Music Servers and Compressed vs. Lossless audio
Arnie Williams -- Fri, 07/28/2006 - 15:50
A colleague recently visited with a multi-billionaire (so price was no obstacle) who has a house that covers one city block in which he has 32 or so audio stations, all distributed from multiple music servers.
My colleague asked him what audio format he uses, and to his surprise, this gazillionaire uses MP3 exclusively?
My question. Why? If you have the resources, why not go with lossless audio?
What is the experience of the rest of you? Given a choice, do you opt for higher-resolution every time?
--Arnie Williams
Managing Editor, The Perfect Vision
Sounds like to me the guy got bad advice. 32 listening stations for MP3? Why bother? Was he just trying to out-jones a neighbor? I didn't grow up in the golden era where a hi-fi was what everyone aspired to own, but I seldom listen to anything via MP3--not when a good stereo is around. Of course, I'm also not one of those people who watches TV on the iPod either so maybe I'm just a luddite.
Bob Gendron
Music Editor, TAS and Playback
The fellow owns a music-server company. An interesting question is, for those people who stream all their music from a central server, whether they take the time and bandwidth to load everything in lossless format or go with the quick and easy mp3.
A good "walk the floor" poll to take at the upcoming CEDIA show.
--Arnie Williams,
Managing Editor, TPV
Arnie Williams
Executive Editor, Playback
4544 S. Lamar G300
Austin, TX 78745
(512) 891-7780
This situation is amazing, discouraging, and yet completely to be expected. Most folks believe that MP3 is as good as recorded music needs to be. For playing in the background, in the car, or on an iPod while riding the NYC subway, it's probably adequate, but no serious music lover would listen to MP3 on a good audio system. It's like ordering burgers and fries at a fine restaurant -- just gross.
Barry Willis
All good points, Barry and Bob.
However, billionaires don't get that wealthy by being ill informed. Seems to me this fellow senses something about the market for streamed music and is using his resources to test out some pet theories.
A sad but true factoid: what the market wants and will pay for doesn't always line up with what a purist (or even reasonably flexible appreciator of high quality) would hope for.
But there are technologists out there, no doubt, who are also exploring ways to get quality back in where it has been left out during early market development and penetration.
We'll see. It does signal a phenom to be mindful of.
--Arnie Williams, Mg. Ed., TPV
Arnie Williams
Executive Editor, Playback
4544 S. Lamar G300
Austin, TX 78745
(512) 891-7780
Arnie,
Regarding the billionaire who didn't get there by being ill-informed, that's absolutely true. Money doesn't buy good taste, however. I just hope this guy enjoys his MP3s as much as he likes his high-tech toys.
BW
Let me turn the focus to assessing well-recorded music converted to lossless format vs the cd it was ripped from. Does anyone think we have arrived or are approaching an era of wireless servers connected to high end audio systems which rival or, dare I say, surpass the high-end cd player--in all or most or many or any of the attributes by which we measure high-end cd players? If so, what are the qualifyers? What would need to be in the system that might stand up best to its cd source? Any particular squeeze box, or squeeze box/DAC combination? Wireless vs. cabling? Please feel free to mention set-up requirements, or particular products: Sonos, Slim Device's Transformer or whatever? Background: I was just about to upgrade from my ECM-1UP to a player in the under $10,000 range (perhaps MBL or AMR or Audio Aero or Meridian) when a friend who imports/distributes high-end gear told me to consider the wireless alternative. He is a neighbor of Robert Harley in New Mexico who he says has been over to hear his A/B comparisons. Anecdotally, I am only three months into owning and playing 2700 songs in Apple Lossless on my 80 gig iPod, along side my ECM 1-UP; and I am favorably impressed. Recently I tried ripping a few cd's into WAV files and felt it may be even better than Apple Lossless. Comments? Suggestions? Randy
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