GoodSoundClub - Romy the Cat's Audio Site

In the Forum: Didital Things
In the Thread: Why people still sell compressed music online?

Post Subject: Engineers and sound qualityPosted by steverino on: 10/6/2010

Actually I don't find it surprising that engineers don't realize the sonic effects of their engineering. Remember all the indignant articles and letters they wrote about how great solid state amps with low THD sound and how lousy tubes are. In the case of compression formats it should also be noted that engineers were merely providing a solution to a request from businesses and consumers back in the day to allow online streaming or download with dial up connections. As long as consumers thought it was good enough it was good enough.

Your post does touch on a more general question as to why consumers whether they are engineers or not are relatively so indifferent to sound quality. I don't think it's a case of an inability to perceive the difference. I've had quite a few people who are not audiophiles in the least easily able to distinguish changes in sonic quality on my system or theirs from changes in equipment or procedures (eg cleaning contacts). They not only hear the difference, in many cases they find the sound of my quite middling audiophile setup to be wonderful and lifelike compared to what they listen to. The amazing thing in my view is that they can go right back to listening on their awful system or to compressed sound and feel no pain. Very very few people feel compelled to improve their system after hearing something far better.

I can think of several reasons for this. First many people regard music as more of a background activity than something to focus on. Second people find music listening somewhat asocial unless it's part of a sing along or is dance music. Third, it does require a certain amount of effort to set up an audio system in a home environment. As we all know even a good system can sound lousy if its poorly configured or located. Speakers are a big issue here since a reasonably full range speaker can't be hidden in a room. Fourth, people are more captivated by visual information (eg movies tv) than auditory information if a choice has to be made.

Having said all that there still are many more people who would become audiophiles if the industry was better oriented to welcoming them in at the entry level. The continuing survival of vinyl even among non audiophiles is a sign that people do sense that something is missing from current audio reproduction even with the standard CD. As an anecdote I mentioned to a waitress from Ethiopia that I liked Ethiopian music but it was only available now on CDs and I preferred vinyl for better sound. She thought for a second and replied "You know you're right. Records have a bigger fuller sound than CDs which sound a bit thin and bright" I'm sure she had never even thought about the difference before my remark.

Rerurn to Romy the Cat's Site