THIS IS YOUR BRAIN ON COMPRESSED MUSIC

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A quote from Neil:  (from the Boing Boing site)

 

"The compressed, hollow sound of free streaming music was a big step down from the CD and a huge step down from vinyl."

 

"We are poisoning ourselves with degraded sound.  The development of our brains is led by our senses; take away too many of the necessary cues, and we are trapped inside a room with no doors or windows.  Substituting smoothed-out algorithms for the contingent complexity of biological existence is bad for us."

 

 "Engineers often responded to the smaller size and lower quality of these packages by using cheap engineering tricks like masking the softer parts of the song as loud as the loudest parts. This flattened out the sound of recording and fooled listeners's brains into ignoring the stuff that wasn't there anymore"  (MQA?)

 

And further:  "It is an insult to the human mind and the human soul"    

 

I can't argue with Neil.  Plastic nano particles are in the rain and in the snow, no fish is plastic free, governments are worthless.  Hate is ascendant, big insurance companies have tame police forces chasing "insurance fraud", people actually purchase surveillance devices and place them in their homes.  Right wing dictators cut down the rain forest.  And now we know why, low rez compressed music has destroyed our brains.   

 

 

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12 hours ago, Ralf11 said:

Based on Reiss's work, I'm gonna go with:  The best CD quality audio is [almost] as good as the best high-res. 

 

i.e. the difference is difficult to detect, but trained listeners can do so to a high statistical likelihood

 

as for Neil, I dunno - love his music but not his audiology or his one-sided history of the Aztecs (they were brutal)

 

 

Oh yes, those Aztecs were brutal.  And those Europeans did such a good job of enslaving the natives.  And those wonderful Priests who made sure that most of the codex(s?) were burned.  No good guys back then.   In fact, I would like to see Spain and Portugal cut a $1000. check to each surviving native person from Mexico to Chile.  We could call it reparations!

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6 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

I would call it a very poor idea. But this is an audio forum, and no place for politics.

 

 

Oh George.   Mr Young sez that your brain is under assault because of missing bits and bytes and you are worried about politics?

Get thee to vinyl and, as the Jefferson Airplane once said:  "Feed Your Head".

 

Ok, Ok, lets cut the payment down to $500. and call it a day.

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19 minutes ago, psjug said:

Do you think Neil Young is supporting Pocahontas for president?

 

 

I have no doubt about Mr. Young's affiliation:  To wit:  One of the great NY songs:   

 

 

And maybe Marlon Brando
Will be there by the fire
We'll sit and talk of Hollywood
And the good things there for hire
And the Astrodome
and the first tepee
Marlon Brando, Pocahontas and me
Marlon Brando, Pocahontas and me
Pocahontas.

 

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“Everything Matters”. Yes, but I maintain the recording matters more.  A good recording sounds....well,  good.   

 

A bad (or poor) recording is not going to be improved on any format.  I would advise more attention be paid to sourcing outstanding recordings than ultra expensive equipment.   

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4 hours ago, Ralf11 said:

 

NYET!!!  Anything 140 dB down does not matter.

 

- agree with the rest of your post

 

glad you agree.  but I don't get the 140 dB!   (Which dB are we talking about?)