OT: mp3 quality

He theorizes music fans prefer a tinnier digital sound...he must never have felt the force of an array of arena bass bins thumping on your chest and bod. lol

Research has shown, however, that today’s iPod generation prefers the tinnier and flatter sound of digital music, just as previous generations preferred the grainier sounds of vinyl.

What are this reporter's qualifications to comment on this topic? Digital music is "tinny"? And flat at the same time! Vinyl is "grainy"? WTF?

The quality issues with iPods are not the result of any limitation or character of digital recording. Aliasing isn't the fault of the recording. And those stock earbuds would make anything sound awful, even if playing a high-quality CD through them. "Digital" does not imply overcompression, although wimpy earbuds do benefit from compression. And of course, there's the 128KB/s standard for many internet downloads. None of these factors has anything to do with music being made on a computer.

That young people have come to accept MP3s and iPods is a sad fact. However, the author's source's contention that "Computers have made music so easy to obtain that the young no longer appreciate high fidelity" is bogus.

Funny. There's a really smart computer friend of mine I work with that insists the quality issue with digital recording frequencies is "debatable". WFT? He actually insists he can't hear the difference between a CD quality track and a 128 KB MP3 file. He swears some people "claim" to hear a difference, and some people don't.

This dude is otherwise a computer genius, in my world anyway, so I'm just floored. He's a drummer too, and that, to me, is the most obvious difference in quality. The drums always sound fatter, with less character and depth to me. I can't believe he doesn't hear that.

Is that going to be the norm? Are we going to lose out on quality because the masses can't hear the difference? That's going to suck...

Well... let me give you my 2 cents.... I use an Ipod a lot..... I'm rarely without it. I love the fact that I can take a CD and actually hunderds of CD's as well as my original stuff and some of yours as well, and stick it in my pocket and listen to it all day and more on a single charge. I'm under no illusion that the music is a lower quality than a CD< tape, or album could provide..... but it is mighty convenient.

Having a good high quality set of earbuds helps. The originals were a pain to wear for more than a few songs.

The quality of the music contained therein..... yeah I think the kids have been "dumbed down" by the convenience factor of the Ipod and MP3's. I have used "home made" soundtracks from time to time on the rare occasions that I play live..... and generally I had used CD's..... but I thought...I'll do this with my Ipod. When I played the track through the PA... it sounded like crap..... the MP3's low quality really showed up big time through that PA..... but it wasn't evident in the buds.