[elrod-tom]

I got into an interesting discussion with my brother in law the other day. He's not what you could call an audiophile, or even a stereo wierdo for that matter. He's an R&D guy in multimedia applications...so he is aware of the developments in the industry.

I was expressing exasperation at the seeming demise of hi-rez, given the ascendancy of lossy file downloads and such. It seems to me that the availability of files such as these is sending the industry into very much the wrong direction.

He had an interesting comment: he sees hi-rez as on the verge of stunning growth. He sees the development of two new HD DVD formats as very promising in this regard. However, he thinks that what will eventually drive the availability of these formats will be the ability of inexpensive miniature hard drives, flash memory, and broadband...and to a lesser degree, bluetooth. When all these things come together, sound quality in portable players (which is driving a lot of what goes on in the industry) will improve by leaps and bounds at no appreciable increase in cost.

But people seem perfectly happy with the cheap earbuds that they have now, I said. Yes, this is probably true, he says....but given the choice, people will ALWAYS prefer better sound quality at comparable pricing. The bottleneck, in his opinion, is bigger media storage and broadband. Once we figure these things out for real, it will be a lot more practical to create truly hi rez portable players for unit costs pretty similar to what your garden variety iPod costs today. When one can get better sound out of one's iPod without compromising their available storage in any meaningful way, one will no longer be content (kind of like us now) with the nasty earbuds.

Encouraging....though I'm not sure I buy it 100% Your thoughts??

 

[fewtch]

He may be right... at some point, MP3 will stop being the desirable format (particularly if the industry can give the consumer a good enough excuse to give it up... which admittedly might be difficult).

Then again, he may be wrong -- it seems to me that convenience has been steadily growing in importance since audio first began, and has accelerated even more with the introduction of the iPod. Perhaps there is a "good enough" point for SQ in the mind of the consumer, at which time it no longer matters... I don't know. Probably depends on whether music is being used mostly as a background, or foreground activity.

 

[Otto]

Quote:

Originally Posted by elrod-tom people will ALWAYS prefer better sound quality at comparable pricing. The bottleneck, in his opinion, is bigger media storage

I think instead of opting for better sound quality
people will have PDPs with 200,000 songs on them. =(

 

[AlanY]

"Audiophile quality" recordings are probably always going to be a niche market, because average people care more about the music than about little, obsessive details.

Any new format is going to be encumbered by all kinds of convenience issues. CDs are great because there are no usability issues. You can listen to them in your car, you can listen at home, at work, you can put them on your iPod, etc.

We were fortunate to have had a different legal framework in 1982, when the CD was introduced. Now, thanks to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and similar legislation, any new format on the horizon is going to be subject to anti-circumvention provisions of law. This means any new format is not going to be playable in your car, and at home, and at work, and on your iPod, except in the highly unlikely case of a major, coordinated compatibility effort by manufacturers over many years, and by going through all kinds of hoops.

When the tradeoff is a small increase in sound quality versus a major loss of convenience, consumers, who only care about the music, for the most part, are going to side with convenience. That means what we have now.

 

[redshifter]

the bitrate matters little if the recording has no dynamics.

 

[Denim]

This all sounds promising, and I hope technology creates the path for better quality. But they way most companies are, they will opt for cheaply made hardware and utilize the space for more files and market their devices as holding more songs in a smaller package. The general public will flock to this type of advertising.

Fortunately, quality products should emerge also that will improve over what is available today, but at a higher cost. I'd drool all over a terabyte thumb drive that fed a portable player with specs that are better than today.

Do you think MP3's will really go away? I think it has too much peneration now to be replaced. It may evolve and be backwards compatable. I can see the typical bit rate getting higher, from 128 to closer to 320.

 

[The_Duke_Of_Eli]

There will always be that one section of the market that will strive for audiophile quality. It can only seem more and more promising seeing the headphone advancements we see everytime a new product is released.

 

[shplorgh]

Quote:

Originally Posted by redshifter the bitrate matters little if the recording has no dynamics.

QFT

 

[Elec]

Really, you could probably create an exhaustive list of what would/wouldn't make people willing to "put up with" higher quality sound. Here are a few examples:

1) The new stuff shouldn't cost more than what we have now. Duh. Nobody wants to pay more unless there's a REAL benefit, and probably not even then.
2) An extension of one, nobody wants to re-buy all their music again, unless there's a real benefit to doing so. DVD worked because you got more than just a shiny disc and no rewinding. Better picture quality, multiple language tracks, trailers, deleted scenes, and so on.
3) You can't offer less convenience or utility than what exists now, which means people want to play the stuff on their computers, in their cars, at home, on iPod-like devices (in equal or better quantities of songs). If I can't do everything with my new HD music that I do now, why would I want it?
4) Ok, so this isn't a customer issue as much as a record industry one, but they won't sell you better sound quality without some content protection. They're really afraid of giving out near studio-master quality digital recordings (and the same is true of video) without copy protection schemes, lest you take those and start doing what they do - making and selling high quality copies

 

[romesaz]

Quote:

Originally Posted by redshifter the bitrate matters little if the recording has no dynamics.

I think this sums it up well.
I also agree with the above points that mention consumers flocking more to quantity.
It seems the quantity over qaulity approach always wins out with your everyday consumer. it's unfortunate, but I'm just fearing that more and more music will be released in lower formats, whereas video seems to go in the opposite direction.

There have been artists, I believe the Bare Naked Ladies were/are the first that did this. they were either planning on it, or already did, release they latest CD on a thumb drive, already in mp3 format. My worry about that was when I heard the size of this flash drive. Imagine the CD QUALITY audio of a whole CD on a mere 32MB thumbdrive

.

 

[romesaz]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Elec 4) Ok, so this isn't a customer issue as much as a record industry one, but they won't sell you better sound quality without some content protection. They're really afraid of giving out near studio-master quality digital recordings (and the same is true of video) without copy protection schemes, lest you take those and start doing what they do - making and selling high quality copies

Well, instead they release pi--poor quality recordings that have no dynamic ranges and are either recorded poorly, or printed poorly.
Just to give an example; the last Coldplay CD, as much as I was looking forward to hearing it, I was really disappointed when I heard all the noise that was on the CD. electrical noise, hums, static, beeps. it's utter garbage, and I cant believe I paid money for it.

 

[Jim_T]

Quote:

Originally Posted by elrod-tom But people seem perfectly happy with the cheap earbuds that they have now, I said. Yes, this is probably true, he says....but given the choice, people will ALWAYS prefer better sound quality at comparable pricing. The bottleneck, in his opinion, is bigger media storage and broadband. Once we figure these things out for real, it will be a lot more practical to create truly hi rez portable players for unit costs pretty similar to what your garden variety iPod costs today. When one can get better sound out of one's iPod without compromising their available storage in any meaningful way, one will no longer be content (kind of like us now) with the nasty earbuds. Encouraging....though I'm not sure I buy it 100% Your thoughts??

But look at the number of people who keep using the iPod earbuds, either because they think it's fashionable or because they think the quality is good enough. The same people who accept the assertion that 128kbps AAC files from the iTMS are "CD quality." The bottleneck, I think, is these people who don't really care about sound quality.

 

[AlanY]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jim_T The bottleneck, I think, is these people who don't really care about sound quality.

You make that sound as if it's a bad thing. The way I see it, those people are less nutty than audiophiles, because those people obviously care about the music rather than an abstract search for quality sound.

 

[shplorgh]

Quote:

Originally Posted by AlanY You make that sound as if it's a bad thing. The way I see it, those people are less nutty than audiophiles, because those people obviously care about the music rather than an abstract search for quality sound.

I hate when people say this. For most audiophiles the quality is a means to an end, not the end itself. You can't go and accuse every audiophile of going on an "abstact search for quality sound" rather than caring about the music. That just pisses me off.

 

[asmox]

In my experience - music has become background noise to many people.

Who still sits down, kills the lights, shuts their eyes, and listens to an album the way they might sit down and watch a movie? I'm sure they're out there, but I have NEVER seen anyone even express interest in doing something like that - much less actually do it.

The "bottleneck" is people who just don't give a damn, and so they'll take what they can get. IMO.