The Future Of Music?

[Teifiterror]

I was reading a post on the Hi-Fi choice forums and decided to ask the question here.

"What do you see as the future format for audio in 10 years time?"

As a self confessed audiophile I belive quality of the production is the most important aspect of the frormat which is why I hope higher cpacity formats such as SACD and DVD-A become more widespread. But my main concern is with the high uptake of low quality/low bitrate mp3's that are being downloaded by the general public from websites such as itunes. This obviously has ease of use advantages but the lack of high quality rules it out for me.

So what are eveyones views on this on this?

 

[Mr_Sukebe]

The available formats will always be driven by consumer demand and spending power. That's why there's been a recent increase in the number of more specialist LP production, to cater for the number of new decks now been sold in seemingly ever greater numbers. I can understand that after listening to a few, they often sound brill.

SACD/DVD-A seems like a hiding to nothing. Doesn't sound as good as LP, yet has an even bigger lack of availability. It's only ever going to be bought by a small number of enthusiasts, a good deal of who I'd expect to also look seriously at LP.

CD still sounds great, and I'm just hoping it won't get completely stuffed. The good news is that it must cost peanuts to buy the kit to produce CDs now, meaning that going forward, we'll still have fairly cheap software.

Low bitrate downloads are definitely the big issue. Will increased availability of these result in some labels choosing not to produce CDs? Quite possibly is the answer. Lets just hope that it's only applied to highly compressed pop garbage.

 

[tom_nieto]

I think CD is here to stay in the near future at least. Vinyl is also on the increase, but will never get back into the mainstream. I think the next big thing will be much higher quality downloads, possibly even 5.1 or DD/DTS encoded ones. SACD/DVD-A won't really take off I don't think. Before we see anything emerge that will really challenge CDs the entire music industry and equipment manufacturers will need to agree on a common format.

 

[pinkaardvark]

I would anticipate that Blu Ray or HD-DVD will follow the existing price trends shown for CD, CDRW, DVD and DVDRW in that within a few years there will be a sigle drive manufacturer chucking them out for near cost, allied with a similar reduction in production costs for the media were going to reach a point where the Record Labels and the public raise the question "Why have two media formats?" And hopefully the answer will be simply to put Audio onto HD_DVD or BluRay and subsequently provide higher quality as a result of higher storage space.

 

[DRZ]

Given that (my) tests show that few people can tell the difference between a well encoded low bit rate MP3 and a CD, I cant see there being a huge demand for massively higher bandwidths in generally available music formats.

Extending the available frequency range up to about 100kHz has, in some studies (comissioned by supertweeter manufacturers, I might add) shown that listeners believe there is a quality difference when exposed to the full range of harmonics generated by certain instruments. The candidates also decided they were listening to silence when exposed to just the harmonics above 22kHz despite ECG traces showing increased brain activity - suggesting that detection is there (in very, very small quantities) and it is a mechanism other than traditionally though of "hearing" that gives rise to this qualitative difference.

Given that the best measurement microphones are capable of about 103kHz or so, its feasible that some studios could record that high (and there is definite energy content up there from certain instruments) but your average joe on the street simply cannot hear it because they arent going to fork out hundreds on a speaker capable of flatly reproducing sounds up to 100kHz!

The old adage of 20hz-20kHz as the human hearing response might be total BS but for the practicalities of reasonably faithful reproduction of content that makes a significant difference it is more than enough.

From this train of thought, I feel as though CD is almost there in as far as that it is, to all intents and purposes, good enough for the buying public.

There are too many studios putting out work that doesnt take full advantage of what CD has to offer - perhaps that is what needs to change before we go ramping up the available bandwidth?

 

[9designs2]

Oh this seems like a good soap box to climb on.... my fav

Yep I see download becoming the "norm" for the masses.
DRZ, yes your test did show higher bit rates sounded the same, after all were downloaded. BUT compare any of them to the purchased CD and they were all lacking. The timing was lost and sounded flat and lifeless.... remember one of them was my CD !!!

SACD biggest waste of time...Sony Music has given up on it, leaving the Hardware guys up poo creak !!! Great potential wasted, nice to use, track names scroll on player etc.... Sound Quality irrelevant

DVD/A got one, Fleetwood Mac Rumours, will never buy another, user interface and control complete toilet... You have to have a display screen on to access the menus, then look at a static image !!! Rubbish to use. Sound Quality irrelevant.

CD.. Sound Quality irrelevant.

Vinyl.... I kneel before my LP12 every night before going to bed..


Sound Quality irrelevant ???? why..... I've come to the conclusion most recording engineers are either deaf, stupid, or have crap monitoring equipment..or all of them..... At present the format is irrelevant, as so many recordings are such utter rubbish compared to what any of the formats are capable of.... Actually the newer formats and equipment is showing up what a bad job is done..... What do I base this on.... occasionally you get a real good recording... which proves what can be achieved...
I think modern technology and methods have made it worse, take the recording of bass, digitally there is no space constraints of frequency limits, so any old bass notes and noise is left in the recording.....poorly mixed as possibly full range monitors were not used ????
In the Vinyl days that would have caused grove modulation problems, so the mix, edit was carefully done to only have real or required bass information.
Also a lot of stuff is mixed for "radio" or compressed usage, upper bass is boosted to sound good on limited equipment and cars.

Want an example...... Try the 1st Jackson Johnson album, Brushfire fairytales.
STUNNING CD.... sounds not so good in the car though...far to dynamic extended frequency range.... awesome low end bass control and notes. And I love the laid back music style.. new find for me
To me so much music is over processed, it becomes so apparent when you hear a "live" or "straight no over dubs" recordings

As customers we are getting ripped off.. sold new technologies as great improvements in quality, and then it's rarely delivered.

The industry is killing our music !!!!

( 9d steps down from soap box to collect stiff drink )

 

[Teifiterror]

Some good points there 9designs2.

I do think that the quality of the recording is seriously letting us down these days. And anyone who heard X&Y (I HATE coldplay so dont start!) would know what a bad quality recording is (not that the music was good in the first place!).

I find it interesting how lots of people are returning to vinyl as they are unhappy with the quality of CD's etc. And hopefully this is something I will be moving 'up' to in the next few years as funds allow. So how can it be that a supposedly old technology still produces one of the best sounds around? compared to all these modern high bandwidth bitrate digital sources? Cd etc. They nay be easier to live with, but are they easier on the ears?