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Alan Parsons Interview

Surprised this hasn't been posted already, but if it has I can't find it. Did a search.

Being the engineer behind Dark Side of the Moon does give you a certain level of credibility. And there's no question that Alan Parsons is right when he says, as he does in this interview, that audiophiles spend too much time/money on equipment and not enough on room acoustics.

And yet -- there's a lot about this interview that makes me not trust the guy very much. OK, he's a legend. But he has no decent music-reproduction equipment in the family areas of his house. He only listens to music on his car radio. He says you can get a "pretty decent" home theater sound system at Costco.

He does say some things I agree with that not everyone would agree with: "Engineers will always go for the highest-quality format available. I don’t think consumer enjoyment values suffer much if we have to use slightly lower-quality delivery formats," (which I take to mean that high-rez matters a lot during production but red-book rez can deliver an excellent product). Also, "A lot of the processing that audiophiles criticize is a style thing and part of the music itself." True enough -- though that doesn't mean I want to listen to those styles of music.

Anyway, worth the time it takes to read.

Jim


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Topic - Alan Parsons Interview - Jim Austin 13:24:42 03/18/12 (16)

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