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Is music quality moving away from the "audiophile"

I recently read an interesting post on the production of the new Metallica album and how its sound has been catered to the Ipod generation. Formatting the sound of the album toward the ipod itself. With computer downloads, mp3's etc, etc. it seems that "compression" over quality is becoming the norm.

In the Metallica example, I have been a fan since 84. Now, i know they are not a good example for the so called "audiophile", but that being said the production on this album is terrible. Actually, worse than their previous album St. Anger. Who makes the call on this? The band, engineer, record company? A combination of all?
zigonht
synthfreek's avatar
synthfreek
627 posts
 
Here come the posts confusing data "compression" as a means to shrink a file size with audio "compression" which makes the audio louder yet less dynamic.
cleaneduphippy
323 posts
 
Here's a link to an excellent site, and organization "Turn It Up" that talks about what many recording artist and record producers are trying to do to improve the dynamics on recordings and get away from the wholesale "compression" of recordings.

http://www.turnmeup.org/
chashmal
605 posts
 
Are you surprised that the total gestalt of the culture is turning to crap?
aball
1,994 posts
 
Chashmal - my thoughts exactly. oh well!

Arthur
musicnoise
377 posts
 
Chasmal - not surprised at all. But these things run in cycles. At one time people painted over perfectly good interior wood, a generation later we stripped the paint off. PC's, Ipod's etc have wowwed the general population in a similar fashion, the onthego culture hasn't helped. But at some point there will be a shift back in the other direction.
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