Is the age of the audiophile over?

I still have a lot of vinyl from the seventies. I really need to get a new tonearm/cartridge for my turntable so I can hear real music again.

I think RollingStones overhypes the issue, which given time, will disappear as bandwidth improves. People download 128bit over 256bit, because it is faster. With a higher bandwidth, you can pull down better quality songs. Indeed, my home bandwidth has gotten fast enough that I'm starting to skip mp3 and download the video when available. After all, why have a video capable mp3 player and not use it?

Finally, if the age of the audiophile is over, I think the better evidence would be in the hardware being sold rather than the software. I'm not just referring to mp3, which are often listed to in environments which have poor sound qualities.

You are confusing data compression ala MP3 with dynamic range compression with limiters and compressors to scrunch everthing to the same volume level(Though to be honest, the RS article does not do a good job explaining it.). The latter is far worse IMO.

AKA the Loudness Wars.

Rand, I suggest you consider embedding the link for this youtube video in your main article:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Gmex_4hreQ

It does an OUTSTANDING job explaining this in a couple of minutes.

Also, there is a discussion of this at this forum:

http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/showthread.php?t=135834

Mr. Hoffman IMO, is the best mastering engineer in the business. Hee did most of those DCC gold disks some of you may own. I prize his Doors CD's.

My bad Mike and thanks for the link. I do think that as bandwidth and harddrive size increases, then people will opt for better sound over better compression.

It seems to me that the way people listen to music, using little speakers that stick in their ears may have something to do with this as well.

What is the dynamic range of these speakers? Even if the music retains a desired dynamic range, can the speakers deliver this dynamic range to the ear? If they really can't, it would seem that this is a driver in reducing dynamic range in the produced music.

The solution to that is to do the compression as a post-processing effect directly at the device where it can be invoked with a menu or a switch, not at the mastering stage where it cannot ever be undone.

Music should not be produced to the lowest common demoninator.

It's actually easier for headphones to deliver dynamic range than for speakers, particularly if they isolate the listener (closed ear). The problem with earbuds is that they don't cut off the ambient noise, so you can't hear the quiet passages.

But you're right--we're raising a generation of people who don't know squat about the potential dynamic range of music.

Well, I feel better about my recent procurement of Bose QC2s. Alas, I use them primarily to listen to my mp3 player at work. Then again, I primarily did my own CD rips with the highest settings I could find and turned off any thing that suggested it would "enhance" the recording. I did this intuitively and with ignorance, but perhaps ended up with a better product.

Well, I feel better about my recent procurement of Bose QC2s. Alas, I use them primarily to listen to my mp3 player at work.

Ah yes, Bose Audio.

When I worked at the stereo store, we had a nice little saying about them: "No highs, no lows - Must be Bose" Sounds like they'll do well in the current mp3-midrange-only audio world.

I read the article, and most of the moans are deja vo all over again.

Albums are opverprouduced. Anyone else remember the punk revolution against that, around 1980?

Technical tricks cover for poor musicianship. That was a complaint about Dion, circa 1960.

Music's too loud. Everybody's mother, forever.

Overcompressed? Take a look at producer Bill Szymczyk's parenthesised descriptions on the James Gang albums ( "Reddy Kilowatt" is one I remember), 1970.

People have always bitched about records, and always will. It is, like most of life, cyclical.

Bud,

Read the articles and watch the video. It simply is physically not possible to compress a vinyl album to nearly the same extent as a CD.

I just got a USB turntable and I am absolutely in heaven. Screw the fidelity, I've got 15-20 year old vinyl I want on my MP3 player and gosh-darn-it, now I do. I also like that I can plug the output from my old tape player into the turntable and rip my old cassettes as well. So even the tapes of my old DJ show can now be ripped to MP3.

I do have a DJ quality turntable (and needle), but do you know how hard it is to rollerblade with a turntable strapped to your arm? I'm more than happy to compromise the fidelity for convenience.

It's an apples-to-oranges comparison, but the trend in digital photography is strongly toward expanded dynamic range.

So Stephen, what would you recommend?

[i]When I worked at the stereo store, we had a nice little saying about them: "No highs, no lows - Must be Bose" Sounds like they'll do well in the current mp3-midrange-only audio world.

Posted by Stephen Kohls at January 3, 2008 02:15 PM

[/i]

Hear,hear!

(or would if you don't have Bose speakers)

I am looking at a pair of Klipsch Heresy speakers circa 1985. Seller wants $600 for the pair.

Apparently people rather ridicule Bose than suggest an alternative. I'm considering a receiver purchase in the coming year. I've done a little searching, but obviously I'm not the audiophile. I'm not looking for $5000 components with $7000 speaker cables. But does anyone have recommendations for a system under $5000. Brands?

From my own research, I like the Marantz SR8002, NAD T785, or a Yamaha.

Leland,

Go to www.stevehoffman.tv and ask/research there.

Thanks Mike.

Isn't it possible to encode the music with a very high dynamic range, while offering say in an iPod, the option to listen to it with it's full dynamic range, or with a reduced range? For example go from say N bit decoding to N-2 bit decoding? If the MP3 player provided that option, one could alternate between earbuds where the ambient noise is an issue and where one would play the music with a smaller dynamic range and with it's highest dynamic range when the ambient noise is small or when using high quality headphones, or when the player is hooked up to decent speakers.

I know I'm a late-poster here so I hope someone comments on this. In any case I think as the awareness of this issue increases, even those who really can't hear the difference will want it so they can be up to snuff . A market opportunity I think.

Top audio engineers think a software on-the-fly compression scheme could work.

Leland,

Check this out. For 2K, it looks like a lot of amp.

http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/cayin/a88t.html

Mike,

That's not something I would buy. However, I hope you understand, this is why I know I'm an audiophile wanna be rather than even a novice audiophile. I can understand why you would like it, but it barely sparks interest in me, even though I'm impressed with its eligence and capability.

Don't give up though. My first interest is getting a more modern receiver for handling switching duties from various devices. I might just need a good processor and not a receiver. If I can be decent with that component, I can move on to amp and better speakrers (just for a nice moan, my current speakers are Bose cubes, but hey, I have had them for over 10 years).