Over the years, it's become very important for consumers to
have smaller and smaller devices with more and more storage, better audio
quality, with less cost and greater user efficiency. Take for instance the iPod or cell phones
over the years. What was once bulky and
inefficient can now travel in your pocket and can do a million things with aps
and mobile internet. One of the by-products of these recent developments is the
over-compression of music files.
Compression works by using algorithms that simply decide what
frequencies are necessary to the listener and which ones are not. The ones that aren't necessary are thrown
away. So when you throw a CD into your
computer and burn it into iTunes, it goes through this process of
compression. This results in a file that
takes up less space allowing you to store more on your device.
The question here is if you can really tell the difference
between a compressed and uncompressed file.
According to Tim Jonze, who is the music editor of "The
Guardian", "Yes, I could (tell the difference), although perhaps not
in the transformative was I was expecting.
The higher quality recordings become ever crisper and clearer... But for
me, appreciating the difference was reliant on a degree of concentration".
Jason Phipps, the head of audio at “the Guardian” stated
that “I found it difficult to discern a sharp and noticeable difference other
than to the quality of the lower frequency sounds.” The general consensus among
listeners is that the difference isn’t really too noticeable until it’s pointed
out. Once it’s made obvious, it is much
easier to tell the difference. But once
this difference can be seen, it is clear that much is lost in the compression
process.
My question is, why is compression still being used after we
know how much quality of sound is lost in the compression process. With every new iPod or laptop or any type of
hard drive storage where music is kept, more storage is made available. My first iPod many years ago which was an
iPod mini had around 5 GB of storage.
Now, storage on iPods have skyrocketed over the course of several years
and can now store 180GB or more without being any bigger! So with the greater amount of storage, wouldn’t
you rather have better quality music than a compressed file mucking up your
favorite artist’s album?
For me, I will admit to saying that 99% of my music is
digital. I buy most of my music online
because it is convenient and it makes it super easy for me to get music on my
mobile devices because that’s where I listen to the most music. I’ve lived for years not knowing about the
difference between compressed and uncompressed files until I learned about it a
few years ago in school. After hearing
the difference, I feel dissatisfied with the quality after compression. Something to consider though is that I am an
audio snob! So I myself am completely fine with being able to hold many
uncompressed files other than a billion compressed songs. While on the hunt to learn more about this
topic, I stumbled across an article on media monkey. I learned that compression saves about 20% of
storage when it throws out “unneeded” frequencies. I think that it is more than worth it to
store 1/5 less on devices that can already store more music than I will ever
purchase in my entire life! (http://www.mediamonkey.com/mp3-ogg-wma-audio-faq.htm)
The cool thing is that something called hi-res music is
becoming more and more supported through many more electronics manufacturers. There has been a lot of confusion though
about what this actually is. Is it CD
quality, or is it better? Actual hi-res
music is the equivalent of a 24-bit studio master. This is the highest quality around right now
because it essentially is exactly what the studio puts out at the end of the
recording process before it’s compressed to CD and compressed again to mp3. According to “the Guardian magazine”, “the
studio masters sounded fuller, more spacious and less flat… (the sound is also)
less produced and more raw or natural, as it would be listening live.”
Once heard, it becomes apparent how deprived the world has
been by using Mp3 because after hearing hi-res recordings sound and receiving the
“studio master” instead of a compressed file it’s plain to hear how much better
it is. The only problem is that it is
more expensive than a standard MP3 (an album can cost 18 euros in the UK) and
can take up between 2 and 5GB instead of around 60MB for a compressed
album. In my opinion, it is worth it to
hear the best of the best!
In summation, even though it is tough to hear the difference
at first, there is a rather large loss of quality in the process of
compression. But there are advancements
on the horizon that can give consumers the best sounding recording available!
Although it is more expensive and takes up more space, it is clearly worth it
for people who love music and who geek out at a great sounding recording like I
do!
Source: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/aug/21/mp3-cd-24-bit-audio-music-hi-res?CMP=twt_gu
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