The Dumbing Down of Audio

gene

gene

Audioholics Master Chief
Administrator
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We live in an amazing time. Science is making bigger and better tomatoes, continually perfecting synthetic materials to enhance our lives, while making electronics more compact, powerful and affordable. It's amazing that you can buy a wrist watch with a more powerful computer today than the ancient computers that used to fill an entire room only 50 or so years ago.

Science has also made significant advances in the home theater world. Displays are continually getting better, slimmer and cheaper. Speakers are continually getting more refined and accurate. Receivers are being packed with more powerful processing features making them a better value to the end-user and yielding higher entertainment because of their ability to be the master of so many domains.

Read the Editorial
 
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Buckeyefan 1

Buckeyefan 1

Audioholic Ninja
Awesome editorial. I couldn't agree more.
 
furrycute

furrycute

Banned
These days I am mainly listening to audio books compressed in mp3 format on my cheap flash memory player. This way I have been "reading" more books than I ever would if I were actually to sit down and read a book. And the mp3 files sound adequate to convey the vocal information.

While I had my ipod, I exclusively ripped my CDs in the apple lossless format. I just couldn't tolerate compression of music of any sort.
 
Sheep

Sheep

Audioholic Warlord
I spotted a typo.

Receivers are being packed with more powerful processing features making them a better value to the end-user and yielding higher entertainment because of their ability to be THE master of so many domains.
There ya go.

Great read. One day, with your help, we can rid the world of this bull.

SheepStar
 
J

Jedi2016

Full Audioholic
I get into this argument all the time, trying to explain audio compression to people who think that 128Kb MP3s sound "just as good" as a CD.

Granted, I fall into the category of owning cube speakers (not as small and tinny as the Bose cubes mentioned in the article), but I still know when something is getting too dumbed down.

MP3 is good enough to listen to on my computer when I'm working (background filler), but not enough for when I really want to enjoy music.. then I go for DVDs or CDs running through the sound system downstairs. I heartily agree with the whole iPod thing.. MP3 is killing the quality of music, and people are eating it up left and right. I fear that some day, it'll be nigh impossible to get real music.
 
supervij

supervij

Audioholic General
Great article, Gene, and I don't disagree with anything you wrote, but I am getting a little tired of all the iPod-bashing. These things (and other mp3 players) were designed to be portable, i.e., for when you're taking the bus downtown or going for a walk outside. And with all the background noise coming from traffic and other people, it wouldn't matter if you were listening to an mp3, a CD, or an SACD. You're still going to hear pretty much the same thing.

For me, mp3s haven't replaced CDs, DVDs, DVD-As and SACDs in terms of critical listening. Maybe they have for some people, but I find that hard to imagine. The truth is, most people think of music as something to have playing in the background. Very few people actually sit down and listen intently to a CD anymore -- who has the time for that? They do so while they're doing other things: cooking, surfing the net, working, etc. So if you're not paying full attention to a piece of music, it hardly matters if it's SACD-quality or mp3-quality.

I don't think it's necessarily all these gadgets that have dumbed down audio, it's the way we think of music itself.

Just my opinion.

cheers,
supervij
 
Sheep

Sheep

Audioholic Warlord
~JC~ said:
I spotted a typo.

Need to get out more, my friend. :)
I found it as I was reading...

What are you saying? You're incapable of reading properly? :confused:

SheepStar
 
M

MDS

Audioholic Spartan
supervij said:
Great article, Gene, and I don't disagree with anything you wrote, but I am getting a little tired of all the iPod-bashing. These things (and other mp3 players) were designed to be portable, i.e., for when you're taking the bus downtown or going for a walk outside.
Agreed. Pick the right tool for the job. If you are one of the few that does critical listening, then lossy compression formats aren't the right tool for the job. Then again, MP3 does a very good on many types of music but Jazz and Classical as mentioned in the article are not the types it does well.

Critical listening is a euphemism for 'sit there absolutely still and try to pick out as many flaws as you possibly can'...
 
mtrycrafts

mtrycrafts

Seriously, I have no life.
Sheep said:
Great read. One day, with your help, we can rid the world of this bull.

SheepStar

We won't live that long.:D
 
mtrycrafts

mtrycrafts

Seriously, I have no life.
supervij said:
cheers,
supervij

You are right. i don't own them myself, but they have their place in society. It is very practical, portable and serves a special need to many. Now, if I had to have my music fix on the bus, my boombox would be very cumbersome. :D
 
T

tbewick

Senior Audioholic
'It is no wonder why many audiophiles prefer LP over CD. It’s not that the CD format is inferior (far from the truth actually). The fact of the matter is the CD format is suffering abuses that the LP was immune to. Ramp the levels up to near clipping on an LP and you suffer unbearable distortion, noise and potential damage to your stylus.' - Article

Despite the higher price and inconvenience, I'm actually considering buying all my future pop recordings on the vinyl format because of this.

'Do the same on CD and you’ve got one heck of a LOUD recording that sounds good when being broadcasted on FM to judgmentally impaired folks suffering from “LOUDER is better” disease.'

Hopefully The White Stripes can act as an example of how to do a pop CD recording that satisfies most people. When I heard tracks from 'Get Behind Me Satan' on the radio and TV, they sounded just as compressed as any other pop. The CD itself however has quite a good dynamic range by pop standards. A popular description of the CD is that the sound quality is 'old-fashioned'!?
 
C

corey

Senior Audioholic
I feel your pain, Gene.

Of the points you mention, there is one that stands out as something AH could do something about: compressed formats like mp3. Opinions on this range from "128kbps is near CD quality" to "anything less than 1411kbps WAV is garbage".

How about a large test. From reading the forums, we have plenty of members who can design a double blind test. A group of members can volunteer to burn & mail test CDs to others (or each other).

I think something like this is a great fit to the idea of "Pursuing the Truth...."
 
H

HTHOLIC

Audioholic
Here's what wasn't said in the forum

I don't know what the vinyl thing is but there is a reason why mp3's are 128kbps.

I think the creater of MP3 realized that CD's contained a lot of frequencies in which the human ear doesn't hear Now there is 320 kbps which I was told was designed for true audiophiles. Truth is that most downloaded music is 128 kbps or 192, I personally listen to 192 or 224/9that range music and its not too bad, although 24 bit sounds better, i haven't had much time to explore.

Now sombody made an mp3 encoding system which , I THINK the ares development group wrote, in which they figured 128kbps was acceptable to most people. This why you mostly see this instead of 96kbps or 48kbps when downloading music. People just used some encoder and figure most people accept 128kbps , I think most people do accept 128kbps, because people sometimes can tell what 96 kbps and 48kbps do to music and people have limited space on their Ipods and zens.

Howeber, 192kbps and 224 and 360 kbps recordings in mp3 have become more common for download.
 
gene

gene

Audioholics Master Chief
Administrator
I spotted a typo.


Quote:
Receivers are being packed with more powerful processing features making them a better value to the end-user and yielding higher entertainment because of their ability to be THE master of so many domains.


There ya go.

Great read. One day, with your help, we can rid the world of this bull.
Man you are anal retentive :rolleyes: Thanks we fixed it.
 
gene

gene

Audioholics Master Chief
Administrator
Great article, Gene, and I don't disagree with anything you wrote, but I am getting a little tired of all the iPod-bashing. These things (and other mp3 players) were designed to be portable, i.e., for when you're taking the bus downtown or going for a walk outside. And with all the background noise coming from traffic and other people, it wouldn't matter if you were listening to an mp3, a CD, or an SACD. You're still going to hear pretty much the same thing.

For me, mp3s haven't replaced CDs, DVDs, DVD-As and SACDs in terms of critical listening. Maybe they have for some people, but I find that hard to imagine. The truth is, most people think of music as something to have playing in the background. Very few people actually sit down and listen intently to a CD anymore -- who has the time for that? They do so while they're doing other things: cooking, surfing the net, working, etc. So if you're not paying full attention to a piece of music, it hardly matters if it's SACD-quality or mp3-quality.

I don't think it's necessarily all these gadgets that have dumbed down audio, it's the way we think of music itself.

Just my opinion.

cheers,
supervij
Nobody denies the convenience of these portable players for the applications you listed here. However, if this is the only exposure to music playback people subject them to, it lowers their standards and expectations of what audio is supposed to sound like. Although the home theater industry has a large following of passionate audio enthusiasts, they are still a small minority to the masses of department store, bubble gum chewing, Britney Spears loving general public.
 
supervij

supervij

Audioholic General
Yeah, I was going to mention that we're a pretty tiny percentage of the general population. But did you know that Britney released one of her albums on DVD-A? Haven't heard it, but I have to admit I'm mildly curious about it!

I still think it's people's perceptions of what music is for is the problem -- music as background, not as something to experience.

cheers,
supervij
 
gene

gene

Audioholics Master Chief
Administrator
I still think it's people's perceptions of what music is for is the problem -- music as background, not as something to experience.
Yes I agree this perception goes hand in hand with the Dumbing Down of Audio. People are into very accessible, non thought provoking music to casually listen too while they cook, clean, etc, but there still is a time and place for better things and you being a frequent member of this site, I am sure you still manage to do some critical listening from time to time :confused:
 
supervij

supervij

Audioholic General
I'd wager that just about everyone on here manages to do some critical listening from time to time. Myself included. In fact, very shortly after I bought my receiver, I started making time for just that. I try to listen to at least one CD, DVD-A or SACD every day or two. It's hard to find the time, of course, but to me, it's one of the true pleasures in life -- just sitting and listening to a good album. :)

If more people (outside of people like us) were to do this, maybe the dumbing down of audio would slow, stop, and hopefully reverse course.

cheers,
supervij
 
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