More MP3 Woes...
I am sure that many of you who take the time to read this blog are sick of me complaining about MP3s, but I am duty bound to keep fighting against this audio abomination. Let me first try to explain why I get so worked up about this issue. My main gripe is that MP3s are “dumbing down” people’s audio expectations. The sound of quality recordings is destroyed when they are compressed into MP3s. As you know, I design audio equipment for a living, and I spend hours measuring, listening, and tweaking each design to provide the best sounding end product. Obviously the thought of “ugly” audio being pumped through my precious designs is quite upsetting. I also spend a lot of time recording music (though not as much as I would like). Again, hours are spent performing, recording, mixing and tweaking to come up with the best sounding piece of music possible. Obviously the thought of this music then being stripped of its vitality in the form of an MP3 is very discouraging. And the saddest thing about the whole issue is that I am sure people are forgetting how good music can really sound.
This week I went to a big Pro Audio trade show in London. While I was looking at all of the shiny new toys, someone asked if I would like to listen to “the world’s best sounding headphones”. Of course I was very excited by this opportunity. The headphones were plugged into an ipod nano. I sat down and selected a track that I recognised. After about 5 seconds of being assaulted by a wretched MP3 sound I pulled the phones off my head. “Is this an MP3 I am listening to?” I demanded of the salesman. “Yes, it is.” He replied sheepishly. I went on to explain that they surely could not expect to demo “the world’s best sounding headphones” using MP3 files. I also explained that you can store wav files (uncompressed audio) on an ipod, so there really was no need. The better quality the audio components used to reproduce a sound, the more obvious the artefacts and deficiencies of the compressed audio source will be. And with these headphones the music was absolutely unlistenable.
JE
4 Comments:
I think that's hilarious. I bet they encoded the MP3 to something like 128 kbps. While that's okay to send a "rough" over e-mail, I have no idea why anyone would test high-end audio gear with an "obviously MP3" MP3.
I should have guessed DANNY would chime in a response to this blog. But let me represent 'the other side' of the story.
Friends let's face it - the MP3 revolution is a gift from above, a miracle of technological convenience and cost efficiency.
I am an MPTrinitarian, and this I cannot recant.
The trouble with you MPTrinitarians is that you are willing to sacrifice audio quality for quanitity and ease of use. You don't care what your music sounds like as long as you can have 10000000 songs in the palm of your hand.
I say mp3s are no more a miracle than microwave dinners are a miracle. They may be fast and easy, but in the end, we would all prefer a nice tasty home cooked meal!
JE
MP3's have their uses, but when you're trying to prove that high-end gear is beating the pants off of other high-end gear, MP3's are not the right choice.
I would never tune a system using MP3's as my primary reference, mostly because their frequency response (relative to the original) is definitely not guaranteed to be closely similar.
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