson."
Granted that was 2003 or so but there is still no medium that I have heard yet that beats the warm presense of a good clean LP.
The answer to these questions will depend greatly on the quality of audio equipment you are using. The most elaborate turntable I know of costs $200,000 and weighs several hundred pounds. That's obviously overkill, but gives you some indication of how far things can be pushed.
It takes a great deal more effort on the part of the listener to get the most out of vinyl records. It could cost over $1000 to get a decent entry level audiophile setup. Something like a Rega P2 and a Pro-Ject Tube Box as a phono preamp. That doesn't even take into account your main audio system which could include a combination of different devices including loudspeakers, headphones, tuners etc...
I think it's good to make use of all the different kinds of formats. Including rough and ready MP3s.
It takes more effort to clean and handle records. It probably isn't for everyone. Many new releases arrive warped. Some albums do not sound very good for a multitude of different reasons. Yet when you do find an album that was well made, it can be very rewarding to put it on a turntable.
Several artists have made an effort to put out vinyl. Shelby Lynne recently put out her very first vinyl record, and it sounds quite wonderful. It makes a big difference for vocals.
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