
Neil Young’s answer to iTunes - nickb
http://blogs.ft.com/techblog/2008/06/neil-youngs-answer-to-itunes/
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cheponis
I am rather bothered by a lot of the comments here. Have any of you actually
talked with Neil about these issues? I have. He's an extremely passionate
promoter of high-quality sound. I truly feel sorry for those who cannot tell
the difference between 192kbps MP3s and CDs. I can always hear the difference
with my headphones and eq settings. But Neil is not satisfied with CD-quality;
he wants higher quality than that. At the time I chatted with him (several
years ago now) he was leaning toward 24-bit 192K samples/second, as I recall.
This was before Blu-Ray.

Since the original article was so vague, and we don't have a particular
product to critique, can we at least give Neil the benefit of the doubt? His
heart is definitely in the right place (and, in case you're wondering, he's
more than just a bit of a geek - he's a first-class geek! - And not too shabby
a musician, either...)

~~~
akd
I think Neil Young is misguided here. He is a very successful musician and has
spent his whole life in sound. Obviously he's going to have a much more finely
tuned ear than the general population.

But the number of people who are like him and you is not enough to support a
new format or business model. Most people can't hear any differences beyond a
good bitrate MP3.

Consumers over the last 50 years have been on a relentless trend towards
greater convenience and poorer quality (look at the quality of any of today's
household appliances). A quality play is simply obsolete.

------
swirlee
Neil Young's answer to digital distribution is physical media? A disc you have
to go the store and buy in person or have delivered by a guy in a truck? A
disc, I think it's safe to assume, for which you have to jump through hoops in
order to get the music onto your iPod (assuming you have a Blu-ray drive in
your computer)? Neil, you truly are a visionary.

~~~
nickb
I don't buy his aversion to mp3s. Vast majority of the population can't even
tell the difference between 128kbps and 192bps. I guess quality is a red
herring and a way to market his new product.

~~~
bootload
_"... I don't buy his (Neil Young)aversion to mp3s. Vast majority of the
population can't even tell the difference between 128kbps and 192bps ..."_

I do.

Firstly it shows good taste. NY is a sound quality nut and I for one is
grateful ~ <http://news.cnet.com/8301-13953_3-9937142-80.html>

    
    
        "We are trying to give them quality 
         whether they want it or not. You 
         can degrade it as much as you want, 
         we just don't want our name on it."
    

When I listen to Old-Black <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Black> with the
amp cranked up loud I really want to hear the sound (distortion and all) and
not the technical limitations that some company puts on it as is the case of
iPods. Don't beleive me listen to Doug Kayes explanation on mp3 recordings ~
<http://podcastacademy.com/shows/detail1600/>

As for marketing I don't think the _"rich hippy"_ really needs it.

~~~
nickb
There have been so many double blind tests of various codecs (just browse
here: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codec_listening_test> ) and they all show
that vast majority of people simply cannot tell the difference between 256kbps
MP3 and a CD (certainly not within two standard deviations). Sure, some golden
ear guys can tell but even they have hard time coming to two standard
deviations.

Also, some music actually sounds better as MP3s! Yes, strange...

 _The fact that some of the 128 kbps samples were consistently judged to be
better than their original CD counterparts by this skilled group – even by the
best among them – stunned our editor (who participated in the test although
his results were not included in the evaluation, and had to confess that he
got only 15 points). It seems safe to declare that there is no musical genre
that is especially well-suited or ill-suited to compression. It is apparent
that there are quite other factors related to the technical aspects of
recording that will later adversely affect the results at low bit rates._

Finally, most of the people listen to their music on portable players and/or
computers and speakers on those are so bad that you can't really tell the
difference between 128kbps and 256kbps. Double blind tests show that there's
no statistical significance when you listen on these devices.

So yeah, NY's latest 'better than CD' ploy might work out with audiophiles...
same people who buy $400 digital cables and $500 wooden knobs so their music
sounds better.

In the end, it all comes down to good mastering and not codecs and delivery
medium. Modern music is heavily compressed and there's a lot of clipping and
that has nothing to do with MP3s.

~~~
rms
>So yeah, NY's latest 'better than CD' ploy might work out with audiophiles...
same people who buy $400 digital cables and $500 wooden knobs so their music
sounds better.

One extravagant audiophile investment that would make an actual difference is
tapes from this company that sells copies of reel to reel master tapes.
<http://www.tapeproject.com/> Why bother with a delivery medium?

------
Tichy
If you care about audio quality, also make sure to buy the Denon AK-DL1 audio
cable. Only that 499$ cable can ensure the unharmed digital transfer of your
audio data.

