High fidelity takes backseat to portability

[mgraham333]

SAN FRANCISCO, California (AP) -- Music lovers remember a familiar advertising image from the past: a man reclined in a chair, head back, blown away by music from his high-fidelity sound system.

Like the Marlboro Man before him, Maxell's pitchman is now a relic.

With their ability to store vast libraries of music in your pocket, sleek digital music players have replaced bulky home stereo systems as the music gear of choice. But the sound quality of digital audio files is noticeably inferior to that of compact discs and even vinyl.

Are these the final days of hi-fi sound? Judging by the 2 billion songs downloaded from Apple Inc.'s iTunes service, the ubiquity of white iPod "ear buds," and the hundreds of thousands of folks file-sharing for free, the answer is yes.

"In many ways, good enough (sound quality) is fine," said Paul Connolly, an art installation specialist and longtime audiophile from Sugar Land, Texas, who's now in the process of digitizing his 2,400 CD collection in Apple's lossless digital audio format.

"The warmth and the nice distortion that the album had was beautiful," he said. "But do I long for the days of albums? No. Do I long for the days of CDs now that we've gone digital? No. It's a medium."

Justin Schoenmoser, of San Francisco, also traded in his rack system for an iPod. Currently working abroad and toting along his iPod, the convenience of carrying thousands of songs in a gadget smaller than a pack of cigarettes outweighs the sacrifice of quality.

"The last time I had a full-blown home stereo system was in the mid-90s, and it was a gift from my parents," Schoenmoser said. "As I converted most of my stuff to digital over the last 5 years, I finally got rid of all my old equipment."

A song ripped from a CD at 128 kilobits per second -- the default setting for most software -- retains only a fraction of the audio data contained on the originally mastered disc. Whether you downloaded the track from iTunes or copped it off LimeWire, the song remains the same. The small digital music file is a highly compressed shadow of the originally mastered recording.

And regardless of how advanced your home audio setup is, if you're pumping a low-rate MP3 or iTunes file into it, you're getting a low-rate rendition of the original song out of it. It's listenable, but still lacking the luster of a CD played on the same system.

'It doesn't compare'

Some experts say the sound quality lost in the process is undetectable to most untrained ears. But Michael Silver can hear the difference.

Audio High, his high-end stereo shop in Mountain View, sells things like a $5,000 needle for your turntable and stereo cable at $2,700 a meter.

"It doesn't compare," Silver said of the sound quality offered by today's portable digital music players and their compressed audio files.

If his high-end gear is like a Ferrari for sound, and run-of-the-mill stereo equipment is a Honda, an iPod is "a moped," Silver said.

That difference in sound quality, perceptible or not, hasn't saved some of the bigger traditional stereo and music sellers.

Tweeter Home Entertainment Group Inc., a Canton, Massachusetts-based retailer of mid-to-high end audio equipment, is closing 49 of its 153 stores nationwide. Slumping sales at Sacramento, California-based Tower Records led that former industry juggernaut to declare Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in August.

And Circuit City, the nation's No. 2 electronics retailer, is laying off 3,400 of its most experienced clerks.

Year-to-date data from a recent Nielsen SoundScan report shows sales of prerecorded CDs in the United States down 20 percent from last year.

"Everybody has a certain amount of money to spend. It's not that they're choosing not to spend it on the old-style audio. It's that something new came along," said James McQuivey, principle analyst for media technology at Forrester Research Inc.

"The MP3 player integrated the collection of the music with the playback of the music," he said. "Now all of it's seamlessly hidden away on a hard drive somewhere."

With the networked household ready to fill the void left by the demise of rack stereo systems, McQuivey sees a steady stream of new devices on the horizon that will erase any lingering drawbacks to going all-MP3.

Santa Barbara-based Sonos, Inc., for example, sells a system that allows you to use a handheld device to navigate streamed music from your PC to an existing amp and speaker or home theater setup, sort of a hybrid between the old guard and the new.

"A CD is not relevant to me anymore," said John MacFarlane, founder and chief executive of Sonos. "The iPod and that type of portable music player has even accelerated that trend."

Even when consumers do buy CDs these days, "the first thing you do is rip your CDs and put them on your iPods," MacFarlane said.

MacFarlane isn't even convinced that casual listeners can hear the difference between CD-quality sounds and the dumbed-down MP3 files, which he calls "good quality, not perfect."

"When Philips and Sony first made the CD, they didn't cut any corners because they were careful to preserve everything that was there, even if you couldn't hear it," MacFarlane said. "That 128 is pretty darn good. A lot of Ph.D.s went in to making that 128 kbps work well and sound well.

Schoenmoser, the globetrotting Californian, agrees.

"I honestly can't really tell the difference between CD, tape and digital," he said. "I'd even accept a lower quality as long as it's digital and portable."

Source: CNN

[alocispepraluger102]

it would seem to me that recording companies are not going to spend money putting relatively good quality sounds into recordings.

[4XB]

Me and my record collection, we are a happy family.

Digital is comfortable in the car or on the bike for example.

[couw]

I thought I would get used to it, but everytime I see this avatar

I have to stop and scroll back to see what on earth I wrote in yet another thread while I was drunk and doing things I cannot remember the morning after.

Maybe I will change my avatar to to enhance the morning shock effect.

[tonym]

There was an article in The Guardian a while back about this; how we seem intent on spending thousands on our home cinema set up yet neglecting (or being content)with DAB radio at 128kBps and micro systems based on the simplest of circuitry. Visual candy once again takes precedence to something which requires mental investment maybe?

[md655321]

It is insane the money spent on HD and plasma screens and what not, as audio is considered completely negligible. The only time it enter the mainstream is when people vastly overpay for Bose.

We have seen a pretty big increase in headphone audio, however. Especially IEMs, the little in ear ones.

[jazzbo]

Face it, we're weirdos.

[Niko]

Face it, we're weirdos.

that's what i thought, too... until i stumbled across this board (picked a typical thread):

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=684879

[JSngry]

This is probably a stupid question, but are bit-rates of MP3 files fixed once you download them? Or is there some sort of algorithm to the process that allows for bits to be "restored" at some point?

I ask because the other day I was toying around in GoldWave w/a podcast that had been downloaded as a 64kbps file. The music was really good, the sound not so good, and I wanted more. So out of GoldWave I saved the whole thing as a 320kbps file and damned if there wasn't a marked increase in highs and overall clarity.

I'm sure that not all MP3 files are going to be as malleable as a downloaded podcast, but is this truly possible, that you can take a lower quality source file and manually make it sound better through math? Or did I just get lucky somehow?

[mmilovan]

I really don't see the reason why is mp3 existing thing when there are so many lossless playable formats available.

[J Larsen]

I'm sure that not all MP3 files are going to be as malleable as a downloaded podcast, but is this truly possible, that you can take a lower quality source file and manually make it sound better through math?

Sort of. You can write code that removes harshness and makes a small file sound more pleasing to the ear, but (except for extraordinary coincidence) it isn't the same data that you would have in a lossless primary source file. Interestingly, astronomers were working on very similar problems when the data recording systems in the Hubble failed in the mid 90s.

Edit - my typo rate has increased by about 100-fold over the past couple months - WTF?

Edited April 24, 2007 by J Larsen

[RDK]

I really don't see the reason why is mp3 existing thing when there are so many lossless playable formats available.

It's a matter of file size. One can fit up to ten times the number of mp3 files on a drive than you can lossless files.

[Dan Gould]

This is probably a stupid question, but are bit-rates of MP3 files fixed once you download them? Or is there some sort of algorithm to the process that allows for bits to be "restored" at some point?

I ask because the other day I was toying around in GoldWave w/a podcast that had been downloaded as a 64kbps file. The music was really good, the sound not so good, and I wanted more. So out of GoldWave I saved the whole thing as a 320kbps file and damned if there wasn't a marked increase in highs and overall clarity.

I'm sure that not all MP3 files are going to be as malleable as a downloaded podcast, but is this truly possible, that you can take a lower quality source file and manually make it sound better through math? Or did I just get lucky somehow?

Jim, I've wondered the same thing, because if you open an MP3 in Goldwave, it doesn't open instantaneously like a wav file does, but it will say "Processing Audio Decompression". So if its "decompressing" doesn't that mean that some audio quality is being restored?

The alternative possibility is that MP3 is not an editable format, and so Goldwave is simply converting the file into an editable form.

I do think there is a limit, however. I've downloaded pop tunes from Walmart.com and there is a wide variety in the quality of the MP3 files. I usually burn an MP3 CD and then extract it to wav files in Goldwave so that I can try to fix things, like boosting levels. But the worst sounding MP3s still sound noticeably different even after I'm done.

[RDK]

One problem that the article above makes clear is the perception that "high fidelity" takes big $$$. Five grand for a needle? Almost 3 grand for a cable? Anyone not totally informed who looks at that will agree that you can get "almost" as good sound out of a cheap iPod and ear buds.

[JSngry]

I'm sure that not all MP3 files are going to be as malleable as a downloaded podcast, but is this truly possible, that you can take a lower quality source file and manually make it sound better through math?

Sort of. You can write code that removes harshness and makes a small file sound more pleasing to the ear, but (except for extraordinary coincidence) it isn't the same data that you would have in a lossless primary source file. Interestingly, astronomers were working on very similar problems when the data recording systems in the Hubble failed in the mid 90s.

Edit - my typo rate has increased by about 100-fold over the past couple months - WTF?

No, I wasn't looking for/expecting lossless sound, just an improvement, of which I got a notable one.

So you're saying that if the downloaded file isn't enoded/protected in such a way that prevents it, then something like GoldWave can take a crappy sounding MP3 file and improve it simply by saving that file at a higher bit rate?

[JSngry]

This is probably a stupid question, but are bit-rates of MP3 files fixed once you download them? Or is there some sort of algorithm to the process that allows for bits to be "restored" at some point?

I ask because the other day I was toying around in GoldWave w/a podcast that had been downloaded as a 64kbps file. The music was really good, the sound not so good, and I wanted more. So out of GoldWave I saved the whole thing as a 320kbps file and damned if there wasn't a marked increase in highs and overall clarity.

I'm sure that not all MP3 files are going to be as malleable as a downloaded podcast, but is this truly possible, that you can take a lower quality source file and manually make it sound better through math? Or did I just get lucky somehow?

Jim, I've wondered the same thing, because if you open an MP3 in Goldwave, it doesn't open instantaneously like a wav file does, but it will say "Processing Audio Decompression". So if its "decompressing" doesn't that mean that some audio quality is being restored?

I've wondered about that myself.

[J Larsen]

I'm sure that not all MP3 files are going to be as malleable as a downloaded podcast, but is this truly possible, that you can take a lower quality source file and manually make it sound better through math?

Sort of. You can write code that removes harshness and makes a small file sound more pleasing to the ear, but (except for extraordinary coincidence) it isn't the same data that you would have in a lossless primary source file. Interestingly, astronomers were working on very similar problems when the data recording systems in the Hubble failed in the mid 90s.

Edit - my typo rate has increased by about 100-fold over the past couple months - WTF?

No, I wasn't looking for/expecting lossless sound, just an improvement, of which I got a notable one.

So you're saying that if the downloaded file isn't enoded/protected in such a way that prevents it, then something like GoldWave can take a crappy sounding MP3 file and improve it simply by saving that file at a higher bit rate?

Yes - I know it is possible in principle but frankly I haven't followed what GoldWave et al are up to. Off the cuff I would guess that they are doing some kind of FFT and then restoring some of the clipped waveforms. My cousin does this kind of work - I'll ask him about it the next time we talk.

[JSngry]

Thanks!

[catesta]

I thought I would get used to it, but everytime I see this avatar

I have to stop and scroll back to see what on earth I wrote in yet another thread while I was drunk and doing things I cannot remember the morning after.

Maybe I will change my avatar to to enhance the morning shock effect.

Thank you for clearing that up.

I thought you just took a new indentity.

The spinning bottle cap is available as I came up with a new idea involving a cat head.

[md655321]

Once a file has been compressed, there is nothing you can to do to retrieve that information. Convert it to a wav, or flac, or any other lossless codec and it will sound exactly the same. Sorry Jim, but it only sounded better because you wanted it to sound better.

I really don't see the reason why is mp3 existing thing when there are so many lossless playable formats available.

1. HD space (yes, its cheap, but most music fans would still need about 500 gb to store a lossless library. That aint cheap. And if you think it is, I will send you and address to mail me a HD.)

2. Lossless destroys battery life on portable players

3. For 99.9% of people there is no audible difference between lossless and a well encoded mp3.

[JSngry]

Once a file has been compressed, there is nothing you can to do to retrieve that information. Convert it to a wav, or flac, or any other lossless codec and it will sound exactly the same. Sorry Jim, but it only sounded better because you wanted it to sound better.

Then I must have supernatural powers of wish-fulfillment, because the difference between the lower & higher bitrate files is real...

[Soul Stream]

Hey, just got my 8 track tape player fixed (really). Listening to O'donel Levy's "Black Velvet" as we speak. Very un-digital...

[porcy62]

I would add another factor in the discussion.

Assuming that you can transfert a cd on a portable device Ipod or an hard disc, ecc. at the same resolution of the native source, and hook the portable device/hard disk to a normal stereo, in order to play it you still need a D/A converter. The quality of the converter will have some influence in the sound's quality. Nobody here are saying that a portable Discman or the internal D/A converter of the iPod sounds exactly the same that a decent cd player, or am I wrong?

Edited April 24, 2007 by porcy62

[J Larsen]

Once a file has been compressed, there is nothing you can to do to retrieve that information. Convert it to a wav, or flac, or any other lossless codec and it will sound exactly the same. Sorry Jim, but it only sounded better because you wanted it to sound better.

Then I must have supernatural powers of wish-fulfillment, because the difference between the lower & higher bitrate files is real...

As I tried to say above (but evidently wasn't as clear as I should have been), this is NOT a matter of "retrieving information" - that is impossible. HOWEVER, you can run an algorithm designed to make a compressed file sound better to a human ear. It doesn't necessarily sound the same as the original lossless file (except for by extraordinary conincidence), but it can sound less harsh and more full.

[J Larsen]

I would add another factor in the discussion.

Assuming that you can transfert a cd on a portable device Ipod or an hard disc, ecc. at the same resolution of the native source, and hook the portable device/hard disk to a normal stereo, in order to play it you still need a D/A converter. The quality of the converter will have some influence in the sound's quality. Nobody here are saying that a portable Discman or the internal D/A converter of the iPod sounds exactly the same that a decent cd player, or am I wrong?

You are correct - the D/A converter is obviously a huge part of the puzzle. Is there a way to bypass the internal D/A converter in an iPod? I honestly don't know. For that matter, I don't even know the specs on the iPod's internal converter - I would expect that they aren't very good. FWIW, I have a friend who has 24bit converters on his computers and he says that he gets excellent sound quality playing lossless files from harddisc (he does production and mastering).