Amazement
Dave wrote:
"Steven Sullivan" wrote in message
...
Millions of people fell in love with the Beatles's music based on tiny
transistor radio
or TV speakers and horrendously post-processed American LPs, for example.
That is very true. As I noted everyone enjoys music in different ways.
than what was available in the so called golden age you allude to.
Yes, we listened on transistor (AM no less) radios. We listened on record
players with ceramic cartridges. But that was the best out there at the
time. If you wanted a portable radio, the transistor with the 9V battery
was what was available.
If you wanted a record player, that was what was
available. The technology which allowed more realistic reproduction of
music was evolving, and we were UPGRADING when we bought the BSR with the
Shure cartridge, or when we traded in the cassette deck for a CD player. My
point, which may not have been clear, is that we are now DOWNGRADING or
BACKSLIDING... the technology certainly exists to do better, but WE'RE NO
LONGER INTERESTED IN BUYING IT.
What technology is that? Portable players are vastly superior to what they were in the old
days, and the difference between them and 'high end' vastly less.
The inherent sound quality of 128kpbs mp3's
Which is actually pretty good if you use a good encoder -- better than 60's era transistor
radio for sure -- but is also increasingly rare; iTunes switched to a 256 kbps encode rate
some time ago (which argues against degradation). And more an more people are aware of
lossless compression.(ditto)
is LESS than that of the commercial CD but that's the change we're making.
The sound quality of a compressed tune with 10dB of dynamic range is LESS
than what we got on a crappy LP, or perhaps as bad in a different way. Back
then that was the best technology could offer... now it's not.
It's hardly different from offering 45s and 'processed' LPs in the 60s. Except that today's
'45s' ' are vastly closer to their fancier counterparts than they were then.
The loudness wars have been with us since the days of 45s and car radio.
Yes, more truth. The almighty dollar will always win, and if 95% of the
music-buying population is satisfied with 128kpbs downloaded lossy files,
that's what the market's going to offer.
Have you done ABX comparisons of good 128 kbps mp3s vs source? You might be shocked at the
results.
--
-S
We have it in our power to begin the world over again - Thomas Paine
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