I may not be a purist audiophile, but I do consider myself a mainstream audiophile. What I mean by that is that I enjoy good quality sound, but not to the point where I blow tons of money (defined "tens or hundreds of thousands") on each stereo component getting the best sound possible like some people do. I think I still can understand what the average Joe on the street wants from their electronics, even though what I want may be a little different.
What blows my mind, though, is what content providers ("music companies") and electronics companies are trying to pass off as "high quality" sound these days. Things are being advertised as "CD quality" that aren't anywhere near the quality that we get out of CDs. MP3s are so common place that many consumers think that the sound of MP3s is normal, or even good, while at the same time those of us that have been exposed to good quality sound cringe at the sound of a typical MP3 file. While some attempts have been made to improve upon what is considered good sound (Apple, for example, uses AAC for iTunes/iPods, which is better than MP3, though it is still lacking), for the most part things have gone downhill—and done so very quickly.
I invested in an XM satellite radio several years ago, near the time of the initial public launch of the service, and it was one of these products being touted as "CD quality." And at the time, it was quite good considering the technology they were working with. Not stellar, by any means, but certainly better than the average FM broadcast, and I knew it wasn't going to be stellar, so I was happy with it at the time. It was definitely closer to CD than FM radio in terms of it sound quality.
What has happened since then is nothing short of appalling. As XM has added more and more channels since that time, they have gradually taken bandwidth away from the existing channels, reducing the sound quality of those channels to something that only a half of a notch above pathetic. (I presume that the bean-counters decided they could make more money by appealing to a wider audience by offering more channels, assuming that the average Joe is Ignorant to sound quality issues.) And yet they continue to market it as "CD quality." These days FM radio sounds better. Things got a little better two weeks ago with a new upgrade to the XM encoding systems, but they are still far from spectacular, or even acceptable if you ask me. These days both the low and frequencies are pretty much gone, and what is left is compressed so badly that it all gets merged into one big jumble of wishy washy highs, muddy midrange, and come-and-go lows, leaving everyone guessing what instruments are actually being played and what lyrics are actually coming out of the lead singer's mouth. And they have effectively taken away our stereo image, sending us back into the 1940s with what is, essentially, monaural sound. Yeah, great technological innovation.
If XM was the only company that had fallen into this trap there would be no issue. The problem is that this reflects the attitude of just about everybody.
Because some of this transition has taken place over the course of a period of time, a lot of consumers are just ignorant of it. And then there is another group that is aware of it, but is apathetic. Shame on the penny-pinchers behind it, and shame on those that are apathetic. Those of us in a third segment that actually care about the quality of our audio are suffering. Our voices are not being heard, or are being drowned out by the shouting of the wallets of the poor ignorant and apathetic consumers. We can't even get good quality sound when we try.
Music is all about conveying thoughts and emotion. And a lot of that emotion is missing when the quality of our sound is taken away. Have you ever noticed how much more exciting it is to see a band perform live than it is to listen to a recording? A lot of that has to do with the faithfulness (or lack thereof) of the recording we are listening to. Listening to a good recording on a good quality sound system is an emotional experience. By taking away our high quality recordings and reproduction, the "emotion" half of the music equation is being stripped away from us. It's no wonder that a lot of the music that is coming out today lacks emotion, because if it was ever there in the first place it wouldn't make it to our ears anyway. A hundred years ago we didn't have the option of listening to music in our homes; we had to listen to a live performance, and it was a much more enjoyable experience. That begs the question, has current technology really improved our lives musically?
I don't have any sort of answer to the problem, but it is, indeed, a problem.
Ironically even though products are being marketed as being "CD quality," CD quality isn't that great to start with. Not only because the human ear can detect nuances of sound that CD simply isn't capable of recording (part of the "emotion" of it all), but also because the CD players that most of us own (or with the prevalence of iPods and such these days, the CD players we once owned) don't do a very good job of maximizing what is there. The two formats that have been designed to take care of that problem, SACD and DVD Audio, have pretty much failed at this point. The CD format has now been in consumers hands for 25 years, and it was designed within the limitations of technology at the time. We should expect far more than what CD has to offer, not be comparing other products against it.
The driving factor behind all of this is, of course, money. We, as consumers, want the most out of every dollar that we spend. And those that produce the products that we own want to make as much profit as they possibly can. And that means cutting corners.
I know I'm a little bit fanatical about all of this, but I don't think I'm that far off from someone in the mass population if they were exposed to the high quality stuff that is out there. The problem is that we keep having low quality products and content shoved down our throats, keeping us away from what can truly be a grand experience. A very dangerous precedent has been set.
I'll step down off of my soapbox for now… but next time you have the opportunity to listen to a good piece of music on a good sound system, take the time to actually listen and enjoy it. It just might open your eyes ears to something you might really love. And take a minute to drop an email to a music company, or service, and let them know that you don't appreciate the shortcuts that are being taken. For right now they might still be able to hear you, but if things keep on going downhill like they are now, it might not be long before your words turn into the same total mush that they are already trying to shove down our throats.
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