Quality

Read an article yesterday. This article talks about how the iPod has reduced sound quality to "Fisher-Price toy levels".

Well, I beg to differ with almost everything Mr. Neil Young says.

He claims that "Apple has taken a detour down the convenience highway" and this has caused the fall in audio quality levels. To save my live, I cannot see any sense in his argument. Yes, I agree that Apple has made it much easier for mere mortals to gain access to music. Yes, Apple has made it more convenient to not just bring music along with you, but bring all your music along with you. Yes, Apple has made it easier to cheaply obtain music legally through the iTunes Music Store (Though, sadly lacking in Singapore). But in no way can i see how this caused the fall in audio quality.

If music CD's are purchased and ripped into 320 kbps, WAV format or even better, FLAC or ALAC, how does that lower the sound quality? The CD was mastered in WAV format. Essentially, he is saying that making a exact copy of the music in its original format is reducing the quality. Its like saying that taking notes during a lecture will reduce the quality of the instuction.

El Weirdo also says that "We have beautiful computers now but high-resolution music is one of the missing elements". I have two bones to pick with this statement. First, who says that high-resolution music doesn't exist. And second, anyone who has seen an ASUS EEE PC can tell you that it is as far from beautiful as Arnold Schwarzenegger is from being a woman.

Funny enough, he does not blame comsumers from ripping songs at extremely low bitrates in shitty formats like Windows Media Audio (.wma) which i believe is the main cause. If anything, ignorance of the general public should be the main reason.

I'm surprised that someone with the mental capacity of a mealworm is able to identify blu-ray discs as the storage medium of the future.