The mp3 format is now a good ten years old, and it has been instrumental in the widespread acceptance of the internet as a platform for music distribution. Together with the increasing broadband speeds available, mp3s mean that music is now available in ever faster, more convenient packages. But there comes a point where the tradeoff between instantaneity of file transfer and the quality of the end product comes under question — and as broadband speeds cross the 10Mb/s threshold and large hard drive prices get progressively lower, do we really need our music to be that compressed?
The average 128kbps mp3 file — still apparently the most common compression ratio — contains about an eleventh of the data that was on the original CD. In other words, ten times as much audio information has been thrown away than has been kept. This is not an argument for audiophiles — even the most casual observer can tell the difference.
Even using a rudimentary 1Mb broadband connection, the difference between the download speed of an mp3 at 128kbps and an mp3 at 256kbps is a matter of seconds. The acoustic and aesthetic difference between the two is astonishing – comparable to the difference between AM and FM radio. Surely nobody’s that impatient.
But stretch that further. The difference between a 256kbps mp3 file and a lossless file, either encoded in FLAC (the Free Lossless Audio Codec) or as an uncompressed WAV or AIFF file is entirely comparable. You wait a little while longer, it takes up a little more hard drive space — and the difference is impressive.
The balance between convenience and quality is one that drives consumer issues — particularly in the area of music. iPods are convenient. SACD and DVD-Audio are very high quality music formats. How many people do you know with an SACD player?
Record labels are starting to notice that you can’t play a low bitrate music file at anything like a reasonable volume and get any enjoyment out of it. Some online labels — particularly in the dance genre — are selling 192kbps files for personal listening, and — for a little bit more — 320kbps files for DJs who want to use them in their live performances. Audiophile formats like jazz and classical tend toward the higher end of the spectrum too.
But others are starting to wonder if even the high-end mp3 might be coming to the end of its lifecycle. If storage space is not a problem and speed of internet transfer becomes less and less, then why would the consumer continue to want cassette quality, when real CD quality could be made available for almost no sacrifice in convenience?
So what about all the other mp3s in the collection? Will we be expected to replace all of our music all over again?
Not necessarily. Nifty little gadgets like the Creative X-MOD, which ‘upsamples’ music and claims to be able to get better-than-CD quality out of ordinary old mp3s might bridge the gap and give us the quality we deserve from the music collection we started building ever since our computers first started having soundcards.
The better-than-CD claim may be dubious, but I guess it depends on your definition of quality. Accuracy — the holy grail of music fidelity — does not automatically equate with ‘pleasing to the ear’. Anyone who has monitored a mix using a pair of Yamaha NS-10s will tell you that those suckers will show up every flaw and blemish in your music. They might be accurate (actually, they’re not – but they’re more so than most home hi-fi speakers), but I won’t have them in my house.
It may be a while before mp3s go the way of audio cassettes — but the reason that they were invented no longer applies. If you sell music, you might want to start to think about issues of bitrate and file format. And if you listen to music — you might want to think about checking out that X-MOD thing. Nobody believes they provide accurate and faithful representations of the original source material — but I am yet to see a bad review.
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[...] Speaking of hip. I will say this again. It is time for everybody to move beyond lossy compression like mp3. Current technology is advance enough for us to use lossless compression on the net. MP# was created to replace radio for medium bandwith transmission, definitely not consumer audio purchases. New Music strategy has an article “The death of mp3? But there comes a point where the tradeoff between instantaneity of file transfer and the quality of the end product comes under question  and as broadband speeds cross the 10Mb/s threshold and large hard drive prices get progressively lower, do we really need our music to be that compressed?” [...]
4 Comments
Whenever I have this conversation with anyone, they always tell me “yeah, but I can’t tell the difference anyway”. Assuming they’re not actually partially deaf, I guess this idea comes from the fact that they can’t spot that a file sounds rubbish because it is at a low bitrate – they probably just don’t enjoy it as much.
I guess a good analogy is the difference between good fresh, organic food and a microwave meal. If you’re only presented one at a time, you might not be able to pinpoint why you really enjoyed one of them and not the other. Of course, a ‘connaisseur’ would find this idea purposterous, as I did with music until recently. But the truth is, if you’re hungry, you don’t really care so long as it’s edible.
Unfortunately, this makes it a bit of a hard sell, because you won’t how bad your Mp3s really are unless you hear them ‘side-by-side’ with their FLAC equivalent. Just as you won’t realise how bad that mini-system is until you set it up next to a real hi-fi. Sadly, both require more effort than most people are prepared to invest.
I hear the same phrase, that people cannot tell the difference. My guess is that it’s because they are only playing there files through Ipods, low end headphones, etc. I would bet that if they played them through decent equipment they would notice what a huge difference it makes.
i think its a little narrow minded to say its the end of mp3… so many other factors come into it…
look at it this way…. someone could copy all their vinyl to wav…. no compression at all yet still play it on a system with low quality speakers, they might have well converted to mp3 ‘cos they wont ever hear a difference… not only that, but a lot of good music was recorded well before the seventies, at the time the they could have recorded on a 4 or 8 track, it will be a poor mix as well, even if you dont compress you’ll still have a poor quality of sound….
the truth is if you hear your favourite band playing live you will have people round you talking, shouting, screaming, all this deters the sound… if you record it from a studio it can come across too clean… most purists say vinyl is king because the hisses and crackling make it what it is… could you imagine trying to make that statement about mp3??
finally, i have never heard a difference between mp3 at 320kbps and wav, i’m sure there is one, but maybe my ears just cant pick up the difference in frequencies….
I think mp3′s are ok to quicly see if you like a song but they sure do not compare with a decent vinyl pressing.
Depending on what I’m listening to cds can be acceptable, but I still like vinyl. I happen to be disabled brom a drunk driver so I buy cds & I will not let my helpers fingerprint my vinyl…
On a different matter we are charged on blank media for the music industry so that must mean we can download pirated music? I personally do not but I resent the surcharge and overpriced cds.
End rant.