thoughts on Digital Music quality

I said a while back in an article on a2ed.com...or was it another site...anyway, that getting the ipod nano was stupid and a half as you were getting far less space for far more cost, and encouraging the capitalist gits to learn from that and screw you similarly in other arenas.

It also trains the masses to be focused on the superficial, i.e. ‘size’ in this case, and thus makes them more susceptible to superficial sales strategies in the future...which is already happening.

Anyway, there's no reasoning with consumers these days. They are the peasants of 'modern' times, and all they require to serve as evidence of their 'intelligence' is the ability to make enough money to pay even more for products simply because there is some brand affixed on them, and their ability to get a job and reproduce their stupidity via their progeny.  Being thus underdeveloped, they also become unable to appreciate greater evidence of intelligence.  Hence, over time, intelligence can actually die out and the low standard of such consumers become the dominant ones - whilst greater intelligence is thus monopolised by the elite.

For myself, and others with more than half a brain, i'd still recommend the ipod classic as it gives you 160gb storage space. With this size, you can opt to play higher quality music. And by higher quality music, i don't mean mp3s (or much of contemporary music). That's compressed shite, which basically means a lot of sound information is thrown out. For instance, the max you're going to get with mp3s is 320kbps. That quite good. But with CD quality 'wave' or 'aiff' formats, which is what you get directly from the CD, you're going to get 1411kb of musical data per second.

That is why i don't understand why the idiots out there would want to pay cd-level prices for far less quality mp3s online. It's a simple case of the sellers saving loads on bandwidth by delivering lower quality and lesser-sized mp3s to you.  That's piracy isn't it.

that which is not perceptible to the conscious mind is still perceptible to the subconscious mind. It is the latter that can hear sounds and feel atmospheres that are not easily audible to the conscious ear.Of course, those whom were dumb enough to buy mp3s online for these prices would say that they don’t need all that quality, or you won’t be able to hear the difference, or they don’t mind, or it’s their choice.  All stupid responses of course.  It’s not a matter of what you need or can hear or don’t mind of your choice.  It’s a matter of training the corporations out there to rip us all of for more despite giving us even less.  So the smarter, or normal, amongst us, will have to suffer because of the abnormal masses?  Not right that. 

Besides that, you can’t judge what you need until you have been further developed by what is superior.  Any child would tell you they don’t need to go to school because they are smart enough to enjoy cartoons and boybands.  But that doesn’t make them right does it.  Same thing goes for good quality music (in sound and content).  I dare say that that which is not perceptible to the conscious mind is still perceptible to the subconscious mind.  It is the latter that can hear sounds and feel atmospheres that are not easily audible to the conscious ear. But, consciously speaking, one can also enjoy far more from higher quality digital music files than lower quality ones.

Anyway, at this very moment, i'm ripping Depeche Mode's 'Sounds of the Universe' album via itunes at 'Apple Lossless' Format which gives me full CD quality. I didn't buy the CD however. It was included in the record/vinyl version of the album which i bought in the UK.  Of course, the CD isn’t going to sound as good as the record as CDs these days are mastered for increased loudness.  You tend to miss out on the details of the various instruments and sounds.

comparison from moocowProductions

No, i’m not an ‘audiophile’.  That’s a stupid term for stupid people who want to feel special despite being as intelligent and creative as my socks.  Having clear sounds brings out the atmosphere of the music or the scene the music is supposed to illustrate - just like having clear details in a work of art, with the right smudges here and there, with the right sort of interplay between contrasting or complementary colours and lights and shadows, etc, brings out the scene depicted in a painting even more.  Is one who appreciates that supposed to be a paintophile or something?  Or in the study of history, or anything, we cannot appreciate anything in detail, and become the wiser and more developed because of it, if we just know that its superficial details right.  Same thing goes for music. 

ed