As a musician, engineer and producer I’ve always wondered what the point was/is of recording music (after the advent of “Pro” Tools becoming the standard) at 24-bit depth and at a sample rate of up to 96 KHz/sec when it just gets dithered down to 16-bit at 44.1 KHz/sec anyway. That was bad enough, but when I first heard mp3’s I thought that people would hear the lack of body in the sound and ditch that mode of playback. But, I guess convenience won out unfortunately. It’s good to see that other people see things the way I do…I guess there is hope after all.

I support T-Bone 100%!! Sound recordings should be about the dynamic of sound not just loudness you’ll find on both ipods and surround sound systems. Since the growing niche for vinyl are increasing…who knows…maybe reel-to-reel tapes will make a strong comback as well. You can still do more with a reel-to-reel tape such as overdubbing echos than with any of format ever produced! If it’s true what the above article stated, you can always “rip” the material straight off the tape for better sound with an ipodplayable AAC file or with other types of ipod files…if possible (providing if and when reel-to-reel units will ever be manufactured that will include downloadable ipod broadband plug-ins).

Is there a better way to get people to accept the new Code format than to release a couple of lame records by some washed out has beens like Johnny Cougar and Elvis Costello?

How much is Sony paying Neil to release on Blu-ray?

I’m glad some musicians see the light. I’m an advid collector of Vinyl and anyone that collects Vinyl knows the difference. The majority of people who listen to Mp3’s are the same group of people that listen to pop radio and buy Crock sandels because they are “in”. What the musicians need to start doing is record using reel to reel, not this Pro Tool garbage. Mp3’s are so watered down, its so sad for people who know the difference.

I agree with Bento, however not so much his take on Couger and Costello being washed up because that’s not a point I care to take on. I think using Code to record a more current artist would make a deeper impact because a current artist most likely have released all their records using the CD format. Cougar and Costello fans already know what their artist sounds like on vinyl (superior audio quality to CD). Bands like Pearl Jam and Queens of the Stone Age (which the industry respects and have a fairly large fan base) release their albums and CD and vinyl formats – i think if they were to use Code others would follow.

with my out of tune ear’s I noticed
a difference.It’s about time some-
body noticed,THANKYOU.

I have to wonder though, if this is not a highly intelligent method of saving the Greedy Music Business.

Meaning all Ipod/Computer type of MP3 files
used my millions to ‘get’ free music will not apply here.
While this a GREAT thing for sure and is very needed indeed. (Particularly the Uncompressed True HD ‘192KHz’ 24-Bit type of Blu-Ray) 96 KHz is great but it is the 192 that we really need here !

I still can not imagine that record companies have the nerve to give an artist about .75-$1.50 for each Album/CD/itunes sold and keep the remaining 90% for themselves !!

And do they wonder for a moment why Radiohead has decided to begin the End to this S C A M forever!

Richard Simmons new Sweatin to the Oldies record is coming out in Hi-Fi.

So the record companies have finally come to accept their fate, and are now struggling to adapt…I wonder how many board meetings with Apple has resulted in this…?! I love music, and I love high quality sound–but this might be too little too late.

It comes down to analog vs binary code.. Analog definetly sounds better but numeric softwares allowed for so much poor artists to express themselves in an affordable way and to do things that a while ago we could only do on expensive studio time and 2 inch tape.. With a compromise of sound yess but with more mediums, sounds and creativity for the “proletarians” of sounds.. Digital and analog have both their place in our music environment.

also, let’s start making music again that is worth buying.
How many great novels have been written on a computer-see it is not technology it is the art, it is the music not the medium.

Can the average consumer actually hear a difference between cd, mp3, blue-ray, etc.? You have to consider that most people 1)don’t have audiophile ears and 2)Don’t have the equipment necessary to hear the difference.
I jumped on the SACD/DVD-Audio bandwagon and in the end, it was hard for me to hear much of a difference through my system, which would be considered an upper range system.
Then again, audiophiles are the type of people who claim to hear differences in audio when the pay $5000 for exotic wires. For most people, the cost/benefit ratio is not there.

I agree that better quality sounds should be available, but many people either eq it terribly, or play the songs on their phone, which is good as having a band of cockroaches doing a gig inside an empty spaghetti tin.

“let’s start making music again that is worth buying.”

Holy crap!!! The obviousness of this statement cannot be ignored. Amen, to you, brother!

There is good music worth buying… you stupid consumers just need to stop listening to the radio and get your head outta the mainstream gutter…

There is good music worth buying… you stupid consumers just need to stop listening to the radio and get your head outta the mainstream gutter…

The two biggest problems with music in general, in my opinion, right now are: production (e.g. sound quality) and actual songs (melody, lyrics etc.). However, one is certainly more important than the other. This will certainly help with the production end of it. Hopefully it will show new possibilities to artists and the songwriting will follow. You can have good songs without stellar production, but good production is almost as good as a well dressed Easter egg if the songs aren’t there.

The “writing on a computer” analogy doesn’t work at all. If the word processor limited the number of words per sentence, or the number of letters per word, or if you could instantly gain a huge audience ONLY if you wrote to those specifications, that would be closer to what’s happened to audio with the advent of MP3.

I read the article. What are the two new formats?

I grew up on AM radio that played everything, pop, rock, bubblegum, folk, you name it. Listened to everything in the mid-60’s to early 70’s on 8-track or vinyl. It wasn’t so much the quality of the sound, it was the quality of the music, lyrics, instrumentals, etc. Question, what became of the visionaries that said DAT was the only way to go? Now a newer format, of course way more expensive so all those old vinyls that were transferred to CD can now be transferred to CODE

perhaps we should all accept the pontifications of no -count never -weres like Bento. what has he given to the world of music lately?

If Sony etc had started to release every CD as a hybrid CD/SACD at no extra cost the format might have caught on. T-Bone take note.

Everything is a conspiracy against you, isn’t it? You’re always a victim. News flash, folks. Sound quality is not a big deal to most people, certainly not for the extra cost. CD’s were the best available at the time. People bought them, why change? Now there’s something new available. You like it? Buy it. You don’t? Don’t buy it. It’s not a conspiracy by some greedy [insert industry/government here]. No one is forcing you to buy anything. Just listen to the radio for free and shut up.

Me? I’m saving my money for gas instead of a new audio format. Notice how I didn’t blame the government for high gas prices? Oh, I know. It’s all Bush’s fault, just like the death of Christopher Reeve.

Don’t be so self-absorbed and take responsibility for your own life. It’s more difficult than playing the victim, but in the long run you’ll find life much more satisfying.

I too grew up on AM radio. Transistor radios no less. I remember when we used to get real excited when a Beatle bootleg came out in actual stereo! CD’s sound just fine. Or is it my Townshend ears (?)

What seems to be missing in this “discussion” is one of the basic ideas of recording anything. A good performance will typically overcome the limits of the medium for a listener who’s interested in the music. The same can’t be said for a poor performance. It should go without saying that the quality should be as good as possible. I’m a musician and currently have a 192 khz/24 bit recording rig and have been producing recorded material for over 35 years. I also am a live sound engineer. Without the material and performance, it just doesn’t matter. I hear stuff on different mediums from blasters to to headphones to studio monitors to iPods to PA systems to car stereos, etc. over the course of a week and if I like the material, I don’t cfare what I hear it on.

Forget about the format – Sound quality could be improved dramatically with better production. Springsteen’s last cd, “Magic” is an over-compressed muddy mess that actually tires me to listen to more than 15 minutes. Apart from crappy over-production like that 99% of people couldn’t care less. It sounded great on the speakers in my parents car, it sounded great on my 8-track player and it sounds great on my ipod. Get a real cause to fight for.

I would love to see this finally evolve. Even with the cd vs mp3 comparison, there is a pretty obvious difference. As a student who can’t afford to start a vinyl collection and listens to pretty much only cds, I think this would be huge
And too all of those people say its not the sound its the crap music coming out, you really need to pay attention outside of whatever garbage is on the radio, judging todays music based off the mainstream is like judging 70’s rock based off of listening to disco

If the song sucks, does it really matter what format it’s on? Good sound quality will make no difference to mediocre/half-assed/terrible song writing. Nor will it sell records or be timeless. GET OVER IT! The people have spoken.

mmdin its the idea of us having better sounding music. Just imagine a future song that you might really like that was created with 5.1 sound and even clearer then a CD’s sound. MP3’s are horrible, and everyone is buying them like there a good deal. Everything is evolving with better technology, it would be nice that music would change too and for the better. Ipods are overpriced players that play terribly compressed sound, this is not innovation.

I don’t consider myself a music snob. I don’t own hi-fi but would like to. I have vinyl, but I listen to my ipod most of the time due to a busy life. I’ve changed the compression settings in itunes and I’ve notice a monstrous difference. I listen to my compressed music through a cheap pair of buds in public and through some hi-fi phones at home. Huge difference between compression modes. I’m really looking forward to what music on blue ray will provide through a hi-fi. I hope hard drive tech keeps up so that ipods will be able to hold all the song data.

If artists want better sound quality that’s great, but as an amateur recording artists myself, I find the raw, lo fi sound amazing(of montreal, sonic youth and such) I mean, i love the beatles white album and how raw it sounds, but at the same time, I could see how artists could benefit from a sound quality step up. What time has shown though, is that multimedia is a consumers market. How long did it take people to care about HDTVS? avery long time better yet: the record number of downloaded songs of iTunes and amazon. Prime example can be seen in the videogame industry: The Wii is the fastest selling game console ever and does not nearly contain the same amount of tech as far as visuals and sound are concerned, but the ITEM ITSELF is innovative. The music industry is changing by the day, it will be interesting to see where it goes. Keep being innovative musicians! I will try hard myself too!

You guys are missing the point. The artists aren’t concerned with whether or not you care. Music is about sending a message. With reduced sound quality, some of their message is lost. Some of what they’re trying to say to you is lost. All they’re trying to do is regain some artistic integrity in a world dominated by record company dinosaurs and talentless hacks whoring for American Idol.

When the hell are these fools going to realize that cds are good enough for the far majority of people that want a hard copy?

Just like DVDs are good enough. Blu Ray, nah.

That’s not my opinion, that’s the MARKET.

It is glaringly obvious that most of the posters here have never heard real hi-fi sound. Is it casting pearls to swine? Maybe. The quality of a lot of commercial music isn’t good enough to bother with having a true hi-fi treatment. But, be that as it may, there is good, no, great music out there that cries for great sound. Perhaps that alone would drive better production values.

It’s too bad that people’s ears have gotten used to such dross. It’s too bad the music sucks. It’s too bad people in general don’t care. It’s too bad music has become aural wallpaper, on all the time, everywhere, like some kind of soporific sound torture.

I’m certainly glad there are those who care. I will be among the undoubtedly few who will happily purchase good music in the best sounding format possible. When I listen to music, I listen to music. I don’t use music to cover the dishwasher, or whatever. So, if they can make it sound better, I’ll be all that much happier for it. As a musician and recording artist, I want my work to sound its absolute best.

I can’t believe how negative some people here are being about this… if the true colors of a painter’s work were compromised because of the paint available, they would be right to want change. What’s the difference here?

Those who don’t care will start to once better sounding material becomes common.

“If artists want better sound quality that’s great, but as an amateur recording artists myself, I find the raw, lo fi sound amazing(of montreal, sonic youth and such) I mean, i love the beatles white album and how raw it sounds, but at the same time, I could see how artists could benefit from a sound quality step up.”

Don’t confuse a lo-fi sound with lo-fi quality! The Beatles’ “White Album” is raw, yes, but it’s exactly the kind of recording that benefits from higher fidelity. It’s very textured, dynamic…same goes for most “raw” music. They’re not talking about clean sounds necessarily, just the ability to keep the sound legitimate…not squashed.

To have better sound quality the over-use of dynamic range compression and EQ to make recordings that “stands out” has to stop. The mastering engineers must focus on best quality rather than maximum volume.

If higher resolution than CD-standard audio is needed for distribution to the consumer is very debated, and in my opinion highly doubtful. There needs to be more large, scientifically contucted, studies to show what the actual benefit will be of distributing high-rez recordings to the consumer. I know of only one study of this kind and it failed to show any difference of importance.

I have nothing against high-rez recordings, except for the higher bandwidth requirements, but we need to remember that most improvements lies in the hands of the sound engineers and not in using higher numbers on the recording we distribute.

One of the reasons CDs replaced vinyl was the very poor quality of many LPs; perhaps as many as a third were faulty. This was due to very poor manufacturing techniques. Slow selling LPs were melted down to make new ones without completely removing the paper labels, resulting in all sort of pops, hisses and scratches. Very tight plastic wrapping warped others. And so on.

raw music has nothing to do with sound quality, if anything it benefits from higher quality more then the overproduced schlock

It would be nice to download WAV
or lossless format. Downloads are
the future..AAC is ok but the bit
rate could be better. 256K is the
standard now but is not quite as
good as a CD.

Hello All! Very nice JOB!!!
RESPECT

Hello All! Very nice JOB!!!
RESPECT

Hello All! Very nice JOB!!!
RESPECT

The sound quality issue is only one of the many challenges facing the music industry today. The reason SACD and DVD-Audio did not take off is the industry could not decide which format to go with, so it promoted neither. The industry has always taken the route of selling the consumer the cheapest, disposable format possible. Vinyl became expensive, so they tried eight-track, then when that did not take,standard cassettes. They re-produced the cheapest cassettes possible, with the sound quality the worst it can possibly be. At the same time, they made vinyl thinner.
When consumers decided that home taping was a better choice than pre-recorded cassettes, the industry then gave us CD’s. In most cases, they did not bother to re-master the recordings for acceptable sound quality (exceptions would be Rhino Records, in it’s pre WEA days) . This was deliberate, for once consumers complained, a cottage industry developed; the CD re-issue, which continues to this day. This caused consumers to re-purchase the CD’s, once, sometimes twice. Some labels did not even bother( ex. WEA has not re-mastered at least half , maybe more, of their back catalog.)

Chances are the industry will not embrace a high quality format as standard anytime soon. They will embrace formats incrementally, so that the consumer will buy and re-buy the same music over and over again. MP3’s and the like will be what the industry wants ultimately; this will eliminate the need for manufacturing a hard format altogether. The problem is the dumb twits did not think of this a long time ago, so the consumer is way ahead of them. And now, that consumer wants better quality, because it does SOUND BAD!.

As much as I would like a fantastic sound quality, I do not want to re-purchase Elvis Costello or David Bowie re-issues all over again, especially when the original vinyl sounds better. The other day, I noticed that the Replacements early albums were re-issued, They were priced at $17.99 each. Who are they kidding?

The thing is, no matter what, vinyl STILL sounds better. Even the thin, crackly vinyl from the 80’s sounds better than the CD’s that were produced at the same time.
The industry had it good when vinyl was the dominant format. Now the record industry is being left behind by the consumer because of the lack of innovation. The consumer wants a format that is convenient, yes, but it also wants sound quality that is better than CD, better than vinyl, at a REASONABLE COST. The technology is there, and the industry won’t embrace it.

Folks, don’t miss the target! This isn’t about music quality, it’s about sound quality. And that’s not for those who doesn’t see the difference between an original picture and it’s copy in a magazine, popcorn and real food, Chinese substitutes and high quality goods, meaningful books and comics, etc. So that’s not for those who don’t care.
Better support those who care.

I would not buy much of ANYTHING that was digitally recorded/mastered/anything, as I think that any audio that is recorded in the digital domain (at CR-rez, of course, 24/92 and DSD are better), Also, It’s NEW MUSIC. c’mon people! NEW MAINSTREAM ‘MUSIC’ SUCKS.

That’s coming from a 16 year old audio nerd.

Have a nice day.

Personally, I liked the DVD Audio/CD hybrid discs. I own quite a few of them by Son Volt, Miles Davis, ACDC and REM. I think that DVD Audio sounds best to these ears. Give it another shot. M.

I think it would be much more important to focus on the engineering/mastering process than the media. The media, whether analog or digital seems to be less of a limiting factor on quality than the morons behind the control boards that either by choice or force, are being a little too liberal with the normalization and compression controls.

“There is good music worth buying… you stupid consumers just need to stop listening to the radio and get your head outta the mainstream gutter…”

I couldn’t agree more. In fact, I don’t ever recall a more properous era of good music than what we have seen over the last decade or two.

The music has been exceptional, the mastering and production of much of even the good music is subpar.

What difference does the media the message is carried on make, when the engineers don’t have a clue what they are doing? Or, when the execs are telling the engineers to ramp it up and record everything as hot as possible?

Crappy engineering, crappy sound.. Until some people come around with the ear and skills like George Martin, or Alan Parsons, or many others that were of the same calibre, the sound just isn’t going to be there..

Music on blueray will not sound better if played back through a cheap DVD player housing a mass of cheap chips and parts, plus additional mediocre audio components. It’s not just how the music is recorded, it’s also about how it’s played back. There is no free lunch in audio playback — everything is important.

I think it all comes down to the advancement of the IC – Intergrated circuit, and the abilitity to expand the bandwidth. Current audio is 16-bit and with a larger band width we can expand to 24-bit and beyond. I like the idea of CODE using a DVD player as DVDplayers are becoming the new standard as more LCD’s are installed in cars. Go buy a MAC or a new Dell laptop and it comes with a DVD player. I think CODE is arriving at the time when DVD players become the new standard and kiss plain jane CD players good bye. The beauty to hardware advancements is that DVD players can play audio CD’s so everybody gets to eat their cake to.

Crank it up!

DTS was the best of the better of the 3 .. sacd and even DVD audio
which i love too (Sony is always
killing music … lol
… and vinyl
should always be
180gm and up…
keep it going
tho remember
music is your only friend
peace and
sounda always

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With bigger hard drives and faster internet why aren’t they offering the lossless Flac format?

Mp3 or compessed music isn’t needed or wanted anymore.

Mp3 was great on dalup but sounds like music on a am radio.