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Don't know if this has already been posted, but here it be:
Follow Ups:
This is found towards the end of the article.If they had used a 50kHz sampling, people would have enjoyed their CDs a lot better. Using a low sampling rate or less bits is a form of compression which many don't seem to realize.
IMHO, the difference between 96/24 and 44.1/16 is greater than uncompressed 44.1/16 and a 256kbps MP3 file.
"IMHO, the difference between 96/24 and 44.1/16 is greater than uncompressed 44.1/16 and a 256kbps MP3 file."I have to kindly disagree with this one.... I've almost never experienced 24/96 that was listenable.
I do think had we gone 16/50, like you said, we wouldn't even have a format issue. Although I also think and we gone 16/50, vinyl wouldn't have survived.
Everybody has their own preferences, opinions and ears but AFAIK most people will agree that 96/24 is better than 44.1/16 even if they feel the difference is not much. You seem to be the only person I have come across that feels that 96/24 is worse than 44.1/16
Vinyl isn't dying because digital isn't better.But portability and convenience is a big deal.
So now there are new LPs being released with free mp3 downloads. Meanwhile CD sales are falling. Interesting trend.
The problem with CD isn't the medium. The problem with CD is the quality of playback, by and large, is ghastly pathetic relative to its potential. It's evidenced by the preference of vinyl, the preference of SACD (which I personally cannot stand), and even the claim that MP3 isn't any worse.When the CD first came out, I questioned the medium, and thought its playback quality was inherently flawed to be viable for high-end applications. Then one day, I heard a Wadia 7/9 playback system, at the defunct Sound Resource in Cleveland. I couldn't believe I was listening to CD. One of the recordings I remember during the occasion was Stravinsky's "Petrouchka", by the Cleveland Orchestra conducted by Pierre Boulez. And with Jeff Rowland electronics and Avalon speakers. The staging and specificity was head and shoulder above anything I've heard on CD prior to that. And also the tonal warmth and timbral resolution.
I ultimately got the Prism DA-2, which comes close, as well as some modified Magnavox and Philips players of early vintage. But still, I was at the HE 2006 in Los Angeles. And that same old generic, boring sound from CD from players costing thousands. A sound that a lot of us have loved to hate.....
The sick part is I'm now getting in the ballpark with a laptop computer, but one needs to go on a scavenger hunt for drivers, applications, and settings to bring it home. I also say on the video side, one can get a picture quality that trounces a high-end DVD rig.
The problem is we keep getting new technology, but it seems like hardly anybody really knows how to harness it. So more-often than not, we get glorified changes that end up being more sideways or backwards than forwards. And along with the bliss of anticipation, we're getting the more and more frustrated with the end result.
They are their own worst enemies.
I'm converting over to tubes and stocking up on bottles. Tube gear can be kept running forever. I have a 1941 RCA radio that still works.
High end audio will never die. There will always be audiophiles that want better than the crap most people listen to.
The old boutique high end may be in trouble but this new-age of interconnection
over the interweb has also created another high end in the DIY and headphone
world. Checkout the recent Head-fi gathering mini article at sterophile.
http://www.stereophile.com/news/407headfi/
I heard someone on the radio the other day view modern music with a different perspective.....He claimed modern music is what it is because it's most-effective with grabbing consumers listening to lesser fidelity.... And the "loud", compressed sound is effective, as is the provocative nature and lack of musical complexity.....
And he concluded stating on low-fi, Mozart and Louis Armstrong sound boring, but Linkin Park and Madonna do not.
The question becomes which came first- Poor fidelity leading to shallow music, or shallow music leading to poor fidelity? (I think it was mutual.) But I also think the real problem is both the audio and music industries have sold the consumers short. For had both music and audio kept a higher standard, consumers would have been drawn to that even more than the sheer portability of entertainment, in my humble opinion.
I disagree. I believe todays high end offers lots more than the high end (jeez it barely existed) 40-50 years ago. If you consider a 70s Pioneer or Sansui reciever high end then I stand corrected and there's no point whatsoever in carrying on this conversations.But I might agree the recording quality of shallow music isn't as good as it was 40-50 years ago but really why would someone care? I like to think I buy mostly good and worthwhile music and in general recording quality of the music I buy seems to be better today than it was for the music I was buying 20-30 years ago.
Unfortunately I disagee when with you when you claim that more music is shallow or that music is shallower these days than it was in the past. I've visited hundreds if not thousands of record shops, record conventions and record sales events over the years and there's no doubt that releases in the 50s/60s and 70s are far shallower (and not to mention outright embarrassments) than are the average releases of the 80s and beyond.
Ultimately though consumers are speaking. In general they demand portability and convenience as well as selection. Well like always they demand their shallow music that they'll forget about by the time they buy their next pair of jeans and the industry will supply them with a low quality recording for them to play on their low cost affordable player. Big deal - not sure this has much if any effect on me at all.
I find a much greater diversity of new music than ever before and I find the playback quality of this good music to be as good or better on average than ever before. I got nothing to bitch about.
Well darnit i've thought it might be... but then... 100Million Ipods - more listeners of music at any one time than there ever has been. A good portion of them just might turn into "Active" listeners. And once you are actively participating in listening to reproduction, you'll notice the problems and demand better. Sure the analog "wire with gain" idea has gone the way of the Cornerhorn, but think of the plugin that can be added to "clean up" the signal. and Shure is loving the sales of $100 - $200 - $400 and higher head phone ear buds for those trying to get a little more out of the red orbed wonders.
I was just reading about this article talking about how the music industry started to compress music dynamics on CDs to suit more of this "background" listening trend.FrankC
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