Audio Revelations

The evening started out innocently enough… I was just going to check online to see what professional audio reviewers have had to say about a backup set of studio monitors (speakers) that I have had for like 4 years but have only taken out of the box a few times since I got them, only to be surprised that for the most part they have gotten glowing reviews almost universally. I haven’t ever thought incredibly highly of them, mostly because my expectations were low because they were quite inexpensive for monitors, and from a brand that doesn’t have the best reputation among audio professionals. But I haven’t ever spent enough time listening to them to really get a feel for how good or bad they were. So I decided to pull them out, hook them up, and listen to a few songs I know well to see just how good these things actually were. It turns out, just like the reviewers have said, they are excellent.

But, I digress. The most significant part of the whole experience, and my main reason for creating this post, was having some revelations about what a quality set of speakers can do, and how things have changed over time with regard to the way that music has been recorded.

Revelation #1:

I almost feel bad for the vast majority of people who enjoy listening to music, because very few will actually have the opportunity to listen to it on a good set of speakers, and they have absolutely no idea what they are missing. These days iPod headphones are the most common device people use to listen to their tunes, and that is terribly unfortunate because they are, well… atrocious. A good set of speakers (like studio monitors, for example) nearly become totally transparent, and you are almost transported to a place where a performance is taking place. Contrary to popular opinion, this does not mean loud, or anything typical of a rock concert, what it means is that the overall feel is that you are sitting in a small room where it is just you and the musicians… the electronic devices used to reproduce the music almost disappear. With a well recorded selection and well-written and performed song, it becomes an almost religious experience. I wish more people could experience what good audio sounds like, because there aren’t words that accurately convey what it is like to hear music the way it is really meant to be heard.

Revelation #2:

In the process of listening to a wide variety of music from the last three decades I began to notice a trend. Though we have come a really long way in terms of our technical ability to record music, it doesn’t mean that we have done a better job. In fact, it seems like over the last 10-15 years that things have actually degraded. Somewhere in the mid to late eighties seems to be where we peaked as far as the ability to capture popular music in a meaningful and artistic way. Prior to the 1980s the equipment to get a good recording was scarce and expensive. Engineers had to be clever about the way they captured a performance to get a decent version of it electronically. Somewhere during the 1980s the equipment became affordable enough for many professional studios to have access, and at the same time those rascally clever engineers from the previous decades were still around, taking full advantage of the new tech at their disposal. Then in the late eighties things began to change again… radio engineers got involved and decided that louder was better than real dynamics, and all of a sudden every recording became very in-your-face and buried in piles of digital effects. The biggest tradeoff to being loud was the loss of clarity in some of the things going on in the background. Subtle instrument parts that used to exist as an enhancements to the front stage had to become a part of the front stage in order to be heard at all. Mixes became something like a line of people all screaming at you at the same time rather than everybody in a room taking their own turn.

I may be a little biased since I was in Jr. High and High School in the mid-to-late 80s and that’s when I really started to become familiar with popular music, but listening to recordings from back in the day now, compared to newer songs which I otherwise enjoy just as much seems to validate the theory.

Revelation #3:

Another side effect of the “loudening” of recordings was that they have almost become tiresome to listen to. Again, back to the analogy of a line of people in front of you. If they’re all yelling at you at the same time, it’s going to become exhausting trying to focus on any one of them. But if they’re taking their turns, it’s a much more pleasurable experience.

Revelation #4:

Generally artists from decades past had to be more talented and skilled.

A good set of speakers reveals things about a recording that we wouldn’t pick up on otherwise. A LOT of things. For example, on Christina Aguilera’s “Beautiful” did you know that on a good set of speakers or headphones you can clearly hear the click track coming from her headphones while she was singing her vocal? It’s almost painfully obvious that it’s there. Did you know that most of the lower notes that Britney Spears “sings” are actually synthesized, and that it is unmistakable when heard through the proper equipment. Okay, so you probably knew that already. Artists that use pitch correction too much become totally obvious, like one of the hottest country female artists out there now. You can tell when an artist does their own backup parts vs. having another singer doing it for them. You can often hear when a vocalist’s microphone is turned on and off in the recording, or where various takes are pieced together to make one good one. The list goes on and on. The better the equipment used to listen to music, the more you find out about how good or bad an artist really is.

Revelation #5 (okay, it’s a continuation of #1):

It’s quite the revelation to go back and listen to recordings that I am very familiar with only to discover that there are 1, 2, 3, or sometimes 4 or more additional instruments being played that couldn’t be heard at all before. Vocal harmonies jump out like never before. You can very clearly hear every little nuance of the mechanism of a real piano vs. a synthesized one. You can hear fingers sliding up and down guitar strings. People taking breaths between phrases, or while playing a woodwind instrument. Or the saliva in a singer’s mouth. Or pick out that what you thought was a single guitar was actually two or three. Or that a particular take of a vocal was considered to be good enough to be used in a final recording even though it actually distorts or has other imperfections (this is much more common that you might think).

Revelation #6:

Music recordings are much bigger than most people will ever know. With cheap speakers or headphones, you hear sound coming from two distinct places… the left speaker and the right speaker. You can’t really hear anything coming from anywhere else. With a good set of speakers things open up much more. It’s almost shocking. Instead of just having a range of positions between the two speakers for sound to come from, things get opened up much wider. And higher. And deeper. Just as an example, as part of my auditioning process I put on Madonna’s “The Immaculate Collection.” Several of the songs on that album are engineered particularly well (ignoring what you may or may not think of Madonna). But a few of the songs on that CD really open things up quite a bit. One song has a drum part that not only appeared to come from outside the set of speakers, but WELL outside the speakers… as in, immediately to my right. And several feet above me. Another song had another drum part that appears above the right speaker, while another has another instrument part that appears about 18” to the left of the left speaker, just above the plane of the speakers. Another instrument part comes from about 3 feet between the speakers, and 1 foot above them. But those same songs, played on standard equipment sound flat and lifeless. I have heard numerous songs over the years that have parts that appear to come from BEHIND the listener. Or between me and the speakers (and not from them). Impressive stuff. I wish everyone could experience it.

Revelation #7:

Audio engineers in the 1980s and earlier were much more creative in the way they mixed songs. These days nearly everybody puts the vocalist “up front” in a mix, drums way in the back, and all of the instruments somewhere in between. (Or at least they try to; adding the “loud” factor effectively puts everything in the same place.) I have plenty of examples of songs where the engineer moved things around a bit. I just finished listening to “Kyrie” by Mr. Mister, and hadn’t really ever noticed before that that song is mixed in such a way that the lead vocal is sort of placed in the “middle” of the stage, both left to right, and front-to-back. The instruments are all placed around the vocalist, not just behind him. There are instruments that are in front of as well as in back of the vocal part. Michael Jackson’s (may he RIP) “The Way You Make Me Feel” was recorded with the verses with Michael set way in the back, with the harmonies and choruses off to the sides and in way up front. (And it’s kind of hard to tell on regular equipment that it is him doing the harmonies and counterpoint on that song). Yes’ “Owner of a Lonely Heart” has a breakdown that moves things all over the place, front to back, left to right, top to bottom. The guitar solo in Mike+The Mechanics “All I Need is a Miracle” is all around the listener, totally separate from the main soundstage. The drums on The Human League’s “Human” are HUGE, and fill a space much wider than the speakers they’re being played on while being somewhere at the back of the stage at the same time.

Unfortunately I still haven’t really come up with any good examples of any of those sort of techniques being used on any popular music recordings made since 1990. [UPDATE: I found a post-1990 recording with an interesting mix... "Harder to Breathe" by Maroon 5. The mix puts the lead guitar way up front (outside the speakers), and the lead vocal pushed way back. Unusual for such a new recording.]

Revelation #8:

The audio output on the iPod isn’t very good. (I’m shocked! Okay, maybe I’m not, and I already knew that.) Many of the details I’ve talked about here are virtually non-existent on an iPod, but are obvious in the original recordings or when played on other devices.

Revelation #9:

MP3 is a terrible file format. I’ve known that for forever, but it really stands out when heard on quality equipment. We’re really extremely unfortunate that it has become the de facto standard for music. So many of the nuances that music a pleasing experience are lost being converted to MP3. Virtually every other format out there is a lot better. But none, even CD, are without some sort of compromise. CD is as close as most people will ever get to hearing a good quality recording.

Revelation 10:

Most music is best listened to unaltered. That means not adding any effects. In other words, for most people this means turning OFF the equalizer that they have tweaked to give their system more bass and treble. These adjustments are usually made to compensate for the missing sound quality of their speakers or headphones, but what they don’t realize that in doing so they have actually covered up even more of the subtle nuances that were already nearly difficult or impossible to discern. The more you make a speaker work harder to play sounds that you want to accentuate, the more you take away its ability to reproduce the other sounds that are barely there. In most cases turning on the EQ or any other effect just makes a muddier mess of an already dirty listening experience.

Wrap-up

When I say “good speakers” I’m not talking just about the $100,000-each models that are out there, or even the $3000 speakers you can buy locally at some Best Buy stores. I’m talking about speakers that are affordable to anyone willing to invest. The set of speakers I have been listening to tonight were $280 for the pair brand new, and they have their own built-in amplifiers so an iPod, Zune, or other music player can be connected in directly without any other fancy or expensive electronics.

I still feel bad that most people who enjoy music will never really experience the music they like so much. They’re missing out on so much, and an awful lot of that is the emotion that was put into a recording, so in essence we’re missing out on much of the whole experience.

One last note before I wrap up this (now extensive) post. If you are someone who is considering building yourself a home theater or stereo setup, I recommend avoiding consumer speakers altogether. They all not only have their own nuances that color the sound coming through them, but this coloration is DESIGNED into them to make them stand out from other models and manufacturers. This coloration, by definition, is taking away from the original intent of the recording. Why not go with the same type of speaker used by the engineers and artists making the recordings, so you hear exactly what they did when they made them? So I STRONGLY recommend skipping the consumer speakers and going directly to studio monitors. They’re harder to find, and they can be more expensive, but I’ll take a $500 studio monitor over a $3000 consumer speaker any day. They make for a much more pleasing experience. Music becomes an experience, not just a pastime.

New MP3 Players

Within the last week I’ve gotten two new MP3 players.

1st: iPod Touch, 2nd Gen

First I’ll start with my new iPod.  My brother was looking at maybe getting an iPod Touch, and since I’ve been considering upgrading mine to one of the 2nd generation models, I sold him my first gen and used that money toward an upgrade to the newer version of the 16GB player.

The newer version is definitely an improvement on the first gen model.  I’ve been somewhat critical of the iPod Touch (blog posts here and here) because I don’t believe (and still don’t believe) that touch screen interfaces work well for control of music playback.  But one of those complaints has been addressed with the newer version: it has dedicated volume control buttons on the side.  This is a huge plus!  Now we can adjust the volume without waking it up, looking at it, and finding the virtual on-screen controls.  If only Apple would add a play/pause button, and buttons for selecting tracks they’ll have a nearly unbeatable device.  But we already know that Steve Jobs hates buttons, so that isn’t going to happen.  Too bad… they’re close to having something great, but their pride is getting in the way of usability utopia.

Other changes over the first gen are the addition of an internal speaker so you can hear the sounds made by games, listen to music, or watch videos without plugging in headphones (this is a very cool feature that should be included on ALL MP3 players), a curved back like the iPhone 3G (thinner at the edges but thicker in the middle than the 1st gen Touch), and support for an external microphone or headset.  That last feature will allow me to use Skype, or to use it as a simple audio recorder.  Nice touches, all, and definitely steps in the right direction. 

I do have one major complaint with it, and that is its battery life.  If I’m watching a video or playing games on it, the battery is dead in a hair over an hour.  I’ve gone through the charge –> use for an hour cycle about 6 or 7 times now and it’s pretty consistent.  If the screen is on and it’s making noises, the battery is only good for about an hour.  At 45 minutes it pops up a warning that only 20% of the battery charge is left, and 15-20 minutes later it dies. I haven’t tested it for battery life for music playback (again, it’s not that great of a music playback device and I don’t intend to use it that way), but for video and games an hour is not good.  Especially considering how Apple advertises it as a great gaming device by calling it the “funnest iPod ever” [sic].  Fun for an hour, then you’re back to playing tic-tac-toe on a pad of paper, making flipbook drawings, and singing to yourself.  In contrast, my 5-year-old PDA will play games or video on a larger, higher resolution display for 3+ hours on a charge, even with all of the wear I’ve put on the battery over that time.

It still has a shiny metallic back, so it scratches VERY easily.  A protective case is a must.  I can’t figure out why Apple won’t switch to a textured back, or coat the metal with some sort of enamel or varnish layer to protect it?  I guess they like having their devices look bad after they’ve been used a while.  Or maybe it’s enough justification for people to buy new ones and they sell more that way.

Other than that, it’s pretty much the same as the 1st gen model.  The web browser is top notch.  The App Store makes it easy to find fun flashlight and fart noise applications.  The ability to read email is also nice.  Audio quality is fairly good, but still lags a little behind virtually every other line of players on the market.  (Apple hasn’t had any serious competition for the iPod line, so they seem to be okay with their audio quality suffering a bit compared to everyone else.)  The screen is bright and sharp, though this version renders the image with a warmer tint than we have seen before, not that this is bad; just different.  As usual, the included ear bud headphones are terrible, and Apple clearly deserves any amount of criticism heaped upon them for continuing to insult our ears; these are literally the worst headphones I have ever heard in my life; nearly anything else is a significant improvement. 

I’m excited to see what Apple has up its sleeve for the 3.0 firmware coming out this summer.  We do know that Bluetooth support is being added to the 2nd gen Touch, so that will be cool, along with a slew of other features that have been missing since day one.  And there should be more welcome goodies in the works with the forthcoming update.

2nd: Another Zune

I have had my 80GB Zune now for almost 18 months.  And I still really like it.  For music playback it is my device of choice.

But, like any hard-drive based player, it’s a little big and heavy compared to the flash memory models.  And I kind of get tired of lugging it back and forth between my desk and my truck just to synchronize it, so I have played around with the idea of getting a smaller capacity Zune to keep in my truck permanently.  I usually listen to podcasts and just a few of my favorite artists, so a small capacity player would work well for around-town driving.

Brent and I were in Best Buy last week and saw that they were clearing out the 4GB Zunes for $80.  I was going to get one but they didn’t have any left in stock, so I came home and tried to find a similar deal on the Internet.  I was able to find a brand-new 8GB model instead for $99 on eBay, with free shipping.  Awesome deal!  So I bought it, and it arrived today.

The one I got was apparently really old stock because the battery was COMPLETELY dead – it hadn’t been turned on or charged at all since it was manufactured in the fall of 2007.  Which means that it didn’t do anything when I plugged it in; it almost seemed like it was broken.  After plugging it into AC power and letting it charge for a couple hours it finally woke up from its coma and I was able to synchronize it with my computer.  First step was to install new software onto it (thank you, Microsoft, for continually adding new features for free!), and then I began selecting the content to copy onto the device.

I discovered something cool about the Zune software while setting this one up.  It lets you connect and synchronize multiple devices simultaneously.  So while I was setting up my new Zune today, my older one was still connected, and the two didn’t conflict with one another.  The software recognized both by adding a second icon for the second device.  That way I could choose what to synchronize with each one separately without disconnecting either by dragging to the right icon.  I didn’t think anybody would even attempt this, because synchronization is tricky enough without trying to do it with two devices at the same time.  Color me shocked and impressed.

My audio podcasts only take up about 800 MB.  I would have consider synchronizing my video podcasts as well, but it probably isn’t a good idea to watch them while I’m driving, so I elected not to include those in the sync.  I then setup two synchronization rules in the Zune software: one to synchronize any of the music I have marked as a favorite, and another rule to synchronize any music I have added to my collection in the last 90 days.  And since its 8GB of storage space is limited compared to the size of my music collection, I also set it to down-convert any high bit-rate audio files down to 192kbps on sync.  Since a lot of my music falls into that category, much of it had to be converted while it was synchronizing, so it took about 30 minutes to copy everything over.  In the end there was about 6.5GB of content copied over, leaving about 1GB of free space.  Nice fit.

One advantage the Zune has over other players is its ability to sync with a computer wirelessly.  This is why I will be leaving this player in my truck… I don’t have to bring it inside to sync it.  Just pop into the menu, select Settings, Wireless, Sync, and it connects to my wireless network and synchronizes my latest podcasts, any changes in my favorite music, and adds anything I’ve added to my collection since the last sync.  At the same time if I had purchased any music on the Zune (another great feature, BTW) it would sync it back up into my music collection.  Very cool.  And if I were to plug the player into a constant power source (or let it sit for a few minutes after finishing a playlist) it would synchronize automatically without any intervention on my part at all.  But I don’t want to drain my truck’s battery when I’m not driving it so I will be starting the sync manually.

Here’s a shocker… I actually like two of the songs included on the device.  It comes with a handful of songs and videos on it from the factory, and I actually like two of them.  Usually anything included like this is, well, not very good, and most of it wasn’t that good, but two songs and two videos actually were.  Huh.

The sound quality of the flash memory Zunes is very good.  With good headphones this Zune sounds excellent; very clear and totally noise free as far as I could discern.  The headphones included with these models aren’t very good, but they are without question better than the ones included with any iPod.  The Premium versions included with my 80GB Zune were a world better than either of those though.  But even the Premium model pales in comparison to either the Shure E3 earphones or Sony MDR-7506 headphones that I use to listen to music.  If you are at all serious about your music, consider investing in a real set of earphones/headphones.  Music will take on a new life when heard the way it was meant to be heard.

The disappointing thing about this player is that it doesn’t have video output capability.  So I can’t hook it to a TV and watch videos that way.  I have really gotten used to and liked that feature on my 80GB Zune (and I wish I could do it on my iPod Touch without dropping a fortune on a special cable), so it will be missed on my 8GB version.

For Music, Get a Zune; For Apps, Get an iPod Touch

Even after the updates to the iPod Touch line, I still feel like the Zunes are better for music playback.  Between having a more functional and easier to use interface, dedicated buttons for controlling playback, and more attention to the importance of sound quality, the Zune line is better for listening to music than any iPod sold today.  Apple has been putting all of its eggs in the iPod Touch / iPhone basket lately, so the rest of the line has been allowed to wither on the vine.  The iPod Classic still has its classic dated and limited-in-functionality interface.  The Nano is okay, but still is limited in its capabilities.  And don’t get me started on the new Shuffle, which is a joke.  The iPod Touch may be more suited to video playback than the Zunes are because of the huge screen, aside from the need to buy an extremely expensive cable to get video out to your TV and what appears to be battery life that is too short for video playback.  For playing games or doing non-multimedia tasks, though, the iPod Touch is in a league of its own for now despite its need to be kept near a charger. 

Being that these are, first and foremost, music players, my current Zune has gotten a lot more use than my iPod ever has, and I’m sure that trend will continue with my newly acquired models.  Which is fine, considering the Zunes seem to be better suited to that task anyway.

iPod Touch Followup

So I've had my iPod Touch for a couple weeks now, and I thought I'd follow up with more information about my experience with it.

For the most part I'm still happy with it.  There is one problem which is pretty significant, though, and something that I hope Apple addresses in a future version of it... And that is it's battery life.

I noticed that battery life seemed short compared to other devices I've used, but after a couple weeks playing with this, I'm a little perplexed.  If I had been watching a lot of video on it I'd understand; its hard to keep a backlit display running for any period of time on a battery, but even when the Touch isn't turned on it still drains the battery too quickly. 

I first noticed it on my first full day at my parents.  I hadn't touched it (no pun intended) all day, and though I had charged it the previous night, the battery was down to about 60% charge.  Odd.  Maybe it's cause I had it set to check for new email every 30 minutes?  So I turn that off.  Several days had better life, but none managed to store over 90% of the battery even when the device wasn't ever turned on.  Then today was the worst I've seen.  Automatic email checking turned off, device charged overnight last night, didn't turn it on even once today, and when I went to check it tonight it had drained to less than 10% charge.  It was low enough that it had completely shut itself off (not just gone to sleep) and I had to plug it in and restart it to make it come up.  Something seems amiss.

Other than the battery life it is still a pretty good device.  As I had suspected previously, it doesn't make a great music player because of its lack of tactile buttons.

Oh, one more issue: I have to plug my iPod Touch into my computer to charge it.  Plugging it into a USB charger doesn't work; the Touch just ignores it.  This means I can't charge it in my truck, and I have to keep a computer running to keep it charged.  Not a deal breaker, but it is annoying.

Compared to my Zune

In one of my first blog posts I mentioned I bought an 80GB Zune back in November.  A lot of people on the internet are comparing the Zune to the iPod Touch (though they are two entirely different devices which shouldn't really be compared).  Here's my two cents, since I own both:

Sound Quality: On my Shure E3s I can hear HDD motor spinup and seeking sounds from the Zune at the beginning of each music track.  Fortunately it does go away after the music starts playing.   The iPod Touch doesn't have this problem (it has no HDD).  I like the overall sound of both, with the Zune having a slight edge in fidelity, aside from the noise.  Winner: If you have a "normal" set of headphones: Zune.  If you have high sensitivity in-ear monitors, iPod Touch.  As for the included headphones: the ones with the iPod (any iPod) are absolutely awful, and anyone using them should throw them away and buy ANYTHING else.  Apple has really insulted (and may be damaging) our ears here, folks, and most people don't know any better.  The headphones with the 80GB Zune are acceptable, and are remarkably better than the ones shipped with iPods.  (Trivia: Apple switched the Left and Right headphone connections on the iPod compared to the industry standard.  If you use headphones other than ones certified for use with the iPod, the left/right channels will be swapped, if you care.) 

Music Playback: Zune's user interface is much more flexible, iPod's may be a bit easier to use, with significantly less functionality, and definitely less consistency.  The lack of physical hardware buttons make music playback on the iPod awkward.  Winner: Zune, easily.

Video Performance: The iPod's bigger screen is definitely a plus.  But the Zune supports more file formats: everything the iPod does, plus several more.  The Zune features composite video output on its headphone jack, the iPod requires a $50 Apple cable to output to a TV.  Winner: depends on your needs.  For me, its a hard call.  I like the bigger screen, but I have a lot of video that won't play on the Touch.  Either way, both devices are huge upgrades from the iPod Classic or Nano for video. 

Audio Books: iPod currently supports Audible, Zune's support is coming later this year.  Winner: iPod, for now; later this year it will be a draw.

Battery Life: Zune wins here, hands down.  No matter what you are doing, the Zune definitely lasts a lot longer even though it has a HDD, which is odd.  Winner: Zune.

Internet: It should be obvious: the iPod touch can browse the web, check email, watch YouTube videos, download music directly from iTunes.  The Zune doesn't have any of these capabilities.  Winner: iPod.

User interface:  The iPod's interface is definitely flashier, no question.  But in my opinion it puts style over substance too often.  As far as actual usability goes, I prefer the Zune's more consistent GUI (it's always the same and doesn't vary between "applications"), which is actually easier to use once you understand its paradigm.  Winner: Zune by a touch.  :)

Capacity:  The iPod's 8/16/32GB storage is no match for the 80GB Zune at a lower price.   Winner: Clearly Zune.

Non-PMP Flexibility: The iPhone's SDK is likely to be made available for the iPod Touch, so any applications which don't use iPhone-specific hardware (like the phone, or Bluetooth) will probably run on a Touch after it has been upgraded.  Google Maps using the Touch's interface is awesome.  The Zune is now expandable via XNA Game Studio, allowing custom applications to be developed by anyone using Visual Studio.  Winner: iPod.

Software: I'm not a fan of iTunes; it has become bloated, cluttered, tries to be and do too many things, and it has always had stability problems.  The Zune software is simple and clean, and overall pretty good, but is somewhat buggy.    The ironic thing is that iTunes looks like a bloated Microsoft application from 10 years ago, and the Zune software looks like something Apple might create if it decided to use a little color in its software designs.  Gotta love the irony.  Winner: Zune.

Cool factor: No description needed.  Winner: iPod Touch.

Appearance:  We all know the iPods scratch if you so much as look at them or even enter the same room, but it has better styling.  Winner: Draw.

Product name: Inconsequential, but I felt like including it anyway, cause it bugs me.  I have always hated the name "iPod."  Sounds like something out of a really bad 1960s movie.  ("Oh no!  The iPod is coming!")  And the "Touch" part doesn't win me over either; it sounds like something a dirty old man might do.  Ick.  They should have called it the iPod Fondle or iPod Grope.  Who names these things?   So uncool.  Not that Zune is a perfect name either, but it sounds cooler than iPod.   Winner: I somewhat reluctantly give Zune the nod here.

Anyway, I'm tired.  So I'm posting now.

Apathy, Ignorance, and Sound Quality

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.