From the Guardian

"Reed criticised the quality of digital music, which he said "sounds like shit" and at the amount of money artists received for music downloads.

He said CDs originally sounded "horrifying" compared to the "beautiful warm sound you get on vinyl". "MP3s for God's sake. A really miserable sounding thing, people don't understand what they are missing. It has been reduced to the lowest common denominator."

More thoughts in Guardian article : [www.guardian.co.uk]
& video : [www.guardian.co.uk]

Yes, one must only listen to Metal Machine Music on vinyl to appreciate its inner beauty.

According to Lou Reed almost everything but him is shit...

I recently read about a blind test they did with a couple of so called audiophiles. Most of them couldn´t hear the difference between vinyl and mp3. I find it hard to believe that mr Reed, with the amount of hearing he has left, is able to tell the difference either.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2013-06-21 16:06 by Svartmer.

Maybe he should listen to the songs of others rather than their own, if he hear his own material, either mp3 or any format will sounds like shit ...

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"I'm gonna walk... before they make me run"

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Svartmer
I recently read about a blind test they did with a couple of so called audiophiles. Most of them couldn´t hear the difference between vinyl and mp3.

That's the old pro mp-crap routine but indeed it doesn't take an audiophile (whatever that might mean) to feel a BIG difference.
That's common sense : mp3 is a nice media if you want to take your music with you but technically/aurally speaking it's like staring at the sun.

And Lou definitely has the ear : I remember reading an interview from a producer where he said "I once varied a mix by ONE dB in a certain freq and Lou told me I had changed sth"

Lou and N. Young should team up to promote the HD Pono player!

CD's sound better than MP3's, but in my opinion, the difference in quality can be minimal. I haven't bought a CD this year and I'm not quite sure if I will, either. My music sounds just fine to my ears through my iPod.

"Reed told the festival: "I understand young people were brought up on downloading and Steve Jobs tried to make it into some kind of business which benefits Apple but you get about a sixteenth of a penny"

Yup the lighter in size the file is the lesser the cost is for Apple.
Simple maths : Steve Job$ wins, music quality loses.

Now that cable Internet allows for BIG files to be sent isn't it time for the "brains" at Cupertino to clog the mp-crap pipe and deal with HD files?

Reed and Neil Young are correct.

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48yearsaRSfan
Reed and Neil Young are correct.

They're correct to an extent, but they're both being totally OT about it. Times change. So should they.

The visual quality of films has improved greatly but we should just accept the fact that the quality of audio in music that are we being fed is not as good as it used to be? That's messed up.

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teleblaster
Yes, one must only listen to Metal Machine Music on vinyl to appreciate its inner beauty.

I would add : a very hidden beauty ><

The kind of vinyl to collect and not to listen to. A rarety in its mess : the strangest music ever recorded. But, it is really music ? Noise ?

Aside from that, I admire Lou Reed's music. He's a REAL genious !!

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Big Al

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48yearsaRSfan
Reed and Neil Young are correct.

Times change. So should they.

You mean crap mp3 is the future and high-quality medias are a thing of the past?
That's like saying high-Q movie theaters and Bluray home media are done, the next big thing is 8mm movie projectors for theaters and VHS for home entertainment.

I can understand the frustration of musicians who see HD format invade TV (1080p) and cinema (4K and soon 8K movie cams) while what's given to them to spread their art is CD (ahem the equivalent of VHS) or mp3 (crap).

I can understand some ppl will watch a movie on their Iph0ne but they won't probably tell you "hey we're the future!". If they're honest they'll say "I know I'm cheap..."
Same goes for mp3... a debasing media.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2013-06-21 20:25 by dcba.

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GumbootCloggeroo
The visual quality of films has improved greatly but we should just accept the fact that the quality of audio in music that are we being fed is not as good as it used to be? That's messed up.

Exactly. That's what I don't get with music industry. On one side we get DVD's and blu-ray's for films and people seem very happy with it.
And on the other side music industry is still reluctant to support high res formats such as SACD, DVD-audio, blu-ray audio, or high res audio downloads.

At least now we have portable audio devices that can play lossless files like FLAC...

Ironic, huh? The guy with the best ears puts out music you don't need them for.

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Big Al

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48yearsaRSfan
Reed and Neil Young are correct.

They're correct to an extent, but they're both being totally OT about it. Times change. So should they.

Actually Neil has moved with the times more than most. He is one of the very few to embrace Blu-Ray as a format for delivering albums with the highest sound quality possible.

He's also had discussions (with Gates or someone, I forget) about developing a high quality digital file format (and appropriate hardware/player) to replace MP3s.

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Alfonz

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Big Al

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48yearsaRSfan
Reed and Neil Young are correct.

They're correct to an extent, but they're both being totally OT about it. Times change. So should they.

Actually Neil has moved with the times more than most. He is one of the very few to embrace Blu-Ray as a format for delivering albums with the highest sound quality possible.

He's also had discussions (with Gates or someone, I forget) about developing a high quality digital file format (and appropriate hardware/player) to replace MP3s.

It's the other one (from the company that stole the Beatles logo).

The discussion was about developing a high quality digital file format to be played on Neil Young's audio player, the "Pono".

In many instances, Neil tries to get the times to pick-up the pace, often on his own dime. " Quality - whether you want it or not." Neil looks forward, though known to sometimes bear left when it should have been a right when facing a fork in the road.

To my ears, Lou Reed sounds like shit.

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Big Al
CD's sound better than MP3's, but in my opinion, the difference in quality can be minimal. I haven't bought a CD this year and I'm not quite sure if I will, either. My music sounds just fine to my ears through my iPod.

The way most albums are mastered for CD releases there isn't any difference between a CD and mp3 - both are slammed past brickwalling. There are some exceptions but those are still loud, just not as loud.

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Big Al

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48yearsaRSfan
Reed and Neil Young are correct.

They're correct to an extent, but they're both being totally OT about it. Times change. So should they.

Good change versus bad change is change, that is correct. Liking bad change? It seems a lot of people like the bad change. Because it's convenient. That's what it's all about.

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GumbootCloggeroo
The visual quality of films has improved greatly but we should just accept the fact that the quality of audio in music that are we being fed is not as good as it used to be? That's messed up.

I'm not convinced about that. Some movies look like shit. Unless they're making things blurry on purpose. I don't think the slick digitalness of the last 3 Star Wars movies were any better than the first 3. In fact, the last 3 looked overdone - and fake. The first 3 at least looked real. For the most part anyway ha ha.

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24FPS
Ironic, huh? The guy with the best ears puts out music you don't need them for.

HA HA! That's funny.

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dcba

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Svartmer
I recently read about a blind test they did with a couple of so called audiophiles. Most of them couldn´t hear the difference between vinyl and mp3.

That's the old pro mp-crap routine but indeed it doesn't take an audiophile (whatever that might mean) to feel a BIG difference.
That's common sense : mp3 is a nice media if you want to take your music with you but technically/aurally speaking it's like staring at the sun.

And Lou definitely has the ear : I remember reading an interview from a producer where he said "I once varied a mix by ONE dB in a certain freq and Lou told me I had changed sth"

Lou and N. Young should team up to promote the HD Pono player!

DA TRUFF!

In all seriousness, I consider myself an audiophile and have a bunch of friends who are like-minded in their love of great music, mixed and mastered properly... When given a variable bitrate song (V0 mp3) and a flac (lossless) recording, almost no one can tell which is which. Especially when listed sequentially.

Here is a test where those of us who care can tell a different fairly easily. Others who simply 'hear the music' will notice ZERO difference...

Download the file below, and tell me which is the original flac channel. (left or right)

http://www.hatfieldmedia.com/Tops-flacvsv0mp3.wav

I used the Virgin release of Tattoo You. One channel is a V0 mp3. Note that in my car I listen to mp3s all day long. All my mp3s are v0 and I am very happy with them, but that is in my car. With the rumble of road noise you would be hard pressed to tell a difference between a v0 mp3 and a raw studio tape master.

aaaand go... NO CHEATING! NO LOOKING AT ANALYZERS!

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flacnvinyl

Here is a test where those of us who care can tell a different fairly easily. Others who simply 'hear the music' will notice ZERO difference...

Download the file below, and tell me which is the original flac channel. (left or right)

http://www.hatfieldmedia.com/Tops-flacvsv0mp3.wav

I used the Virgin release of Tattoo You. One channel is a V0 mp3. Note that in my car I listen to mp3s all day long. All my mp3s are v0 and I am very happy with them, but that is in my car. With the rumble of road noise you would be hard pressed to tell a difference between a v0 mp3 and a raw studio tape master.

aaaand go... NO CHEATING! NO LOOKING AT ANALYZERS!

I'd say that the right channel highs lack of definition. So that could be the mp3 encoded channel.

I love vinyl and understand the gripe some here with MP3's and their quality. However, and maybe it's laziness on my part, but I just adore the ability to hear a track and then to be able to own it with a click of a button. I have almost 9,000 tracks on my iPod. I have most of my music at my fingertips. It's ideal.

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Big Al
I love vinyl and understand the gripe some here with MP3's and their quality. However, and maybe it's laziness on my part, but I just adore the ability to hear a track and then to be able to own it with a click of a button. I have almost 9,000 tracks on my iPod. I have most of my music at my fingertips. It's ideal.

I love that too. Just I don't want to buy mp3 sub quality music when CD quality music (which should be a minimum in 2013 for download music) can be made easily available. And when portable audio devices are now available to play quality music files.
Just check this French website which has everything available as CD quality files (including Stones albums) : [www.qobuz.com] This should be the standard today.

When I first compared MP3's to CD's, I was very much in favour of the latter's quality. I already owned a small 8GB MP3 device, but swore I would never abandon CD's in favour of downloading. I did eventually cave-in and by an iPod. However, I was still purchasing CD's and then transferring them to iTunes. I'm not sure what exactly got me started on downloading directly from Amazon and iTunes, but that method has stuck. Now, I really don't hear a vast difference in sound quality. Maybe if I start listening on my hi-fi again - not possible at the moment - I'll revert back to the CD.