The year was 1994. Music was as popular as it’s ever been, with rock bands like Nirvana and The Smashing Pumpkins, popstars such as Ace of Base and Mariah Carey, and even soul artists like Boyz II Men and Janet … Read the rest
It’s hard to believe that David Robert Jones, aka David Bowie’s surprising death is already 10 months ago.
Days before he passed he promoted a strange tangle of an album called Blackstar, complete with a new band, a new … Read the rest
If you stream and don’t buy anything ever, you are hurting us all.
We all do it, or know those that do. Since about 1999 (the early Napster era) the idea of actually paying for your music collection has been … Read the rest
Why the hatred of quality music and sound right now? Is it really the machines taking over?
Consumer audio suffers this weird delusion. It seems to be a digital blindness.
It started in the 80’s but was … Read the rest
Perceptual coding is responsible for data loss that is greatly misunderstood and perhaps even dangerous to society.
What is perceptual coding ? It’s a data compression concept used in audio, video, and streaming technologies.
Why does perceptual … Read the rest
MP3’s are dying, thank god. MP3 is a transitionary technology that has overstayed it’s welcome.
If you believe lossy MP3 is all you need for music, goodbye. Come back when you want to listen. Yes 320k is better than 192k … Read the rest
They trickle out slowly but at least they are finally coming: 24bit versions of classic albums by classic artists, ready for purchase for under $20. This is the full-quality studio master for your library so don’t pass up these opportunities.… Read the rest
Everything digital boils down to bandwidth –
Bandwidth comes in several forms. The network connection is the obvious one because we already use … Read the rest
This is a good start. Here’s Tidal trying to explain simply why MP3 sounds worse than CD quality. They want $20/month the stream CD-quality to you, so they will strongly market against lossy compression.
Allow me to speak some truth about the recording arts — the overall quality of music production has been going down since before I started. I’ve done nothing to reverse the trend ;-).
This is due to multiple factors not … Read the rest
The more stuff I put on my PonoPlayer, 16/44 and higher, it is sounding so amazing that I’m discovering things in my own CD collection. Things I haven’t heard before!
In some cases it’s parts, instruments, & entire background melodies … Read the rest
I’ve got my DAP that plays everything wonderfully. It’s got expandable storage and prices are low enough that I think it’s time to abandon the iTunes catalog I’ve spent 15 years curating to the smallest size possible and build a … Read the rest
More random reasons to love the PonoPlayer, the more I live with it:
Rip your CD’s again. Do it right this time.
Most of us went through ripping phases where we created gigs of MP3 files and either traded back in our CD’s or hid them in the basement. We’ve been walking around … Read the rest
Quality:
My new sexy little digital audio player (aka DAP) is arriving at the end of this month. I was an early supporter of PonoMusic and their PonoPlayer on kickstarter, so not only will I have one of the first … Read the rest
So the CD is dead, the mp3 is going nowhere fast, everyone seems to stream or listen to their mp3 libraries, the HD Digital files are just starting to gain traction, and analog records keeps chugging along towards their 100th … Read the rest
Quick history lesson —
Digital audio made it’s public debut with the CD standard known as “RedBook”, started in 1978. A collaboration between Phillips & Sony, the CD standard was originally going to be 14bit/40k with error correction and ship … Read the rest