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At least according to the AP:
Follow Ups:
You can carry it around. Who cares? The rest is a pain in the neck. I admit I dislike computers.
The Walkman was portable and where is it today?
Get its proponents to hear a good system and they will be sold.
One of the idiots in that article traded in his "rack system"! Imagine what a junker that must have been.
Yes these folks at Sony are very clever for inventing the iPod. It is nice to finely have a portable, compact audio device that plays my favorite music.And it produces state-of-the-art sound to boot! What will they think up next?
I'm a Luddite.
I'm like the last guy in the neighborhood to stick with tubes after everyone else bought solid state!
"And Circuit City, the nation's No. 2 electronics retailer, is laying off 3,400 of its most experienced clerks."Getting rid of the high bandwidth clerks is a sure way to keep people further away for the stores.
Did anybody here ever run into a highly experienced clerk at Circuit City? In the local one they never venture far from the most expensive TVs. I've tried to listen to and even buy some audio things from there and left because I could not get help.
Demand for CD/SACD is not enough to sustain giants like Tower Records, but it is sufficient to keep internet sales healthy and production lines running. Listeners of acoustic music and audiophiles solidly prefer old formats. Although music industry tried to lure classic and jazz audiences to downloads, it just didn't work. And it won't work even if the problems of downloading 2 h long 24/96 files are solved. I am sure that due to this lack of enthusiasm, Mac-iTunes will not spend any effort in that direction. On contrary, they will abandon their efforts in classical/jazz altogether and focus solely on the pop.Nowadays CD manufacture does not need a capacity of BMG or Sony. Even if big companies abandon CD/SACD formats, smaller ones will take over.
Edem das seine. For pop, ipods and downloads. For classical/jaz, CD and SACD.
Yes, indeed, I completely agree.Smaller labels distributing directly or reseller on the Internet is the future -- whether lossless download or hardcopy mail order.
My local classical/jazz shop has 1:5 of releases that interest me. I still like to browse once in a while, but I'm far more likely to get what I want online. For me classical listener that is likely to be from Archiv Music or Amazon.ca. (The latter doesn't have stock most often, but does have free deliver on $40+ orders here in Canada.)
Bill Bailey
___________________________________________
See my stereo config
Small labels are where it's at for the future of classical, jazz, etc.Incidentally, I think the phrase is "jedem das Seine" ("to each his own")
nt
nt
nt.
At least I hope it is just starting. With faster downloads and more storage, I suspect higher quality downloads in the future. Besides, the industry is going to need to sell us something down the road and eventually it will be quality.
Among the many conclusions to draw from this piece, the one that strikes me most is the portability thing. It's another version of music in the background: meaning that music is something to do other things to: work, walk around, drive. It's not something to sit down and listen to. That makes sense for most popular music, I guess. I have never been able to sit still very long with it, at least straight. Most of it belongs in a car, where some of it actually gets better. But portability has nothing to do with jazz or classical music. You will bump into people and telephone poles listening to it on the move.So what we're conceding here is that pop (rock, r&b, and the rest) are to govern how recorded music is sold. As they always have. It also probably says, without saying it, that jazz and classical music will remain the minor factors, numberswise, they have always been; and make their own way, gearwise. I think that can keep some boutique stuff -- well-made, wonderfully performing, expensive CDP's and turntables -- alive. But the big companies that depend on numbers will have to ride the new wave. We small dealers who can get by selling this gear in small numbers can stay alive while the Tweeters of the world die or move on.
As for jazz, god bless Mosaic, Blue Note, Concorde, ECM and the rest. And as for classical music, god bless Europe. God bless Hyperion, Chandos, Harmonia Mundi, Naive, Channel Classics, Calliope, Bis, Ondine, Dutton, Stradivarious, Opus 111, and the rest. And pray that Decca, Philips, and DG don't give up on us too soon - as Sony seems to have done. And also give thanks to Amazon (US, Canada, UK, and France), Archiv, and MDT who can still get the stuff to us.
No idea what my eleven-year old and the rest of his generation will do. Maybe they'll play music to each other.
I would have to disagree with that conclusion. For the vast majority of people Classical and Jazz are the BACKGROUND music. Talk to any teen and they can rhyme off the lyrics of their favourite songs, dissect the meaning within their realm of ability, with ease. Kids are wired 24/7 with DAPs and this is a good thing in many ways for musical appreciation. I have a high end setup, but you I use my iPod the vast majority of the time because I use it as my front-end at work and at school. The few hours I get with my big rig at home would leave me destitute save for the likes of portable music servers.I would agree that today's music may, for the most part, not require high end rigs to sound their best, that is, a high end rig won't bring THAT much to the forum. However, everything is a stepping stone. Kids go from bubble gum pop to more mature pop, to indie music to classic rock, to blues and jazz and then to classical. There is a beautiful journey, a migration from immature music to the sublime and complex. Provided we have access to solid recordings and excellent playback gear, I see no reason to complain.
I grew up on rock ( as well other types of music ) and continue to enjoy ( mostly older) acts. Except for a small number of reissues ( Dire Straits,Eagles,Pink Floyd etc.) or the very few originally reasonably well recorded discs, I would never spend the money I have unless the majority of my listening was to jazz and classical.
I've actually heard new recordings in the car, liked them, only to find them so poorly recorded that I can hardly listen to them on my stereo.
I know there are those who say their stereo makes everything sound better. I've never figured out how acurately reproducing highly compressed, distorted sound faithfully serves any purpose other than making it obvious that it was engineered to sound best on a low resolution medium.I'm not judging the music, simply the recording.
Doesn't this guy know that you can rip your music as a WAV file (or use a lossless format like Apple Lossless or FLAC) to your iPod? Why do so many people think "MP3" and "compression" when they think of iPods or other portable digital audio players? You don't have to do it this way...
Is FLAC really lossless? I understand the technical aspect of it, but I have compared the FLAC files to WAV files using my portable player, Cowon iAudio X5. The player is supposed to be one of the best portable players available today. I use an X5 to Headroom Airhead via a lineout cable to a pair of Etymotics ER4S headphones. The FLAC files have no bass and sound really bright comparing to .WAV files.I've removed all FLAC files from my player and replaced them with the original .WAV files.
Hi FrankC,Yes, FLAC is totally lossless. It could be the way in which your Cowon decodes them that is causing what you are hearing... I'm not sure. On my iModded iPod (using Rockbox firmware), the FLAC files sound identical to the WAV files.
Best regards,
Your Cowon is mangling the decoding of the FLAC. FLACs played back on my Rio Karma (the King of the portable music players!) sound identical to the original WAVs.
Thanks for the info. I will check with the user forum to see if others have the same experience.
or don't care. The point is, it doesn't matter. There are MANY like them out there, and for them "128 is good enough". It's not good enough for me, so I'm glad I built up my music library when I could. I wouldn't want to be a young person just starting out, as choices will be severely limited for purchasing true high fidelity recordings (oh, and being current with technology). Then again, the bigger problem for young folks is affordable housing, isn't it?:-/
That writer obviously didn't attend CES.
enjoy some hi-quality sound!
> digital audio files is noticeably inferior to that of compact discs and even vinyl. <Shouldn't that be "inferior to that of vinyl and even compatc discs"?
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