Stan's List

A Rolling Stone blog delves in what many consider a subjective area (just read the comments). Has the move to mobile music invited a less than high fidelity sound. Music has been subject to the “loudness war” where the engineers raise the sound levels to compensate for the less quality expected from portable music players and computer stereo speakers. What are the alternatives? MP3 in 256 kbps is considered to be close to CD quality. A very interesting article. More …

Read the comments from mostly producers and artists, there is some mud slinging, but lots of information. Some will sound like my comments below.

I extracted the audio source “California Hotel” from the Eagles “Hell Freezes Over” video DVD. I exported it to a 44.1 KHz .aiff file. This created an outstanding sounding file, and without a doubt, at least, true CD quality. It is one single song, 70.3 MB, and too large to burn to a normal CD, without compression. Fortunately that is not necessary, as my iPod and IPhone play it close to true quality. The iPod, in its cradle, is often connected to a soon to be replaced, but adequate Gemini PA-7000 pre-amp (the previous crashed and burned), a Soundcraftsmen PM-840 amplifier and Bose 901 Series 1 speakers. I have had the amplifier and speakers for 30 years. There is no doubt analog output is warmer and more dynamic with high fidelity equipment. Even CD’s and the iPod are clearer and silent parts (mainly classical music) are so quiet. I love to listen.

The fault is the engineers presuming to know what we want to hear. This is also a plausible cause for the reduction in CD buying. CD quality is very poor.

This video explains why dynamic range matters
There is anther YouTube example of the “loudness wars”