Mp3 = State of Society??

[TEvo]

By the way, racing does improve the breed... if you drive a Ferrari.

To me, the whole audiophile and MP3 issue bring up the point of "good enough". Does the average consumer of Top 40/Pop/Hip-Hip/Rap care (know about?) about maximum detail retrieval, soundstaging, correct tonal balance and coherence?

This said, I guess there is a time and a place for everything. I have a iPod that I use virtually every day when I cannot listen at home. If I really want maximum fidelity from the player, I just use lossless encoding (Apple Lossless sounds remarkably decent even when compared to uncompressed AIFF and WAV).

I must strongly disagree about the non-audio related point... Racing has improved the breed. If you ride motorcycles.

 

[philh]

13 yo daughter plays the flute (quite well too). Can hear seperate instruments and minor flaws in performance. Can't tune a analog radio and accepts an incredible amount of distortion. 128, that's golden sound. I'm still chasing after a minor difference in my towers that has been driving me crazy for years. Nobody else can hear it Must be a state of mind!

 

[Audioholics]

In my opinion, here are some things to remember:

- Average people don't seem to care about fidelity, just features
- MP3 offers advantages over CD in terms of space-saving and portability
- Average people don't care about fidelity
- With MP3 Surround coming shortly you can be sure to see even wider adoption of the format
- Average people don't care

Seriously, talk to your cousins or uncles about MP3s and sound quality. Chances are they don't really have an opinion and will likely not understand much of the issues involved since they are listening to their music in noisy rooms and with equipment that puts out more distortion than the MP3 format. These people may, however, understand that they can store over 100 songs on a CD - and to them, that is cool.

 

[mustang_steve]

I must strongly disagree about the non-audio related point... Racing has improved the breed. If you ride motorcycles.

Ah depends what kind of motorcycles...Racing hasn't improved the Choppers

My point there was kinda misworded, it was more or less racing improves upon racing, but the day-to-day is based more on just common sense design rather than racing designs. I have yet to see an old man enjoy a Ducati as much as a Harley.

 

[TEvo]

I understood the context. Couldn't resist the bait.

Reality TV shows improves the chopper.

It depends on the particular old man I guess. I met a gentleman in his 60's at a trackday some time ago- his two bikes were an RC-51 and CBR954RR. And the gent was bloody fast. Noted moto journalist (Cycle World) Peter Eagan still has a 900SS.

I guess some people have a thing for single digit watt tube amps. Others like multi-hundred watt solid state.
[obligatory audio related content]

We now return the thread to the regularly scheduled debate about MP3's and whether the format is the dogs bollocks or cow pat.

 

[miklorsmith]

Many True Things Said

The main thing is convenience. The second most important thing is ease of use. Third? Features. Making melody is in there, but that's just a yes-or-no question, right?

Quick story - Just had a weekend trip, many people. I brought my new "travel system", comprising homebrew speakers, small amp, and a discman. People were interested in the setup because I hyped it quite a bit. The reason is that it sounds better than all of their stereos, all of which I have spent at least some time with and cost much more. The total cost of the system is $800 for source, amp, and speakers.

Everyone was very impressed, though not enough to inquire further. To me, it is a revelation that such sound can be so cheap. My friends will be perfectly happy to go back to their systems and probably won't think twice.

Lesson? We're in the vast minority. Don't yell too loud, lest we be discovered.

 

[Rock&Roll Ninja]

MP3's 'good enough'? For 99% of the population 'mono' sounds 'good enough'. 99% of the populace also turns the 'Bass' & 'Treble' knobs all the way to the right 100% of the time (or they make a "smiley" if using an all-in-one stereo with a 10-band equilizer), Thus they don't even care for CD quality sound, since most people can't even set-up a shelf system properly.

99% of the population also think broadcast TV looks "good enough". Remember the great 'No RF output on DVD player' fiasco of 2001? Thats because A: It took Joe 6-pack 5 years to get a DVD player, and B: Joe 6-pack doesn't know/care that RF connections are even worse than composite RCA, and don't even know what S-video is. Don't even try to explain Tint & Brightness controls to Joe 6-pack.

You think Hi-Res audio and High-Def video disks are the future? I'm telling you not to hold your breath. The mass market won't upgrade until you offer them no choice. Don't believe me? Its 2005 and people are still content to have casette players in their cars.

 

[annunaki]

Rock& Roll Ninja,

Your statements are well taken. This is what I was after. There was a time when society demanded better quality. Now it seems quantity and convenience are more important. ("It is cheap, when it breaks I'll get a new one").

I guess I could have used something else in place of Mp3 in the title, however it seemed fitting. Hopefully Hi-Res audio and Hi-Def video will prove to be standards of the future by enthusiasts driving the market. Something is telling me though that it may not happen. If we continue to show that there is a need for it hopefully it continues.

 

[miklorsmith]

But we're just singing to ourselves

My last post didn't come across as smarty-pants as I intended. I completely agree that quality is #1. I have more components than features.

It is somewhat ironic that while technology in materials, manufacturing, and circuitry are revolutionizing playback at an unprecedented rate, the source material is steadfast. Hi-rez isn't taking off, despite attempts by equipment manufacturers and meager music industry efforts. I doubt we'll ever be able to get all we want in high-resolution.

However, I don't see CD's disappearing, at least until full hard-drive systems take over. The XRCD series from JVC is reported to be quite excellent, and is red book compatible. The cost is high though. HDCD is a great idea, and was flourishing until Microsopht bought it and let it go in the tank. Mark Knopfler still records in HDCD, and his stuff is the best recorded music I own. Aside - his last disc "Shangri-La" is my pick for album of the year.

It IS surprising the recording engineers and/or the companies they work for don't do a better job. Maybe MTV is more emblematic than MP3.

There are more places to go, even within the redbook standard. Technology could continue to push the science and art, if only the population cared what their music sounded like. The brutal truth is that they don't and won't. We have to make our own way and hope there are enough of us to keep good, no, great sound possible to the few of us still yelling in the wind.

 

[onethought]

getting best out of MP3

I have recently re-discovered MP3s!! They can sound good with really good soundcard(like e-mu or Delta) and lot of processor power(). If the MP3 is decoded using foobar ot mpg123 (now costong £200) then you can get near bit perfect reproduction. If you use sound card with balanced out then your mp3 collection wont go waste. It wont beat a CD player with low jitter. It still wont beat LP with MC cartridge. but still you can have the satisfaction of getting the best out of your mp3. Please believe me when I say that a 220k bit rate sounds almost perfect and I honestly feel that when I started using best available drivers it got as good as CD.

But Still I feel CDs with external clock can give very precise detailed sound in heavy passages as opposed to MP3. MP3 heavily depend on the audio drivers and processor. But then if time and lots of ££ is at your disposal to invest in a gyro LP player then nothing like the extenstion afforded by vinyl to the upper end and details in the music. MP3s lack that. MP3 is a good way to review the recording and the music in general before you invest time and money on LPs or CDs. If the MP3 is encoded properly and played back using best possible decoder and drivers then I tell you truly... it gives LP and CDs a run for their money.
regards,
Dee

 

[Sheep]

Yes, I beleive you have beef with the people, rather then the file. I also don't like low quality Mp3's but that doesn't mean I hate all of them. 256kbps, can't hear a difference.

Clint hit the nail on the head.

SheepStar

 

[10010011]

Cd was better than cassettes, cassettes were better than 8-track. We were moving in a positive direction until we got to mp3.

In reality 8-track had better sound quality than cassette because the tracks were wider and the tape moved at a higher speed.

Consumers chose better portability (smaller size cassette) over better sound quality for mobile devices, MP3 is just the electronic version of that.

 

[r0t0man]

To the original thread starter, yes I do agree with your point on audio fidelity. I don’t think most consumers care or hear the difference with high quality audio.

However, one only needs to look back to the start of the digital audio revolution that started with the CD to understand the dilemma faced today with consumers and digital entertainment. Right now IMO the choices for high fidelity audio formats (for lack of a better word) suck. SACD/DVD-A is nice and sound excellent but so what. What features do they provide the consumer with other than superior sound? Seems like these new formats take us right back to the age of when CDs first hit the market in terms of risky new expensive equipment and few software choices. Both formats are not “portable” (unless anyone wants to go back to portable mechanical SACD/DVD-A players) and are so DRM laden that you can pretty much pitch them in the “nice try guys” bin of technology. It’s a case of “What product do I pick and when/where can I use it?” which is a big step back from the flexibility I have with CD and digital compressed formats.

These formats have not had time to mature like CD audio has and probably never will. I am pretty certain they will remain an audiophile niche product for the foreseeable future. I think this is a fine example of how the recording industry’s paranoia about what consumers do with their music as killed 2 new audio formats before they had a chance. How good it sounds and looks is not a definitive selling point to consumers and it never was.

That said, I am happy that digital storage is starting to get smaller, cheaper and grow in capacity. Now I can rip all my CDs to lossless formats such as FLAC and APE while still conserving a bit of space and maintain the original fidelity of the source. Not to mention I can play them in my car, my computer, portable music device, etc, etc. Unfortunately we will never see this with SACD and DVD-A which makes me sad and happy at the same time.

So IMO unless we can get a unified format that doesn’t suck and lets the consumer have listening freedom then Compact Discs and MP3s it is.

btw, I have been lurking here for a while and decided to join.
Howdy to all.

 

[annunaki]

Upon reading this stuff again, I have a few things to add. Since someone brought this thread back to life.

My problems are not so much with the compression, it is how it is done. It is so lossy. I would not mind a lossless compression scheme. In fact, I have pondered the purchase of an I-pod. It would be nice to record/playback my music in a lossless fashion, yet saving much space and making my collection of music portable. I am still not into downloading any compressed formats though.

I still have a problem with recording companies and producers ruining music at it's source though. I have to admit, I do not get into much "new" music as it sounds like crap. Compressed, little to no dynamic range, ect. This trend is one that I believe was partially brought on by Mp3. With people accepting a lower quality standard of recorded music, recording labels have slacked on their part as well.

To me, this was no excuse to go with a lower quality recording. Or, not taking the proper measures to ensure a high quality, dynamic reproduction. This is one thing that can change. If the "life" is brought back into recordings, digital music could take off like never before. assuming the storage space and lossless comression techniquise are apt to handle it.

 

[WHALER]

iPOD Denon AVR-4306

I do not have an iPOD but plan on buying one and my 4306 can display playlists and video from it. Sound should be decent because I have quality components. I am older guy and hope I do not get discouraged learning this stuff.

 

[Rock&Roll Ninja]

I do not have an iPOD but plan on buying one and my 4306 can display playlists and video from it. Sound should be decent because I have quality components.

After you get your iPod and iTunes (which you'll need to work the iPod, but its free), just set your import to 196 or higher and you'll be good to go.