MP3s are Bad!!!

While I'm complaining about the woes of today's society (see "Disposable World" post below), I have another topic that I want to cover.

I am soooo irritated by the soaring popularity of MP3s. Many might question what I, as a technogeek, would have against this wonderful technology. My main issue with MP3s is not the fact that people use them to steal music (that is a completely different discussion, and in my opinion unrelated to a file compression format). My main issue is the fact that MP3s are a step backwards in sound quality. Claims are made that a 192kbps MP3 is equal quality to a CD. Let me tell you all, IT IS NOT! Even on a modest sound system, the difference in quality can easily be heard between an MP3 and a CD. A CD is simply better.

But people are willing to stake their entire music collections on it, spending hundreds on sites like apple’s iTunes. Everyone is so excited to have their entire music collection in the palm of their hand.

With this MP3 frenzy, we are telling the record companies and the people who make music (and people who make audio equipment), that we don’t need the quality of CDs any more. We are quite happy with (often low bit rate) MP3 quality. This is so sad because on the horizon are music formats that are better quality than CDs, formats that can give us an even better musical experience. But these formats are being suppressed because the general population seems disinterested.

Now, I do believe that MP3s have their place. I own an iPod, and I freely admit that it is one of the sexiest pieces of technology that I have ever laid my hands on. Portable music players are great for listening to on a noisy street, in the car, or perhaps even as background music, but when you sit down in a nice quiet environment to really listen to the music, the sound quality is completely unbearable.

In my opinion, MP3s are practically obsolete already. Broadband internet is the norm, hard drives are massive. There is getting to be less and less need for compressed audio when there is plenty of storage and bandwidth to handle uncompressed audio formats. In fact, the standard 16bit, 44.1 kHz CD should be obsolete as well. All new music should come out in rich 24bit 96 kHz digital sound.

Eventually, I think things will turn around; the better sounding formats should prevail. So what happens if your entire music collection is a bunch of antiquated compressed audio that you bought from Apple? Hopefully, there would be some kind of free upgrade available so that you could “trade in” your compressed music for the full quality versions (we all know this won’t be the case and that you will have to pay again for an upgrade).

So dust off those old CDs that you have lying around and really listen to your music again. You will be surprised how good it can sound.

JE