Re: [Harp-L] Re: music and perception

[Ken Deifik <kenneth.d@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> mp3's are unlistenable.  The compression artifacts just annoy me.  What I 
> fiind interesting is an entire generation getting their music through low 
> quality headphones and highly compressed formats.  fjm

Bob Lefsetz, who writes a newsletter about the music business feels the 
same way as you do about MP3s.  However, he says it just proves that people 
care more about the tunes than about the hi-ness of the fi.

Long before this entire generation was getting its music through low-q cans 
and MP3s my generation was getting their music on Macy's stereos made from 
thick cardboard and utterly crummy everything else, on vinyl that had nice 
quality for three plays and then popped and cracked and skipped and all 
kindsa other joyous yecccch.  I loathed vinyl artifacts, much more in fact 
than the distortions of MP3.

It was still better than the glorious 8-track sound of the 1970's, which 
made one long for those vinyl artifacts.

Cassettes were a fine improvement, but only over 8 track, and not really 
over scratchy, awful vinyl, at least in terms of distortion.

However, CD's were and are pure sex. I love them I love them I love them.

But most people listened to them in their cars at least a good part of the 
time.  That's not such a hot environment to listen to music.  They still 
sound pretty great in the car, but it is not an audiophile experience.

So while I do not find MP3s quite unlistenable if encoded well, and way 
prefer - here he goes again - m4a, and I love listening to them on my Grado 
cans, I am also not all that appalled that a whole generation of kids are 
listening to MP3s on cheezy Apple earbuds, because the music sounds way 
better than it did on my tinny portable AM radio back when the Chiffons 
were singing about how fine I am.  And I LOVED that sound.

You like that 'hi-ness of the fi' thing?  I just came up with that.

K