Columns Retired Columns & Blogs |
I tried it once. It sounded HORRIBLE. You could just as well listen to the music via a telephone.
The MP3 audio format has been garnering significant press coverage of late: record labels abhor the piracy problems, consumers love the ease of use and access, and audiophiles can't stand the compressed sound. Does any of this matter to you?
I'm tired of hearing about audio compression as the savior of music as we know it. I'll sacrifice sound quality for perhaps a news broadcast on the Internet, but when it comes to listening to "real" music, I'm sorry, but I'd have to say thanks but no thanks. It seems that there are two tribes in the audio world today: those of us trying to get more from the music (aka 24/96), and the group that wants compression and portability (aka MiniDisc and MP3). I do sincerely hope that one day my CD player can be the size of a walnut and the quality top-notch, but until then I have no qualms. MP3s? Sorry, but not for me. My portable CD player is fine for now, and I have better things to do with my Internet bandwidth.
It would have one function, from my standpoint, and that is to see if I liked a performance. If I liked it, I could then decide to buy it. In combination with a website that sells recordings, it may be a good way to market music. Of course, the lo-fi end will simply copy and use it, and this is what the labels are afraid of. But then, people used to record off the radio, didn't they?
Downloads will be come useful when I can record them to disc for portability. However, I believe they will be one more option available. Similar to buying online is now, you still have your local retail outlet with its social interaction.
Who cares? More important, who has the time to spend hours downloading music, then listening to it? Please, it's fun for computer geeks and teeny-boppers who listen to crap like N'Sync, Backstreet Boys, etc. Besides, the last people I want involved in determining sound quality are computer people, whose priorities are hopelessly distorted.
I listen to music at home, trying to re-create the emotion of a live performance; I am not interested in a lossy compressed format, love classical music, and am, by the way, NOT interested in home theater. (Should all of the above invade Stereophile, I would cancel my subscribtion, with regrets, because I presently like you!)
Here's an interesting experiment to try: Download an MP3 of something you already own on CD or vinyl, convert it to a .WAV file, and burn it to a CD. Then do an A/B comparison between the CD and the MP3 on a high-end system. Notice the rolling off of the highs, the grain throughout the midrange, and the general loss of life from the music. Now, this isn't to say that MP3 is a bad format for the Internet. If you did the same A/B comparison on a pair of cheesy computer speakers, you probably couldn't tell the difference. However, from a purist standpoint, MP3 has no place in the High End.
I've downloaded a dozen or so MP3 songs off the Internet(all but a couple legally), and while at its best, the sound is a notch worse than CD, it is acceptable for my computer, and the songs take up much less hard drive space than wav files.
It sounds terrible. It's OK at work when I forget to bring in my CDs (which sound terrible to begin with!). I guess it's OK for background, but even with the crappy soundboard with my work computer, I can hear the sound difference between a CD and MP3. (I use a pair of Grado SR80s.)