Because I work on a limited budget (and a family) and can afford computer speakers but not a 'proper stereo system' (whatever that is), I can never 'kick back, relax and actually LISTEN to [my] music'?

Spare me. Or buy me said system. But either way, do without the condescension.

or you could also, you know, just download them.

lots of people post SACD _lossless_encoded_ disc images on the n**sg***ps

The common audio CD has enough bits (16) and a high enough sampling rate (44.1khz) for 99.9% of the population.

With that said, there is no reason why "audiophile" grade recordings cannot be released on an audio CD (or rather, must be released on the uncommon SACD/DVD-A format.) In fact, I would say that there are plenty of audiophile grade recordings out there on CD.

No, the problem is with the Loudness War: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war

Until the studios stop butchering audio with their dynamics limiting and dynamics compression, I ain't interested...

@RAGEAHOL

Your encryption techniques are masterful and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

Its more like a high quality color photocopy of a painting. it looks the same to the casual observer. You only lose the fine detail of the brush strokes.

dude has a valid point, but needs to work on his analogies!

I listen to my music in the car with the windows down, in a room with people talking, or on my ipod during a noisy subway ride. When I get my own hermetic chamber with noise cancelation and concert hall accoustics, I'll worry about the difference between high quality MP3s and the original recordings.

You may want to visit HDTracks.com

They offer high resolution downloads of a small but growing collection.

Music is a background filler for me while I'm working. I would love to have an acoustically perfect environment to listen in, but unfortunately all I have is a server room office with the devil's own HVAC unit above my head. In those kind of background levels, mp3s are just fine.

Most people don't use 128kbps mp3s any more. The stores pretty much all do 192kbps VBR or 256kbps (either CBR or VBR). Both of those are above the 90% perception line. That is, 90% of people in fact can't tell the difference between them and the original in direct comparison listenings. So, you last 10% can go have fun with your fancy audiophile gear, but the other 90% of us, we can't hear the difference. And really, we're doing just fine that way. It'll save us a lot of money.

And please don't suggest that I don't really listen to my music just because my ears aren't magical. I'm glad that they're producing releases for audiophiles. If you want higher quality audio, I'm pleased for you to have it. But I can't hear the difference, so I'm not going to pay for it. And if that disappoints you, well, tough.

To quote Rorschach: "Eeeecchh..."

The tune of audio/videophiles telling us that we're fools for enjoying our "low quality" formats is getting a little stale. DVD is a swell format and most MP3s sound fine as long as you're not listening intently on an expensive stereo... which most of us AREN'T.

It all comes down to personal taste. When the CD revved up in popularity, I heard people talking about how they hated digital and loved the "warm sound" of vinyl LPs. I thought (and still think) they're crazy, but I'm also not going to rail against them to try to change their aural opinions.

1999 emailed, wants you to FTP your 128kbps MP3's back.

You can't REALLY appreciate music until you can hear the guitarist's heartbeat and distinguish it from the singer's, and tell which one has the murmur.

Please.

This is not just a technical problem. Those super deluxe recording projects need to employ an engineer or two with big ears. In fact, many of the first-gen CDs were simply blindly digitized master tapes that were mixed down originally for LP. A computer would just quantize and filter the bitstream in a very indiscriminate way.

So, there is often a large remastering step to go through first.

Because of this, the best re-releases often go back to the original sources and redo the whole thing. This is not cheap.

And, #1, please don't take things so personally. I don't see the condescension you speak of in this article. The fact is that lossy compression is fine for playback on fair-to-middling equipment. Getting middling-to-better requires no more money than the sort of cash one would spend on a good computer or camera. We all choose what we spend our luxury dollars on.

But long before you get to the point of diminishing returns you get good results from commercial equipment. (No sense in being one of those silly audiophiles who put their equipment on $300 wooden pyramids and swap their power cords for magical ones that make their systems sound better.)

Lossy compression is a classic quality/convenience trade-off, and that's fine. It's just that buying a lossy compressed song as your main media is a bit of a poor choice if you want to hear all of the music.

I'll risk getting my anonymous-because-I'm-too-lazy-to-sign-up comment turfed because it has a link in it to provide a similar article I published online some time ago: http://clevermonkey.org/index.html?wl_mode=more&wl_eid=141

I come to many of the same conclusions state here.

From Mad Magazine, sung to the tune of No Business Like Show Business:

"... I don't like to brag how good my speakers are,
But when I turn the sound up real far
I can hear the dandruff fall from Ringo Star
That why I got Hi-Fi!"

BTW, although I'm not credited, the back cover art for Remain In Light (false-colored planes over mountainside) is my work. Long story.

Aside from the problem that too many people are satisfied with 128K MP3s played through iBuds, along with the idiotic Loudness War, there's another issue that has hurt quality recordings: good old DRM.

SACD is so thoroughly locked down that you couldn't burn your own discs even if you wanted to. As for DVD-Audio, the music business decided to use something stronger than CSS to encrypt their precious content. It is possible to make your own unencrypted discs, but you cannot take advantage of Meridian's MLP packing without shelling out big bucks for the encoder.

If you want high-quality, DRM-free live recordings, though, you're in luck. There are 24-bit FLAC recordings available on the Live Music Archive, and they sometimes come up on the Etree tracker as well.

P.S.: Are there some technical glitches today? This story has been disappearing and reappearing repatedly...

First of all, standard CD quality, even properly mastered (ie, not compressed to hell and back) is still a fairly low resolution "snapshot" of the music. You are still missing huge parts of the music. DVD and other formats that have a higher sampling rate & number of bits help. But you don't need an audiophile system to tell the difference between between, say a 192 kbs VBR mp3, and say a Flac encoded one. And the right bit of psychoacoustics applied to the encoding can make a world of difference.

Sure, it used to be the test of an singles mix was tested by taking it out to someones car and listening to it, but with today's preponderance people using headphones to listen, most of the mixing on albms today is *BORING*. Music doesn't move across the "stereo arch", it clusters in the middle. Part of what put Van Halen records above everyone else's is the way they isolated Eddie's guitar to one side, and cleared everything else out so you can hear his fantastic guitar licks. Most of today's mixes wouldn't be out of place in a monophonic elevator.

No, the real reason that most people today can't tell the difference between a 128K mp3 and a raw wave file of the original recording is that no one has shown them the difference! Add to that, most audio devices come with ear pieces that probably cost less than a dollar a pair. Get a pair of KOSS Porta Pros, or Sennheiser PX100, spend more than $10 bucks and listen to the difference a good pair of headphones makes!

ttyl
Farrel

Many have already called you on the same thing I was going to - the "fidelity snobbery". Of course we lose some fidelity going digital, in exchange for usability and convenience. There's nothing out there with a higher dynamic range than vinyl, but am I going to spin a record every time I want to listen to Social Distortion while at my PC?

c'mon. We know what you're telling us already, and many of us have decided that it doesn't matter to us.

@ #1, #6, #8 etc. Yes, and for similar reasons I think that anyone that enjoys a fine wine is a complete jerkwad and must be publicly ridiculed. I enjoy the convenience of boxed wine, and anybody who tells me that there is something I'm missing out on by not buying fancy-schmancy bottle wine is completely deluded.

I have this discussion with people all the time. Look, I love music and I appreciate the intricacies that are discernible with high-end audio equipment. Any real music lover would not argue for REPLACING a loss-less digital format with compressed music files. These are 2 very different means of listening to music. One wouldn't engage in a comparison of playing a cassette tape on a Sony Walkman with playing digital audio tape and listening through a $300 pair of Senheisser headphones. What compressed music files have done for music is allow it to be far more accessible to a far greater number of people. And this fact should be celebrated! Since acquiring the iPod Classic 160GB, my knowledge of classic recordings has expanded almost infinitely. It has truly changed my life to be able have so much important and fantastic music at my fingertips. This is the truth that has set this writer free. So, although it may be loss-ey to the acute audiophile, the advent of the compressed music file should be celebrated for the gift that it has given to so many.

Personally, I don't think you can claim to be *really* listening to your music unless you are using Monster Cables(tm)

1. A great tune, badly recorded, heard on a crappy system, will always be a better experience than a crappy tune, well-recorded, heard through esoteric gear in an anechoic chamber. Try it and see.

2. Contemporary pop tunes (and remixes of classic tunes) are mixed and mastered with so much compression that, MP3 or SACD, they roundly sound like shit.

3. I think the audio community would embrace SACD/DSD; unfornately, Sony has not made the tools available to the mass market.

4. 128 kbps MP3s suck. 192 is pretty good for rock; 256 is pretty good for just about anything.

If you hear the Stones' "Street Fighting Man" on a portable radio and your heart pulse doesn't increase because there's only one channel so you can't get yourself right there in the mix, your soul is doomed. you realize that, right?

Amateurs! I kidnap the bands and waterboard them until they play just the way I like!

In a bit of poetic justice, I blame musicians (or concert producers, at least) for the fact that I can no longer hear any difference between a ≥192 kbit/s mp3 and a CD.

I will never respect people who claim to be audiophiles after i read this http://www.engadget.com/2008/03/03/audiophiles-cant-tell-the-difference-between-monster-cable-and/
if you can substitute Coat Hangers for cable obviously people are deluding themselves into thinking they can tell the difference between certain formats.

Even if your ears are shot you can definitely tell a difference on 5.1 and other surround mixes. I have an awesome Allison Krauss DVD that has everything mixed that way. More channels == more betters.

Oh please!

A lot of these remastered CDs sound worse than the originals! They are manipulated on computers until they sound "modern", thus losing the original aesthetic and becoming quickly dated and stuck in the era in which they were remastered.

Remastering can equal colorization! Just as the magic of an old B&W film is in its black and whiteness, and its filmy-ness, shot with old cameras with old lenses and scratches and dust spots and warbly sound, a lot of the magic of old recordings is in the limitations of the gear they had at the time.

I don't want a record that came out in the 70s to sound like it came out in the 90s! (Which is the era that most of these remasters are from, and they already sound dated.)

Now, I'm not saying that it can't be tastefully done while preserving the original sound. Good remasters do exist, and they are sorely needed in the case of all the hastily released CDs from the early 80s where they just bunged the LP masters through a RIAA filter and called it a day.

Follow the money on this one! This is a great way to sell consumers another copy of an album they already own—an album that they bungled the mastering of in the 1980s when they were rushing them out the door, and they sounded worse than the LPs. Now they offer it to you super-duper CD and in 5.1 surround sound, and its LOUD LOUD LOUD!

If you want high-quality, DRM-free live recordings, though, you're in luck. There are 24-bit FLAC recordings available on the Live Music Archive, and they sometimes come up on the Etree tracker as well

My choice! But I'll admit to having lots of high quality MP3s.

I get so tired of people saying they don't really care about audio quality and making fun of those of us that do. Fine. Go tell us about how pretty your iPod is or whatever spins your wheels. Just don't assume your tastes, preferences and interests invalidate mine. You care about minimalist gadget design, I care about fidelity in sound. Whatever.

Now, let's even forget whether or not the 24 bit formats are needed or not. The mastering on these records is noticeably better - the folks doing them know not to abuse their compressors to make the record sound "louder." They take time to work out the little details. When you love a record and it's rendered this exquisitely it's a beautiful thing.

The result, played side by side, is noticeable and if you are someone that has a decent stereo (mine is audiophile quality, but was used and under $1000 all told) and who is willing to plop down and just LISTEN, there are rewards for your efforts. Yes, this isn't for everyone. It is only for people that are intense in their love for the nuances of music - what is wrong or risible about that?

24 bit audio at higher sampling rates (96k+) isn't another Monster Cable thing - it really does sound better. Even if you can't tell the difference, many people can and we're not imagining things.

As other commenters have already pointed out: the bog-standard 128k MP3s are obsolete, so a remark such as "MP3s sound crap" betrays a narrow mind. There is much you can do to improve the experience, and I totally agree with the complaints about "ear buds" - I never use them unless I really have to.

To use #21's wine analogy: a decent-quality bottle of red is not drastically expensive. I don't blame people for wanting quality, but if I'm going to pay hundreds of dollars for a bottle of wine, I would expect a life-altering experience to follow.

If you want to tell a real audiophile from a poser, ask them about the ROOM. I'm regularly amused by "audiophiles" who'll plonk their kilobuck equipment in any old spot, and sit anywhere, with no thought for the effect of the room on the sound. Reflective walls creating multiple paths between speakers and ears, smearing the stereo image? Bass boost from sitting too close to the back wall? Would you drink a fine wine from a dirty glass..?

@24 DRPHANTOM

Well, most audiophiles are pathetic in that regard, but at least you can quantify the differences between formats in a mathematichal, and scientific way, which said audiophiles refuse to do relating to cables.

Anyway you may find this site interesting
Mp3 or Not

#29 "sit anywhere"

Actually one of the nice things about 5.1 and similar formats is that speaker and listener positioning is less critical when creating a good image (compared to ordinary stereo).

Oh you people. It is about the music. If perfecting the format helps you get into it, great. If not, enjoy it how you would. But do enjoy it. Metzger has given us a bevy of beautiful records to remember. Roxy Music? Can I just say, "Thank you," for mentioning that wonderful wonderful band? And you don't hear too many people talking about Carol King these days, but you did today, and I think that is pretty cool. Personally, I think its best to listen to that 70's cache of music on 8-track. or a record player. or a CD. For me, its CDs. Supposedly, we have all this music stored as MP3's somewhere, but so much of the tangiability of the music is lost, for me. Plus, even with one of these bay stations and a few shuffles and whatnot lying about, I've never realy taken to the MP3 format. Luddites like myself will always want to buy new and used CD's. There may be a contraction in the music industry, but that may be a good thing, filtering out a lot of the crapola, and giving us these lovely classic albums that have passed the test of time.

@OP, #18, et al:

Maybe I'm a philistine. Maybe I'm just not hip enough to enjoy my music as much as others do. Maybe it was too many ear-years in the Army.

But I'm not buying it. (The argument and the ultra-dollar hipster equipment.) I'm not claiming that audiophiles don't /enjoy/ their expensive gear more. I'm just saying that the proof in the blind tests doesn't convince me. (If you like the subjective angle better, just have your girlfriend take your credit card to the store, buy you the cheap stuff, tell you it's the expensive stuff that you can't tell the difference of anyway, and secretly use the resulting savings to pay down your mortgage. You'll benefit more, I promise.) No different than when the vast majority of people instinctively 'enjoy' expensive wine better than cheap wine (but only, of course, when they know it's expensive), relish their rare sashimi (until they're informed it's actually tilapia), can taste the different flavor notes in various bottled waters (as long as they're not told that all the bottles come from the same tap in the kitchen), or receive better fidelity when using high-dollar cables (until they're revealed to be soldered coat hangers).

On second thought, never mind. Keep it up. We're always told that our conspicuous consumption fuels the economy, eh? :)

I've always wanted to hear one of these SACD/DVD 5.1 mixes but I don't really care to find and purchase the equipment on which to play them. Which will be rarer in the future, the albums or the hardware?

And since I've been on a big Bowie kick the last couple years, more comments! I'm inclined to agree about the "Ziggy Stardust" comment, I love the album but if you compare the production/mixing on it to, say, "Heroes," there's a definite disparity. The "Heathen" SACD is purportedly much more awesome than the CD version as well, according to Amazon reviewers.

And finally, you can get a box set of every Talking Heads album in the DualDisc format (one side is CD and the other is the DVD 5.1 audio mix.) Player compatibility issues abound, though, so be wary.

Well sure you can tell the difference between a 128kb mp3 and the original CD, but can you tell the difference between a 320kb or a -v0 LAME encoded mp3? Anyone who thinks they can ought to try a double blind test, which they will fail. I don't care what equipment you use (my preference is the beyerdynamic DT 880 with discrete DAC and headphone amplifier) as long as the test is properly administered you will fail as all others have.

Now, when you move up to a higher format such as SACD or vinyl there is an improvement, but a very slight one which often manifests in the 'space' around the instruments as the original poster noted. Of course, moving up to these formats is a considerable compromise in portability and cost.

For those of you dismissing audiophilia outright let me assure you we are not all putting rainbow foil (yes its a real thing) on our equipment and turning our noses up at mp3 users. Most of us just enjoy music, more convincing = more enjoyable, and a substantial gain in realism can be made by a small investment in better designed components.

#17 "of course we lose some fidelity going digital in exchange for usability and convenience."

It takes no more effort to load my portable player with FLACs or OGGs than MP3s, and my 10-year-old Sennheisers are far more comfortable than cheap headphones. There's no tradeoff. The initial investment in time and money to research and buy high-fidelity gear and obtain recordings needn't be large. And the costs get amortized over many years of happy listening.

This shouldn't even be a controversial topic - everybody likes free upgrades to first class - bt gvn hw mny ppl ctvly rsst hghr fdlty vn whn t cms t n cst, sspct thr's sm l-f "crd" t stk. Gtt' sty n cch f y wnt t b knwn s mn f th ppl.

Dude, did you break into my house and steal my stuff? You are absolutely right. And for those who don't know what they are missing, there is no reason you should be missing a damn thing in this day and age, no matter where you are listening. And you are missing a lot.

I bought myself a cheap sacd player and 5.1 surround speaker system (i'm talking under £75) because i wanted to hear the Brothers In Arms SACD re-release.

I have the original on record and cd... always said the LP was my favourite.

The SACD blew me away, not just because of the stunning space it creates around you... but because of all the sounds i'd missed from the original... simply stunning.

If you close your eyes you can litterally place all the instruments in the room around you.... just like being in the studio.

You can argue about bit rates all you like... the experience that SACD gives you makes you listen to the music in a completly different way. It's fun trying to work out where all the sounds are coming from and whats making them.

Cheers
Rob

The reason (as everyone knows) that we have mp3's is because they were fast and easy to download given slow dial up speeds and the memory on ipods was really small. So today we have the musical equivalent of a 13 inch tv in the age of 52 inch ones. I don't really understand why you would be happy paying for an inferior product when it doesn't cost anymore for recording companies to produce something with better quality. You may be looking at a 13 inch screen (listening to computer speakers) now but in the future you might want something a little better.

Hw mch tm d y hv t thnk bt ths?

'll bt y th ntnl dbt tht yr 40+-yr ld rs cn't hr nythng bv 10 kHz.

Th d trnsmttd s th thng hr.

wsh y cld rd yrslf.

Pls stp blggng nd t sht frvr.

By the way, the Blu-Ray high resolution audio standards (Dolby TruHD and DTS Master Audio) are pretty much the equivalent of SACD and DVD-Audio, and in addition, are playable on many Blu-Ray players while reassuring artists of the difficulty in copying said content.

And, to repeat, HDTracks.com just opened up its 96kHz / 24bit selection.

http://www.hdtracks.com/

The only problem is, they must be played from PC's and usually via FLAC encoding. (Well, unless there's some disc player that plays FLAC's, I haven't seen one but I don't know either.)

Incidentally, you don't need to buy expensive stereo equipment to get audiophile quality from your PC.

Look instead to pro audio stores & websites which feature studio monitors, especially those which directly have USB inputs so that they decode your PC's sound directly and also do not present an electrical circuit difference likely to cause static.

It ain't free, but you can get a decent pair of studio monitors from $100 - $300, without needing a stereo in between.

Conversely, look around on your local craigslist for people selling their old stereo amps cheap, and you can get a decent pair of bookshelf 2 or 3 way small speakers (with a 5 1/4" or 6 1/2" woofer) for $50 - $100.

If they're sitting on a desktop, don't worry about weird accessory 'wooden pyramids' or whatnot -- sit them atop cut foam rubber or sound insulation panels, so that they don't lose energy into the desktop and the desktop's vibration doesn't come right back into the speaker cabinet and mess up the sound. This isn't tweaking stuff, it's typical studio tricks.

DVD-Audio / SACD players are available refurbished for $100. Also the Oppo brand disc players are usually SACD etc players.

But if you're going to get a Blu-Ray, one which also plays DVD-Audio / SACD is going to be from one of the audiophile manufacturers and cost an arm and leg.

And finally, if you're spending more time & money & energy trying to get the 'perfect' home audio reproduction but never go out to live shows, there's something wrong there.

Well, your first post, under your own name, really opened up a shit storm. Congratulations and thanks!

Audiophiles do not just plunk their shit down without considering the room. There are many ways to fine tune the system and the room's acoustics.

128 MP3 is crap because MP3 is, actually, crap. It doesn't have the best-thought-out design, and when it degrades, it doesn't degrade nicely. Nonetheless, 192 MP3 is good enough for most purposes. Vorbis at 160 or better is nicer, if your device will do it, and surprisingly many do (just not that Apple thing...)

So okay, you've got suitable source material. What else do you need? Step one is proper DAC, that will give you more music and less hiss/distortion. Some "MP3 players" are quite good. Some are not so good. You just have to get lucky there. Some PC soundcards, even internal ones, are quite good as well -- and you don't have to lay out for Turtle Beach gear, just get an old Audigy2 off of eBay. A moderately priced stereo, hooked up to a PC (or a CD player) with S/PDIF is ideal here, though. When dealing with a portable player, a "headphone amp" like the Airhead may help when your player just doesn't have the oomph for your headphones, but most of the time it's not necessary and won't gain you anything except one more component to deal with.

And then, you need the actual audio reproduction. My secret here is not really a secret at all. If you just want to kick back and enjoy some music, but you want clarity and detail and all that other good stuff, it's easier and cheaper to do it with headphones than to get the maximum performance out of speakers. And again, you don't need to spend a ton. My recommendation for those who really don't want to spend: the Sony MDR-V series headphones or the discontinued MDR-CD series. Surprisingly even sound, comfy earpads, and under 20 bucks. My suggestion if you want to take things a little more seriously: Grado SR-60. There's really no need to go further than that! After that it's all wankery.

So get some decently-encoded music (I don't care if it's lossy, so long as it's good, but I will point out that hard drives are cheap and FLAC doesn't take up that much space!), get an MP3 player with a decent sound chip and Rockbox support, or a moderately-priced stereo with some digital ins, get a pair of headphones that you like and that don't have too many ugly peaks in the response, and then enjoy some damn music! All the equipment together should cost you less than the complete works of Led Zeppelin on CD, or you're doing it wrong.

Pls rd yrslf bfr pstng.

gss y'r nt s slf-prmtnl s Rshkff, gss...

Where did our love go?

...and the battle continues.

I think the real point that Metzger was trying to make is that there is a niche market for SACD that is sadly being overlooked.

SACD is for audiophiles, and audiophiles are snobs about audio, its just the nature of the beast. Expecting an audiophile not to look down on MP3 would be like a concert pianist not looking down on say, Nirvana...

Both are valid forms of expression (or in this case data storage), and no, they usually don't get along.

@14
I'm sorry you weren't credited for your work. I think good cover art could go a long way toward helping the CD industry. If I'm not mistaken, this CD reissue also includes a DVD? I think if you get a CD and a DVD in one, you are getting a great deal. And with a pretty album to paw over, you have a very nice little object. I recently bought an Iron and Wine album that came with a poster of original artwork. You can't get that from no stinkin' MP3!

clearly some people have sharper aural sensitivities. Why is this so upsetting? I cannot distinguish the tiniest subtleties of rare wine vintages. I don't feel demeaned by connoisseurs.

In blind listening tests, with good audio gear, even audiophiles can't tell MP3 apart from Red Book CD audio at about 192kbps VBR or above. Of course most audiophiles _think_ they'd be able to tell; for the same reason that some of them are sure they can tell the difference a $500 power cable makes.

Moreover, I think it's funny that Talking Heads' masterpiece "Remain In Light" was used as the poster child of this post, since it was recorded in digital in the first place, and given the time (1979-80) it certainly wasn't above Red Book CD quality.

Moreover, I don't think I want somebody fucking with the mix on that album to put it into five channels. If Byrne and Eno had done it at the time, that'd be great, but they didn't, and any new five-channel mix is going to represent somebody else changing the way the sound is assembled ... which on that album in particular, is as big a part of the music as any of the instruments.

Music is not about perfect fidelity, especially not rock music. This post makes me think of '70s stereophiles holed up in their living rooms, getting down with quadraphonic masterpieces by Yes and Boston ... while they're missing out on great shows by the Ramones and the Clash, and oh yes, Talking Heads.

@47 - "clearly some people have sharper aural sensitivies" ... the problem is that this is not *so* clear as to be particularly useful. as noted by earlier posters, a lot of the ability to detect subtle differences between wines, waters and recorded sounds vanishes under double blind conditions. for the tiny few for whom it remains demonstrably present ... well, great, but it really doesn't say much about what the rest of us should (or even could) be doing.

Yes, people can hear the difference between 128k MP3s and 320k MP3s. Yes, people can hear the difference between 16-bit and 24-bit PCM, or between PCM and DSD (SACD). Yes, people can hear the difference between two different mastering jobs for the same album, or between analogue and digital. And yes, those differences are quantitatively small. But the key point is that the differences are measureable, real.

It is a separate question whether it matters for music. It is subjective. It is completely subjective whether those differences matter to you.

To me, when it concerns music I love, it matters deeply. All other things being equal, a higher quality source (be it file, disc, or tape) is going to provide me a richer, more moving experience each time. I always seek out the very highest fidelity source available because, basically, I consider my listening time valuable, and the experience of listening to music important to my happiness.

The fact that high resolution audio delivery is made trivial by plummeting storage and bandwidth costs, means that I am baffled why anyone would advocate less fidelity when we can have more.

The loudness war is a separate but equally contemptible problem.

#48 - this was not recorded digitally

@48
Remain In Light was not recorded digitally. It was recorded on 24-track analogue tape.

http://www.eqmag.com/article/bob-clearmountain-
the/Aug-06/22646

it's 5.1 as in five channels of full range plus one channel of low frequency.

Beck's "Sea Change" on SACD is absolutely amazing. The sonic mastery that went into the dark side of the moon SACD is mind blowing. Zappa's "Quadrophiliac" is ridiculously good. "Beggars Banquet" phenomenal. Of course I'm listening on Stevie Nick's old Westlake Audio studio monitors so ymmv....

Just as a note to those of you who seem to think that CD-quality (44.1kHz at 16 bits) is "good enough", try recording a full-spectrum musical instrument, such as an acoustic guitar, at that resolution, and then try it again at 48kHz, and at 96 kHz. Also try it at 24 bits. Then listen to the results on a good set speakers (just a good set of computer speakers should be enough... I'm partial to Logitech...) The higher-resolution recordings will sound a lot more vivid, and you will hear a lot of little details you wouldn't hear otherwise.

That said, for portable audio, I agree that 128kbps VBR MP3s are often more than enough, as you're not going to benefit from the extra resolution in noisy environments.

I just wish all recordings were made with less dynamic range compression (that whole loudness war thing again) and then have portable media players and especially car radios include some form of dynamic range compression so that in noisy environments, everything is brought back to a more practical loudness level.

One last thing: for those of you who've had the chance to listen to Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon 5.1 SACD remix, try searching for the unreleased 1975 Alan Parsons Quad mix, which was mastered to DVD-A(with an accompanying DVD-V track for people who don't have proper DVD-A players.) It's an extremely compelling 4.1 mix that just makes that album feel new again. In particular, Nick Mason's drumming is incredibly up-front and the mix made me appreciate his work even more than I'd done in the past. Also look for the Quad mixes for Wish You Were Here and Animals, the latter of which has some interesting moments that really use the extra channels in fun ways.

There's also Queen's A Night at the Opera 30th anniversary edition, which contains a fun 5.1 mix that is more in line with those old-style Quad mixes, instead of being like modern 5.1 mixes, where the rear channels are mostly used for ambiance. (I prefer my surround mixes to surround me with music, not make me feel like the band are playing in front of me in an ambient room.)

The Flaming Lips have special editions of their last three albums in 2-disc packages, with the second disc containing some DVD-A as well as DVD-V content, in most cases offering 5.1 mixes of the music on the CD. Also look for the Zaireeka DVD-A, which reproduces the experience the band were going for by releasing their album as 4 separate CDs meant to be played simultaneously.

Lastly, there's Frank Zappa's Quaudiophiliac, which offers pristine-sounding performances of some of his best work, mixed in Quad.

Some people only wear designer clothes, others only shop at Target. Some people only eat locally-grown, sustainable, organic food, while others will only eat Burger King. It seems that the unifying theme of this thread is that audio is a polarizing issue.

I can only listen to Otis Redding on vinyl, on my grandparents' KLH hi-fi system. I can only listen to it on that format because my dad would play that record every single night when I was a kid. When I listen to it now, I'm hearing my past in time with the music.

On the other hand, I think that Death Magnetic sounds great on iBuds, converted from the CD to mp3 at 192kbs. And by "sounds great", I mean, it feels great. It rocks, and it's distorted as hell. The distortion adds to the overall feeling.

Just smoke a bowl first, ya blowhards.

It is unfortunate that discussions like these always swirl downward into a debate about a false dichotomy. So many of the comments suggest there are but two options: shitty MP3s on an iPod listed to while on the subway vs. gazillion dollar audiophile systems. The reality, of course, is that there are a ton of options between those extremes.

I've always cared a bit about the quality of the audio I listen to but I'm not willing to spend a ton of money on silly wood knobs and tuned power cords. I've put together a very cost effective surround sound capable system that can play SACD and DVD-Audio because I enjoy listening to some of the rereleases. I didn't spend a ton of money on my system (for instance, my CD/DVD player cost only $200) but I can hear a significant difference between Bowie streaming low bit rate MP3s from my computer vs. the same stuff on SACD and my ears really aren't anything special.

Also, it isn't true that every rerelease is colored to sounds "like the 90s". Surely some are but a number of artists have been careful to try recreate the original without generating a wholly different product.

As with all other stupid and fruitless arguments (PC vs Mac, Ford vs Chevy, Republican vs Democrat), this one got a little carried away.

It is a sad thing but you have to evaluate how sad. I used to love listening to a great album on vinyl through headphones. That never happens now that I'm deep into grown-up-hood and parenting. The world of mp3s does allow me easy and constant access to my music collection and maybe even more important: to NEW MUSIC.

If I can draw a parallel: I'm a cinephile. When I had more time on my hands, I used to avoid seeing great films on a TV first. It was either on the screen or wait. This was for classics and new movies. It was surprisingly successful and I saw most of my movies the way they were supposed to be seen: in a theater, on film, with people around. Until I ran out of time due to work and being a dad. I still don't really like watching films on a TV, so consequently I just don't see many movies anymore. And I know I've got no one to blame but myself, so enjoy your DIVX avi files. Seriously. Enjoy them.

@ #45: I don't think most concert pianists are as biased as you seem to think. Most of the classical musicians I know appreciate many different kinds of music, myself included.

@ everyone: Live music beats recorded music anyday. The first wax cylinders were an example of convenience over sound quality. IMO, no recording is possible which conveys the actual sound of a live instrument (acoustic or electronic).

I work in a studio owned by AIX which delivers the highest possible quality digital sound recordings in 5.1 on blueray. They sound really amazing. They can be bought online too. I hear, I never have. Anyways, high quality sound is not a thing of the past.

I'm not at all surprised that the formats aren't selling well. Apart from the price, and narrow selections: most people don't really *listen* to music ... give it their entire attention, understand and enjoy the depth of performances or the technical accomplishments.

It's an accessory to their lives, not a focus. And they've been conditioned by decades of exposure to throw-aways. And most of the equipment they can buy is caca.

Consider the speakers on the average TV set. Case closed.

Setting aside all the objections to audiophile snobbery, the difference between stereo and 5.1 surround is undeniable.

Listening to the 5.1 DSOTM that's floating around out there was a memorable experience, as the CD copy I own couldn't be a worse copy from the masters. I could suddenly hear parts of the songs I had never heard before. And while I might not have expensive enough equipment to hear David Gilmour's fingers as the glide across the guitar strings, I'm still experiencing more of the music than I was with my early-era CD - and that's plenty of justification for these high-end formats in my book.

Hooverphonic's No More Sweet Music came with CD on one side and DVD-A on the other, a great way to compare the formats. There's a depth to the music in surround that is lost in stereo, and truly takes average-sounding tracks and makes them entrancing.

Good sound is relatively cheap. By good I mean a respectable approximation to the sound heard in the studio the day the music was mixed. Doesn't get much better than that, I think.

A pair of studio monitors you enjoy, a sub if necessary, and modicum of setup savvy easily avilable online will have you hearing things you may have not heard before, even if your hearing isn't to hot (mine isn't either). The key here is proper install.

Some time settting up diffusion & bass traps(NOT expensive (i.e. home made works just as well), eq-ing, and speaker placement will provide much joy in the form of instrument/vocal localization in the created soundspace (proper reverb playback, phase and time coherence (not perfection), differentiation of timbre, more accurate tonality (once again fidelity to the mix), Oh yeah and the ability to hear the differences amongst poor playback mediums(not specific to mp3).

There are issues with mp3, and cd, but conveniance has robbed society of the opportuniy to hear what they are missing.

You can't hear all the subtleties of music when there is noise around: traffic, children, fans, etc. etc.

Maybe it's our job to sell people on the beauty of a great sound experience?!

I wish I could invite you'll to hear what your missing, but my listening space is a tad small for the masses. sorry

some people are "super-tasters", perhaps some have brain synapses that make their aural experience more intense than some others. It is not just the mechanics of auditory range and sensitivity - maybe the audiophiles are experiencing something very intense and pleasurable to them in a very real way. They are telling the truth when they describe their superior experience and cannot understand why others built differently think they are just posing.

Sadly even CDs are often a poor way to listen to music nowadays, with the rampant compression of the sound in the pursuit of loudness, not dynamic range (and hence, accuracy).

MP3s aren't great, but with a good source they're OK for portable listening for non-audiophiles. Which includes almost everyone, statistically speaking. MP3s don't deserve the bad rap they get from some folks. Going portable, digitally and with high quality, is also an easy problem to fix if you're really concerned (buy CD, losslessly compress, store on your large-drive player of choice). But when the source CD is compressed to hell and back, the MP3 gets a double-whammy of compression and even lossless formats can't improve the sound.

I don't think high quality audio recording and reproduction technology will become extinct. I think the type of music and the business model it is following determines how it is treated in the studio. For anything that you see or hear on Mtv there is no audio quality to begin with because the music is simply a set-piece for the image of a band that can be quickly pumped up for short-term returns via sales of singles, ringtones and commercial licensing. Pop, dance and hip-hop are primarily digitally created because it's easy and cost-effective. Nu-metal and it's loudness wars have real instruments, but a similar lack of depth, nuance or style that would benefit from any format of higher than cd quality. The artists listed in this article are artists who cared primarily about sonic quality and their art deserves to be archived and reproduced with the best quality possible. I think the real problem with SACD and DVD-A is that the manufacturers were trying to make them the next big general consumer format, a new version of cd's with less convenience, at a time when consumers were moving towards convenience. There's no technological reason why high quality audio can't be sold in a downloadable format. Buying a disc that can't be backed up by the buyer is a doomed business model that needs to die ASAP. Accidents happen; discs get scratched.
-Reelz

Technogeek, that's some awesome geek cred. (The back cover of Remain in Light thing..)

Wow. I really envy you :-/

Here in Mexico is hard to find even the normal versions of the Talking Heads CDs, so a 5.1 mix would be even harder.

But I might as well try...

Quality-wise, someone should start a campaign called 'Kill mp3' or something. It would be great to create new standard (like FLAC) and it would be great to purchase/download lossless music :-)

Most of us put up with the losses of MP3 format because we're listening to the music on devices that we wouldn't be able to tell the difference on.

I have one of my favorite Depeche Mode albums in both MP3 and FLAC format, on a nice expensive 5.1 computer speaker system... I can't discern a real difference at all.

That's why MP3 is popular. Low filesize, and most people don't have the hardware to notice what they're missing out on. We're listening on our computers or on headhphones which we'd like to be portable, and therefore smaller than a cinder block.

@#5 POSTED BY THEDUDE06:
I'd say it's more along the lines of Giclee versus silk screened print.

One last point I'd like to make, "I can't hear the difference anyway" is a bit of a cop out. You may not be able to now, but audio quality is like any other aesthetic pursuit, be it literature or art or wine. It is possible to train the senses. To expand your horizons and learn to recognize and enjoy subtle variations. I suppose it's possible to skip it entirely, but it seems a bit like eating only McDonald's because hey, it provides all the calories you really need.

train the senses or train the mind?

@#72 POSTED BY ERNUNNO:
Completely disagree. Hearing gets worse with age. Not better. So I will say that if you're in your 20s and teens you would probably notice the difference. But for the rest of us, it's no big loss.

What it's also coming down to is mastering on all levels. Saw Taxi Driver on the big screen after only seeing it on VHS for years and it blew me away. Film print just cleaned up and it amazed me. Then I saw the digital remastering of Blade Runner and it blew me away as well.

Then I went to see a rep theater showing of Escape from New York. Horrible. It was some crappy print that was PINK in part with scratches. And there is no excuse since the damned film has been remastered onto DVD before.

So in that case, watching Escape from New York on my iPod was a better experience.

I think that's what would win me over in arguments like this. Immediately explaining to the layperson what mastering is and why bad post-production can ruin the best efforts of things.

I value all the data in my music - and generally rip at the highest possible bitrate (320, mp3), FLAC or Apple Lossless being a bit too data heavy for my large collection and not-so-large wallet (not that storage is that expensive).

Even then the CD often trumps the rip.

But I will never, ever understand buying an album that's decades old re-mixed (no remastered) into something more than a 2.1 channel copy. It seems gratuitous, and the albums I have heard tend to sound absurd... like David Byrne is doing laps of the room while belting out Listening Wind. Just because we can, doesn't mean we should.

But I am no audiophile, I just like my audio to play as close to what was originally intended by the artist. And if that is a 7.1 Autechre album, awesome. But after the fact multichannel? Can someone put a solid case forward as to why it is so good? Besides the hit-the-bong, coming-from-everywhere cool factor?

Do we need to hear the strummings of Mr Dylan from the rear channels?

(BTW, the last few questions were utterly rhetorical, I know they were covered in the post... just my opinion. One that sounded like i didn't RTFA. But I did. Promise.)

for most, the auditory experience is co-related with pleasing memory. Just as our reptilian brains are most strongly evoked by smell, so the next level responds to associated memory of sound. Can the best audiophile's equipment compete with the scratchy AM radio of first sex?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0ns8t9iQck

I like chiptunes in mono.

Weird about all the defensive posturing. Can I enjoy my bitchin stereo and still say that monster cable is b*llshit? Thanks, swell of you.

The only reason I can figure anyone would call an "audiofile" pathetic is because nobody did them a favor and sat them right down and "featured" a 5.1 remastered album (and that's just what it amounts to, a feature...like a film, something that can transport you). At the risk of coming across like a complete Fuck#ng dork I do in fact force some of my friends to sit in front of my stereo and introduce them to something I'm pretty sure they've never he