to MP3 or not to MP3?

[washline]

lol "this music is made only for Dolby Surround 22.2 Ultra High Definition 16 Stereo Panasonic Speakers for Ultra High Awesome Sound Definition"

Sounds like a very shitty system.

[washline]

Are you entitled to make a judgment about a piece of music if you only have heard, say half of its frequencies?

Ah, the judgment again. Where would music be without a judge to follow it around. Sometimes one gets the impression that music and other things are around merely to give judge something more to do.

By the way, could I get the Ingarden reference? Thanks.

How about "are you entitled to make a judgement about a piece of music if you have only heard it on one playback system?"

Touche.

There are just some albums that use a particularly delicate frequency range.

Precisely. The devil is in the details.

[washline]

Then how about widescreen HD DVD to pan-and-scan VHS.

edit: or better: Laserdisc to VHS

Jon's right again. The analogy is not of the same order. A better analogy would be the difference between Sorenson compression and Blue-ray (HD DVD is dead). In other words, something of the order of YouTube vs. HiDef.

[washline]

which is true, but if a good chunk of the music isn't present, you're not really getting any of the latter.

It could be argued that any music demanding excessively precise technological requirements (excessive being determined by reference to a social average) is already audiophile music. It begins life already destined for the audiophile.

The social average used to be your average 44/16 PCM compact disc, which in terms of sound reproduction has improved enormously in the past 20 years. That now seems to have been replaced by the MP3. One can only lament this decline. It's the victory of the Big Mac and Quarterpounder-with-cheese of sound--democratized more but at a more uniform flavor and consistency.

[Vincent Kargatis]

In other words, something of the order of YouTube vs. HiDef.

A uselessly wild exaggeration. You could test a hundred thousand people, and not one would fail to accurately distinguish a youtube vid vs an HD one. A large majority would probably fail to distinguish a decent mp3 and cd.

[washline]

Not on my system.

[dustbowl]

Ideally, one should be able to hear as much of the sonic information the artists heard when they originally committed the music to a recording.

Ideally Is an important word here, and it also depends on what is the ideal that is being set. how do you know that you can hear all the subtleties that the performer hears? all the sonic and non sonic ones? can you say that the non-sonic subtleties are less important than the very high or very low sonic frequency subtleties are?
I have the feeling that as much as the discussion progresses towards higher ideal we are also talking about a limited range of music.

The bigger issue for me is not the sound quality of MP3's, but the way listening habits have changed towards quantity. However, it has resulted in interesting French electro cut-up styles (Mr. Oizo, Jackson and His Computer Band, etc).

I'm totally against this idea that if you spend alot of money on music than you appreciate it more somehow. There is however a change in listening habits that I don't find all that welcome. There is this quicker take and throw process which i find objectionable, certain people would take and listen to certain collections of music just for the experience of being able to interject and say "i heard it..." without having given any thought on the music. There's also the issue of the royalties for the recording artist which the issue had been suffering ever since the Used Bin has been invented, but thats a totally different discussion.
Good audio compression algorithm files have however given much more people a chance to hear things they would never have a chance to hear without them, thus broadening the scope of its audience in immeasurable size. Thus i think the drawbacks are very tolerable in the face of its advantages.

[jon abbey]

man, you sure are confusing a lot of different issues there.

[washline]

man, you sure are confusing a lot of different issues there.

He's not going to be happy until we allow him to have his music served up to him as badly as possible. Consequently, we should allow him to ascend to MP3 heaven so he can play with the angels of low-fidelity.

More power to you, dustbowl, more power to you.

[dustbowl]

man, you sure are confusing a lot of different issues there.

He's not going to be happy until we allow him to have his music served up to him as badly as possible. Consequently, we should allow him to ascend to MP3 heaven so he can play with the angels of low-fidelity.

More power to you, dustbowl, more power to you.

baaazing!

[David]

Ah, the judgment again. Where would music be without a judge to follow it around. Sometimes one gets the impression that music and other things are around merely to give judge something more to do.

By the way, could I get the Ingarden reference? Thanks.

washline:
for more judging, check out Kritik der Urteilskraft by mr Kant.
For Ingarden - Das literarische Kunstwerk.
(still don't know how to insert the name of the person being quoted in the quote, sorry)

[washline]

Thanks David. It thought that might be The Literary Work of Art by Ingarden but I wasn't sure. I have that one and I'll check it again. Thanks. I know Kant's text.

[J.F.]

The higher the compression rate, the more music fits onto the storage-media of my music-handy. I love to rock the bus with Butcher/Durrant/Russel.

[Vincent Kargatis]

the reason this seems like a silly thing to me to bring up in this context (and the earlier context, for different reasons) is that it's quite obvious that every listen by every person will be at least slightly different, but we're talking about the difference between potentially being able to hear all of the music and that not being possible because parts of it have been removed. that transcends any difference in listening setup or ears or brain from my perspective.

I can see how "potential" is important to a content producer, but for listeners, it's practice that counts. (Potential sound might have an impact when considering future personal playback improvements, but that's a small matter, no?) And in practice, listeners' individual listening experiences/environments differ a lot - yes, it's obvious, but so should its relevance. The lesson to take from cognizance of early recordings' limitations is not that audiophilia is a waste of time, but rather that it's quite easy (in the general, human capacity sense) to ascribe positive value to listening to those records. Similarly, many people easily find value in listening in all sorts of situations, many significantly sonically compromised. Your valuation of mp3 for some music is very low, but for loads of people, it's much higher (obviously people disagree in this thread as to the subjective severity of the sonic flaws). I don't see how your valuation as a listener means much more than a simple statement of preference. I'd find bizarre and laughable the suggestion that a decent mp3 compromises an eai recording more than the first 4 decades of recording did the music then, and yet, it's quite easy for many to find high value in those records, and it's just as theoretically easy in my view to find positive value with mp3s of sonically demanding music, depending on the listening environment. I find stuff like the AC running, a window open, running water, a kid yelling to have way more sonic impact than any of mp3's flaws.

mp3 exists because listeners view tradeoffs with portability as positive. In exchange for compromised sonics, you get portability, greater access, greater organizational control, etc. I have no trouble ascribing positive value to listening to eai on mp3 in situations where those tradeoffs apply.

I don't see a dichotomy here as the subject title implies - most would agree "sure, mp3 when it works for you."

[jon abbey]

I'd find bizarre and laughable the suggestion that a decent mp3 compromises an eai recording more than the first 4 decades of recording did the music then,

the difference is then there was no alternative and now there is.

I'm not claiming to speak for the entire world, I'm just speaking from my perspective, and I've found that my own impressions from listening to EAI/classical MP3s are so misguided when I compare them to the actual CDs (and I don't have anything near an audiophile system right now, or an always quiet listening environment) that I, like Joda, find them personally pointless quite a bit of the time.

if MP3s are your only alternative, that's fine, but I'd be careful making strong statements about the music then. I remember one back and forth in the early days of this board about someone who found Sheer Hellish Miasma to be a flat, boring mess, and after a bit I asked "wait, are you listening to MP3s of this?". yes, of course he was.

[Kyrre Laastad]

I remember one back and forth in the early days of this board about someone who found Sheer Hellish Miasma to be a flat, boring mess, and after a bit I asked "wait, are you listening to MP3s of this?". yes, of course he was.

Sheer Hellish Miasma is one of the records where I actually notice a significant difference between mp3 and cd. And it also needs open air to sound at its best, it doesn't sound nearly as good on headphones to me. But my god, how good it will sound when I get some new speakers!

[dustbowl]

That's my point, what if one does not listen to EAI? or only ultra high res music? i've been as clear as possible about this, but i guess this hurts people who've spent mounds of cash for the greatest system available cuz they somehow got into their heads that otherwise music is pointless. i luuuuurv my 256-320kbps mp3s.

[jon abbey]

That's my point, what if one does not listen to EAI? or only ultra high res music? i've been as clear as possible about this, but i guess this hurts people who've spent mounds of cash for the greatest system available cuz they somehow got into their heads that otherwise music is pointless. i luuuuurv my 256-320kbps mp3s.

no one who's posted thinks this or has said anything like this, you're just being an asshole. my iPod is filled with MP3s, which are adequate for some kinds of music, but for some kinds, they aren't.

[mudd]

seriously this thread needs to find a track and stay on it.

m

[dustbowl]

no one who's posted thinks this or has said anything like this, you're just being an asshole. my iPod is filled with MP3s, which are adequate for some kinds of music, but for some kinds, they aren't.

Ouch
Speaking of "no one" ok.