Jeff Allen Myers
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7/24/2008 12:28:15 PM
Neil Young on the Current state of Music fidelity.
Interesting piece, make sure you read the response at the bottom of the article.
Neil Young takes on the iPod
By Michal Lev-Ram
HALF MOON BAY, Calif. — In the iPod age, music sound quality has been dumbed down to “Fisher-Price toy” levels, rock star and tech enthusiast Neil Young said Wednesday at Fortune’s Brainstorm Tech Conference.
“Apple has taken a detour down the convenience highway,” Young told the Brainstorm audience after taking the stage for an interview with Time Inc. editor-in-chief John Huey. “Quality has taken a complete backseat - if it even gets in the car at all.”
Photo: Russ Curtis
Young talked about what he considers to be the poor audio quality of MP3s, creating electric-hybrid cars, (his “obsession”) and a long-term, multimedia archiving project of his entire career (which he says should be available as a series of Blu-Ray discs later this year.) Young hopes that becomes the basis for an alternative digitial platform featuring higher quality sound that will be made available to other musicians.
Young spent most of his time on stage lamenting what he feels is an increasing focus on convenience versus quality in today’s iTunes/iPod-dominated music industry. And he wasn’t afraid to criticize companies - Apple (AAPL) in particular - that he feels have brought down audio standards. An Apple spokesperson wasn’t immediately available for comment.
Huey noted that when he once visited Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ home, the living room featured a turntable and and a stack of LPs.
Young complained that music has become “like wallpaper” - more Muzak than music. “We have beautiful computers now but high-resolution music is one of the missing elements,” he said. “The ears are the windows to the soul.”
This response is probably the best I’ve read over at Macdailynews.com …
“Of course, Young’s right. He’s just blaming the wrong party.
Apple sells music via their iTunes Store at the best quality levels the music cartels will allow. If you want to criticize, then criticize those responsible for the problem, please. Leave Apple out of it. (We suppose you could stretch far beyond the bounds of reason and attempt to blame Apple for not including $500 audiophile-quality headphones with every iPod, but let’s stay realistic).
Apple iPods are perfectly capable of playing pristine high-fidelity sound with frequency responses of 20Hz to 20,000Hz. Apple’s iTunes can import using the extremely high-quality Apple Lossless Encoder. In fact, Apple even offered encoding in MP3 format at bit rates up to 320 kbps at no extra cost long before most other applications. Of course, you’ll sacrifice hard drive space for sound quality.
Bottom line: The music cartels, NOT APPLE, are to blame for not allowing real high-resolution music to be sold online, which is Young’s real criticism, we believe. Apple, Apple iPod, and Apple’s iTunes software are not to blame. You can easily get very high-quality music into and out of an Apple iPod using Apple’s iTunes software.”
Posted By David, Phoenix, Arizona : July 24, 2008 2:11 pm
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