The soul. Yeah, like, far out, man.Neil Young slams Apple, iTunes
Folk and rock star Neil Young has issued sharp criticism of Apple and the iPod, Fortune reports. Speaking at a conference hosted by the magazine, Young said that the sound quality of recordings has been reduced to "Fisher-Price toy" levels in recent years, and companies like Apple are to blame. "Apple has taken a detour down the convenience highway," says Young. "Quality has taken a complete backseat -- if it even gets in the car at all."Although providing faster downloads and more space on music players, Young believes that the prevalence of the MP3 format -- spurred in part by the iPod -- has resulted in a general lowering of sound standards. Music has become more "like wallpaper" as a result, he claims. "We have beautiful computers now but high-resolution music is one of the missing elements," he adds. "The ears are the windows to the soul."
As expected, Mr. Young blames the evil corporation, rather than acknowledging that it's apparently what the consumers want and will pay for.
There are lossless formats widely available Mr. Harvest Moon, you stone-aged dinosaur. The problem is they are HUGE files, and nobody but the strictest audiophiles insist on using a terabyte for what they could put on 10 gigabytes.
The fact of the matter is anything at over 256kps on an mp3 is virtually the same (to humans, anyway) as a lossless recording. Anything at 320kps and above and only the most minute dynamics are lost. So when you compare the file size of a 320kps rip and a Lossless FLAC rip (roughly a 1:5 ratio) I along with 99% of everyone else in the rockin' free world is willing to make that trade off.
For those who aren't, they don't need an iPod to begin with.
It's not the format that's making your music sound like shit. That would be your whiny, crackly voice. But to make sound even worse is your record company's and producer's jacking up the compression levels. That's not the fault of a format.
I can't believe somebody thought this newsworthy. From you I mean. I can't believe I'm even responding. Oh, well. Done now.
(Hat tip: iPodNN)
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