''High Resolution Audio''. An Interesting Article.

[Stratmangler]

Very interesting chat about high resolution audio - quite long but worth watching.

I agree, it is an interesting conversation.

[WOStantonCS100]

Very interesting chat about high resolution audio - quite long but worth watching.

Near perfect summation, IMO. If this is about getting the best possible sound, arguing against high definition digital is silly. There are lots of reasons not to go with the highest digital definition possible; but, those reasons have nothing to do with getting the best possible sound from digital audio.

[bobbasrah]

Near perfect summation, IMO. If this is about getting the best possible sound, arguing against high definition digital is silly. There are lots of reasons not to go with the highest digital definition possible; but, those reasons have nothing to do with getting the best possible sound from digital audio.

Agreed Biff, but commercial pressures have always prevailed over audio quality, and that is a hard nut to crack.... This is where the loudness wars and iTunes originated, the former driven by sales-people against artist and engineer alike, the latter proving that quality is no match for convenient accessability to mass-markets.

The comments on artistic returns from sales were poignant, in particular the sheer success of Apple which he described as 'theft', but did little to give any comfort things might improve TBH.
The Sony contract still referring to CD as a unproven medium was quite sickening, but only confirmed my own prejudices against the established industry, and their well trodden line/lie of "protecting the interests of the artistes".

A very interesting and balanced discussion nevertheless....

[Tim]

Very interesting chat about high resolution audio - quite long but worth watching.

An excellent video clip Dan and many thanks for posting it - I think viewing it should be a compulsory part of membership to AoS

I particularly like his no punches pulled summation of Apple and that they are literally stealing money from artists - if anyone needs an explanation of why true music fans should dislike Apple and iTunes, well here it is, straight from someone within the music industry. Pete Townsend says it well in the John Peel lectures, but not quite as direct.

It also goes a good way at explaining that it is possible to get a very good sound from digital audio, its just that many don't do it by choice and purely for profit.

Buy vinyl and support the artist more - food for thought.

[bobbasrah]

Buy vinyl and support the artist more - food for thought.

If it is on The Sony label Tim, that would certainly appear to be the case from what was said about different returns on different formats on the basis that CD was "unproven". As the primary promoters of CD format such a clause continuing in contracts since the 1980s until now is ludicrous.

[f1eng]

This is where the loudness wars and iTunes originated, the former driven by sales-people against artist and engineer alike, the latter proving that quality is no match for convenient accessability to mass-markets

If you look more broadly the loudness wars are just the latest albeit extreme example of attempting to make music listenable on lower quality systems, particularly car radios.

Music broadcasts have been compressed on radio for 40+ years. Nowadays the vast majority of music is listened to on the move either on the car stereo or one's walkthingumy of choice so the compression has got steadily more extreme, unfortunately for the tiny minority like us who listen to music seriously at home.

Also lossy compression pre-dated iTunes, and in fact iTunes was the first music software I am aware of which went for a higher quality algorithm than MP3.

AFAIK iTunes was very commercially successful since one actually paid for the music, rather than stealing it, and the artist got some money, at least. That meant the record companies were happy to sell through iTunes. All the others basically worked by one or other form of copyright theft.