Is music quality moving away from the "audiophile"

Chasmal - not surprised at all. But these things run in cycles. At one time people painted over perfectly good interior wood, a generation later we stripped the paint off. PC's, Ipod's etc have wowwed the general population in a similar fashion, the onthego culture hasn't helped. But at some point there will be a shift back in the other direction.

First, I am not a fan of audio compression, but a big fan of data compression. Our electronics and music industries has always been marked by convenience over quality. Since the introduction of the car stereo and portable listening devices, we have sought to exploit the mobile listener.

With that said, it is now a numbers game. Music distribution will continue to favor the digital formats, where the bulk of the buying activity is taking place. There is estimated penetration of MP3 devices into all US households at 140 million players, which is approaching 70% of US Households. All audiophile content(including vinyl)is 1.5 million copies pressed in 2008. 140 vs 1.5--it is easy math to see where the bread is buttered. Metalica like most bands are going to reshape their music to where market will be. The next wave devices will move to cell phones.

With that said, a few "cult" bands realize there is an alternative universe in vinyl and are shaping their music accordingly. I can point you to recent vinyl releases by Calexico (Carried to Dust), Shelby Lynne (Just a Little Lovin') and Jenny Lewis (Acid Tongue)that were recorded using old school techniques and sound comparable to anything recorded before the days of compression. I don't see that going away anytime soon, but it will never be but a blip on the revenue side.

I myself have been in the pro touring space for 30 years. I spend a great deal of time on the road with my bands, which is where most of them make their money. I probably listen to music 90% of the time on my iPod and like the next wave of devices that are supporting the Apple data compression formats. The Wadia 170 docking station at home (hooked up to bryston and ATC) does a pretty good job at working around the sonic limitations of Apple (Huge WAF--my wife loves this) and when on the road, I use Ray Samuels minature headphone amp, which are incredible at boosting the output from the iPod. I use inexpensive Sony Pro MDR 7506 headphones which offer some of the best and neutral dynamic playback I know.

I really am not bothered so much--don't feel it is that "crappy" knowing I have access to 8,000 songs at my finger tips. I certainly dont miss carting vinyl and CDs around.

10-04-08: Nietzschelover writes:

Early CDs sucked. But, technology improves. . .

Not in my opinion. I buy mainly "first pressings" made in Japan and West Germany prior to about 1990.

Regards,

Per Synthfreek, just to clarify, I was referring to data compression.
Also, I'm in complete agreement with Bongofury.
And, maybe, Metralla is right about CDs. I dunno. I've never expected much from them to begin with and have always listened mainly to vinyl.
Still, the very first CDs really did suck! They were not even listenable. I mean, c'mon!

It's down to the artists at the end of the day.

Springsteen and Metallica should be shot for their productions on their last albums. But I guess it is a small % who have the type of systems to show up how poor these records sound. They probably sound OK to the vast majority of the people who bought the record. Lets face it as well these are two artists who will be well up on market research, they will not do their careers any damage with this.

Whilst things have changed, downloading , a turn to mini-systems with iPods etc. In another way they haven't-some bands took care in this aspect and others were more concerned with what sounded good in the arenas thay would mean commercial return.

In another sense there is the question Have Audiophiles Moved Away From Current Music?
And the answer of course is yes, it is a generalisation but Audiophiles musical tastes (outwith a handful who remain open to music)are quite narrow and specific. There is nothing wrong with that but there is plenty of good new music that has decent to great recording quality.
The bottom line is a large % of Audiophiles ain't gonna search it out..........