Any music consumer who cares about the audio quality of what he listens to ought to give half an hour’s time to the interview Neil Young did at The Wall Street Journal’s Dive Into Media conference.
We’re losing the battle for great-sounding music because of the assumption that we must choose between audio quality and convenience of use. In the 21st century there’s no reason we should have to choose between the two. And no reason to settle for digital sound that’s nowhere near that of 1970’s analog. Most of us haven’t heard music the way it’s supposed to sound for decades now. Some of our children never have. Why have we demanded ever larger, higher-resolution TVs but settled for the backward trend in audio reproduction? Because we think we must sacrifice great sound for the portability we want. The truth is: what we demand will be what is produced and sold, even made affordable. We just have to stop settling for a false compromise–we can have both convenience and high-resolution audio.
Neil discusses that issue and touches on a few others too, such as audio piracy, the presumed demise of the album, and how 5.1 Surround failed because women wanted furniture–not five boxes–in their living rooms.
The point Young makes in the very last minute of the interview is key: the larger and higher-quality the sound system, the better it will reveal the difference between a high-quality music file and the skimpy 5% of the music that an mp3 actually contains. And that’s why a DJ should never rely on mp3 audio to entertain wedding guests, unless his goal is to make an early night of it.
An informative and provocative 30 minutes.
Every Moment Has A Song 