Here’s a post about how people are starting to like the compressed format of MP3. It’s pretty interesting to have some statistics on the perceptions of these lossy formats.
Since probably the 80s, mastering engineers have been compressing music more and more – compressing is the act of averaging the volume levels in a recording to take advantage of the way our ears work and make the perceived volume louder. The trend has been to keep increasing the volume levels of recordings, which essentially takes a lot of the dynamics out of the music to keep the average volume of the song at a pretty static level. Some audio purists think that this degrades the music, others just like it that way. I guess it’s really a horse-a-piece. We’re trying to compress a little bit and still keep some dynamics. Moderation in all things…
MP3s do a similar thing – they take off the highs and lows that most human ears don’t even recognize. The audio purists again think that these are essential parts to the music and shouldn’t be cut out, others don’t care since they couldn’t hear them anyway. What do you think?
http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/03/the-sizzling-sound-of-music.html
