Is music quality moving away from the "audiophile"

Ben

I agree with your last statement. I am always finding new and amazing bands. I have a daughter that is 27 and a son who is 23. We love making mix tapes to share and I find I listen to what is "new" more than the classics that audiophile's rave about. The Beatles are great, but I am totally bored with them, in a good way. I like what is fresh and modern.

Both my children live with Apple laptops and iPods and really don't share my love for high end audio. I however always respect their music tastes and I really don't think they know what they are missing sonically--they are still "getting" music, it is a soundtrack to their lifes, and their ongoing support of new bands is great for music and its artists.

I was turned on to this forum about two years ago and I like being part of this community. Most of the bands offered up in the "Music" chat are no longer active, and from time to time, you rediscover an album that is like a good classic book. But I totally agree with your statement that very few elders are searching out new music.

10-04-08: Nietzschelover writes:

Still, the very first CDs really did suck! They were not even listenable. I mean, c'mon!

CD players - completely agree. But not the discs.

Regards,

There should be a distinction with the word compression here. There is dynamic compression and data compression.

Dynamic compression means that the signal being processed has an amount of automatic volume control applied. Depending on the settings (ratio/attack/threshold) this can be a wonderful thing bringing out detail and texture in the sound. Many of the recordings we know and love sound great because of this effect.

This should not be confused with limiting which again is an automatic volume control which stops peaks beyond a set threshold at set speed, hold and release. Again a great sound which can sound exciting and detailed when used correctly.

Data compression is another question and done after the recording process. Removing parts of the recording that a computer model decides is less crucial to human hearing.

Most people think of MP3s as terrible sounding, but if used at high band width is not too bad. Best not to use it on orchestral recordings or acoustic music though. It is just that most people want 100s of CDs on their Ipod, so they use low sample rates to fit all the data on the small hard drives. It is a shame. Quantity not quality.

There is no money in the music industry anymore for the people who make it. A lot of records are recorded at home or done cheaply as the music revenues are slipping into the wrong hands. Try getting your royalty from itunes. It is a joke. Record companies sold out their artists in the panic to sell downloads. The credit card companies get more % than the people that made the music, unless you are pink floyd or U2.

The high end studio equipment is better than it has ever been. The budget gear can be very good too. There is a huge choice in approaches to recording now. Unfortunately the market is swamped and music is becoming worthless to kids. Kids expect it for free on their cellphone.

I agree with Ben and Bongofury for the most part. I also enjoy searching out new music and it's a bonus when it is well recorded. The only problem I find is that I have been a long time Springsteen and Metallica fan and as such I want to hear their music and I know that it doesn't sound as good as it can or should and I wish they would fix it. It seems like almost all rock is recorded with very little dynamic range and that is the problem because there are no longer any musical nuances, it's just loud!!! This new recording mentality is really destroying the emotional impact of the music. It's as if the audio industry has decided to add steroid's to every musical note and beat.

This is new and relatively unknown. It is their debut album. Great sound too.