Letters to the Editor
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Energy usage and hifi
I would just like to make a point regarding energy usage and hifi. I'll take the specific example of tubed amplifiers. If you actually look at the specs for idle and max power consumption, you'll find numbers in the range of 50-300 watts. Keep in mind that maximum power consumption is not constant, and you would be pressed to find a tube owner who leaves equipment on constantly. Tube life varies depending on operating conditions, but 2000 hours is a rough estimate. Compare this with a typical computer where a 200 to 250 watt power supply is standard, with idle consumption probably about half that. Adding in powered speakers and a monitor further increases energy consumption. Most computer owners will upgrade their entire system within 2-4 years, and most (unforunately) are landfilled. Include the heavy metals used in the construction of circuit boards and peripherals, and I think (though don't know) the hifi equipment that is used over many years probably comes out ahead.
Regarding sound quality, I'll have to agree it's very easy to hear the difference in a compressed format versus uncompressed. Once it's pointed out to you, as others have said, it is very easy to detect.
In the end, I find the (modest) hifi system I have at home encourages me to really listen to the music (jazz, rock, classical, whatever). I find that I'm usually listening to my iPod or computer or car stereo while I'm doing something else. And maybe that's the point - if music is just there as a distraction - you'll tend to overlook the sound quality issues.
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The majority was always deaf to Hi-Fi
How many people out there really listen to music?
I think of listening with no other activities like driving a car.
I have to admit I still use a good record player. But it's really hard to get good vinyl these days.
The last LP I bought was "Eric Clapton - MTV unplugged".
Vinyl is for listening. I compared a lot of CDs with LPs. Most of the time the LP was ahead. - For a fair comparison the sound level has to be equal. Louder sounds better and covers lack of quality. - But there are also fabulous CDs like MFSL for instance.
But I also have an mp3 player for my car. Why not? Much better than any howling cassette and much easier to handle than a stack of CDs. HiFi in a car makes not really sense to me.
For background noise or party mp3 is really OK.
For cycling or even running I dislike to hear music. I like to concentrate on what I do.
And I have to say that there are differences between CD-players and you can hear it - if you listen.
And finally I have to admit that mp3-files with a high sampling rate are equal to a CD.
Putting vinyl on a turntable is just a great cultish ritual.
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An idea to help you see (hear) it...
David -
I used to not care too much about high-end audio, but hearing a friend's system several years ago won me over.
Do yourself a favor and find someone that has a really good turntable and stereo system and spend some time listening to some music you might have heard many times before on your iPod, this time listening to it from some really good vinyl pressings, SACD or Hi-res DVD-Audio or an original high-quality pre-recorded open reel tape.
I have a friend who kept saying they couldn't hear the difference between lps, iPods and the like, so we sat down at my stereo one evening and I pulled out some lps. The one that did it was "Sgt Pepper", something he'd heard hundreds of times before on the radio, on his CD player, his iPod, etc, etc. Listening to it from a mid-70's UK vinyl pressing of the album, he kept shaking his head and saying "I'm hearing things I've never heard before!"
The main thing you'll notice is more clarity and detail and less harshness, compared to a CD or a typical MP3 file - it will sound more "natural" and give you more of a sense of hearing live musicians. With something like "Pepper", for example, you can more distinctly hear specific guitar licks, patterns that are being played on percussion or aspects of harmonies the guys are singing you never noticed before.
I like the iPod and it's handy for listening on the go. But, even when encoding music in higher quality formats for the device, it just won't replace my open reel tapes, lps and SACD's for listening at home. I'm not snobbish or hyperactive about the whole "audiophile" thing - it just lets me enjoy the music more.
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old dude speaks in low fi
I come from a time when the vinyl makers, the hardware makers and record companies were striving to make music sound "better". I vividly remember that the first stereo singles that I owned were The Doors "Hello I Love You" and The Beatles "Hey Jude." It was revelatory. There were those big booming grooves (literally grooves- not grooviness) of the single and there were instruments over here and ....over there! I guess I'm saying that making it sound good was as important as making it convenient. The singles were the portable version of music, such as it was. I hear cars literally jumping off their wheels with the bottom of the latest hip hop single blasting and I suspect that the mix of those who understand why it is better to have hi fi and those who don't aren't all that different. Ultimately, I think it serves the Ipod makers and the peripheral makers, and the record companies to do what they did before... Make it convenient, but man, make it as sound like that artist is in the room and plowing through my bones.
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Seems to be some confusion here....
While reading through the well intentioned letters posted I realized that people were clearly confused to what is referred to as "compression." Read on if you're interested in where these quality discrepancies actually come from. If not, skip this letter, it will probably be a bit lengthy.
There are two types of compression that commonly find their way into music, one is audio compression (that probably isn't the right term) but I'm referring to the actual encoding of the file. Mp3, AAC, FLAC, AC3 and DTS are all examples of encoding techniques. Most of these result in a loss of quality because they use a formula to selectively throw away data to reduce file size. (There are exceptions. FLAC, for example, is a lossless codec and does not throw away any data.)
Another type of compression is volume (dynamics) compression. Recording engineers routinely apply this type of compression during tracking, mixing, and/or mastering. This type of compression does NOT reduce the quality of the sound. Rather, it decreases the dynamic range of the sound (the difference between loud and soft.) Lately, many critics argue that this is overused and takes the dynamics out of playing. Not liking the way an effect sounds does not mean that you've "lessened the quality." Not liking the timbre of an instrument does not reflect on its "quality" from an acoustic standpoint, though certainly from an enjoyment standpoint. The sound of modern rock IS compression, it's what makes your mixes sound punchy., full and loud. It's also how they maximize the volume on records. Want to hear a seriously overcompressed record? Try listening to the All American Rejects self titled album.
(Also, radio stations are notorious for heavily compressing their signal before broadcasting. This increases the range of the station and is a more effecient use of transmitter power. It is why many bands say their songs sound "punchier" over the airwaves.)
That said. I hear a lot of people talking about CD's vs. tape vs. vinyl, a legitimate debate, but once again, not really about compression. The issue here is digitization. A CD is sampled at 44,100HZ. That means, that 44,100 times a second a computer takes a voltage reading of the sound and writes it down. In the end, you wind up with a plot of millions of points of data. If you want to see this, open a digital file in any kind of audio editing program, like Audacity, and zoom in as far as you can go. Eventually, there wont' be lines but just dots. These dots approximate the curve of the music. A vinyl record doesn't sample at all, the full waveform is actually printed on the disc. Thus, no data is lost in translation. The result is higher fidelity sound. Tapes are also analog, they do not throw away data. The kind of audio tape found in a cassette just plain sucks. I'd be more scientific, but I honestly don't know much about it. Needless to say, until recently, recordings were all made large reel-to-reel decks. The thickness and length of the tape makes a huge difference in the quality it can deliver.
The warmer sound of records? This is largely a result of the needle stylus not being very good at tracking the high speed vibrations for high frequency sound. Also, as the record wears, the high frequencies fall off first. Records quickly wind up with a high frequency roll off. So much for "perfect" accuracy. And vacuum tubes? Even worse, vacuum tubes are valued because of the specific way they DISTORT audio and introduce harmonic distortion. It is a wonderful sound, no doubt, but certainly not accurate.
So when people start arguing over where their sound quality is or isn't keep in mind where sound quality is actually lost and that no recording or playback system is truly "accurate."
Besides, a great recording of a shit song is still crap. A bad recording of a great song is still great. Listen to the Beatles a little more.