Can You Tell the Difference?
One of the things I always dealt with as a sales person in high end audio was the inability of people to discern a difference between one quality of audio reproduction and another.
Many times the problem was not an inability to discern, but to distinguish which of the reproductions was better. In my tests, I found that most can tell a difference in sound, but are not educated enough about the sound of real music to know what they should be listening for.
The uninitiated might think this is an indictment of the type of music they listen to, and, in some respects, it is. But it is not a slam on any type of music, any more than it was when i was being taught, and learning that for someone to know what sounds correct, they must have a frame of reference that can easily be returned to, as a quick trip back to reality. Usually that reality was live music, performed on unamplified instruments.
Many things take a while to get out to the larger public, and I suppose this is one of those things. A story on slashdot tells a bit more.
“Results of a blind listening test show that a third of people can’t tell the difference between music encoded at 48Kbps and the same music encoded at 160Kbps. The test was conducted by CNet to find out whether streaming music service Spotify sounded better than new rival Sky Songs. Spotify uses 160Kbps OGG compression for its free service, whereas Sky Songs uses 48Kbps AAC+ compression. Over a third of participants thought the lower bit rate sounded better.”
Now some of this is that many people are sonically ignorant (as explained above) but also there are two other things that must be had to tell the difference. One is a musical source that is different enough in tone, timbre, and range to allow discernment. The other is equipment capable of resolving the differences between good and poor reproduction.
In this day of MP3 players, bad ear buds, and people who think Bose is a designer of quality equipment, there is much to repair. More than could possibly be taken to task in one article.
If you wish to educate your ears, and your mind, about quality music (again, not genre, but quality – there are Motley Crue songs that are well recorded, just as there are Beethoven symphonies that suffer from really bad recording techniques and reproduction).
It takes a bit of work, but learning about good music, and quality reproduction is a journey worth taking.
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2 Comments
leftystrat
October 22nd, 2009
at 5:49pm
Bose. Hahahahahaha!
I think that between ubiquitous audio compression and computer speakers, high end audio is mostly done.
But’s it’s ok – we now have people putting 15″ woofers in their cars.
Just remember: you can’t fit a square wave through a round speaker…
the oracle
October 23rd, 2009
at 10:44pm
And you can’t roller skate in a buffalo herd.
You know, it truly is difficult to get a quality pair of computer speakers – I tend to use near-field monitors, but not of the JBL or Cerwin Vega variety.