Re: The death of High Fidelity - SBC

On May 8, 6:38 pm, ChowCham <tacoy...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Is there a chance that the record industry is getting people
"addicted" to MP3's for the sake of convenience only to introduce a
return to high fidelity once the iPod market has been saturated?
That's one way to recoup lost profits and continue to sell and resell
the same product in different formats.

Let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater here. MP3s themselves
are not the problem. They're a perfectly good file type, and if
they're encoded at 192kbps or higher, their sound quality is almost
indistinguishable from a CD to most ears. I listen to all of my music
in the form of 192kbps MP3s from my iPod, with Shure earphones, and
the quality is nothing short of excellent (at least for music that
hasn't been recorded over the last few years in LOUD mode - Magic is
trying experience no matter format I dare to listen to it in).

The problem with iTunes is that 128kbps is its default setting if
you're ripping a CD, which most people will use simply because they
don't know any better. And worse, anything you buy from the iTunes
store is encoded at 128kbps. Perhaps that is part of the vast record-
wing conspiracy, and in a few years they'll be advertising 192kbps or
higher MP3s - better sound for the same price! Though most new music
will still sound like ***, if it's recorded according to the LOUD
philosophy.

But let's blame Apple and the record labels for these problems - not
the poor little MP3s themselves. They don't deserve the shitty
reputation they've got.

-Jyqm
.