I Want Better Sound…and That’s Vinyl(?)
I mentioned in my New Media Resolutions post at the first of the year that I want to do whatever I can to improve the quality of audio on line and in downloadable media. I was reminded of that “cause” this past Sunday morning by the folks at, well, Sunday Morning. The CBS show presented a piece on how vinyl records are becoming “cutting edge.”
Just as I pointed out in January, the sound of what is being sent into the cloud needs to improve, if for no other reason than to avoid trying to figure out how to cram a “record” into your iPod. Seriously, for those that are my age, it’s unfair for us let those brought up on listening to audio in the mp3 format think that’s the best music can sound. For those that have never heard the sound of a vinyl LP you owe it to yourself to hear all of what the artist labored to put into the music, especially the parts the mp3 format has had to discard.
I know, I know, you’re going to say that the human ear can’t detect the difference between a vinyl album, a CD, MP3, WAV, etc. I’m sorry, I disagree. I hear a difference. And it’s especially noticeable in the MP3 format, the most popular format for portable devices and online streaming. The reason it is the most popular, if you didn’t already know, is that it is the smallest file size. An MP3 file is a fraction of the size of, say, a WAV file. File size is directly related to download time.
So what do we do about better sound quality on “the net?” First, don’t settle. If you can find a way to make that audio sound better then do it. Start with a Variable Bit Rate setting if you can. VBR allows the music to be compressed in places where the full audio spectrum will most likely not be missed, a fade in or out for example. Another option would be, with such advances in bandwidth and more and more access to higher speed connectivity, offer your audio in the WAV format. I’ll take a WAV over MP3 any day.
Whatever the case, I refuse to settle for what we now accept for high-quality audio. I don’t believe going back to vinyl is the answer. Memories of the cracks and pops of an over-played album and the need for the pennies on a tone-arm are enough to keep me away from climbing on that bandwagon.
If, as Eliot Van Buskirk of Wired commented, vinyl is the nail in the CD’s coffin in his article back in December, and is the best we can do then I would have to be very disappointed in technology. And, to date, I’m not.
Look I have great memories of opening that new album (I still distinctly remember taking the shrink wrap off that debut Boston album…sigh.), but beyond the romance of it all, I don’t want to go back. Hey, I liked the show Happy Days…it doesn’t mean I wanted to slick my hair back and do the stroll. Let’s move forward.
Have you got some tips for improved audio? Let’s have em.
[…] Anney wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptI mentioned in my New Media Resolutions post at the first of the year that I want to do whatever I can to improve the quality of audio on line and in downloadable media. I was reminded of that “cause” this past Sunday morning by the … […]
Here, here, Phil! I’ve been waiting to release a similar article. I wholeheartedly agree. And the saddest part, as you allude to, is that today’s kids are growing up only knowing “MP3 quality.” The reason the average consumer says it doesn’t matter is that they’ve either never heard or don’t remember the richness of a vinyl LP played on a good system. You CAN hear the difference. Sadder still, I’ve heard that record producers and engineers are engineering songs today to account for them eventually being encoded in MP3, purposefully discarding many of the low-end and high-end frequencies that MP3 discards in its algorithm.
I equate this to the woe I feel for my young children who will be growing up in a society that only knows fear-ridden security, reduced civil freedoms, and 2-hour waits at the airport. At least we can fondly remember a time that was. But I digress. This isn’t the Association for Depressed Melancholy.
Now onto my would-be article:
“Quality peaked with the compact disc”
Okay, I know … it’s a strange title for my first ADM blog post. What the heck does it mean? For the last many years, I’ve been a torn by the advent of fast, convenient content delivery (YouTube, podcasting, iPods, PDAs, cell phones). Sure, they’re super-cool and tech must-haves, but when these new media delivery methods came along in the late 1990s, actual content quality started to decline.
Let me explain … Back when phonograph recordings were made (I know at least some of you had LPs?) they were meticulously pressed in near-perfect analog audio quality from analog 24-track masters. For the home market, that migrated to 45s, reel-to-reels, 8-track tapes, and then audiocassettes. Along the way, the content was stored in an uncompressed (and really good quality) analog audio format. The one problem was physical degradation of the media. Along came compact discs in the 1980s, and it solved that problem. And with CDs the content was, for the first time, compressed. Mind you, it was a fairly nominal compression at around a 1.2 mbps data rate and 44.1 kHz sample rate.
Then along came the Fraunhofer Society, and in 1991 the MP3 (MPEG-1, layer 3) format was born. It marked a significant and steady change in how content is delivered and stored. Great was the push for smaller files sizes while sacrificing quality. 14400 baud modems are to blame, really. Since the bandwidth was small, the answer was compression. These compression schema did help the flood of media onto the Internet, but it also created a little-known (or cared about) effect of lower quality. If you were to listen to the same song on a record album and as an MP3, you would notice the huge difference in quality. Problem is, who has record players anymore? They’re cumbersome, expensive, and hard to convert into that “Walkman” form factor. Imagine the iLP? Sorry, no. And the even stranger thing is, the vast majority of consumers don’t care about the lower audio quality. They want convenience over quality. Broadcast TV stations must adhere to strict quality standards set by the FCC, and yet popular YouTube videos have views into the tens of millions.
Now, this would be fine, if it weren’t for the fact that an entire generation of global consumers are only ever going to consume their media via iPods, cell phones, and computers. They will never know the true joy of listening to Queen’s “A Night at the Opera” on an LP. It’s truly a transcendental experience that I have only in memory. Does this mean I’ll stop my subscription to Ask a Ninja? Of course not.
[…] 0blivion wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptI mentioned in my New Media Resolutions post at the first of the year that I want to do whatever I can to improve the quality of audio on line and in downloadable media. I was reminded of that “cause” this past Sunday morning by the … […]