Interesting article: Quality of compressed music

Sad, but very true I suspect. Hopefully there will remain a critical mass of artists that actually care how their music sounds on a decent system to combat this. A few 'pop' albums I have purchased as they have a catchy tune I liked sound terrible through my Naim kit - screechy, too much high end etc.

A good article, probably states the obvious to folks on this forum.

Aside from the baby boomers, who is there to recognize that other levels of sound quality exist beyond the MP3? The heyday of SQ occurred at the onset of the digital era (late 70s) when analogue recording on vinyl was at its peak. That's why I prefer to listen to AAA vinyl from that era or before, even though there is so much good music being recorded digitally today under recent RIAA standards.

Rock/popular/modern music has become background to everything else that goes on in people's busy lives; a filler between text messages, noise at sporting events, jingles for commercials and TV programs, exercise accompaniment, you name it. When you hear it through $10 earbuds, why be concerned with how it was produced?

The notion of someone dedicating their time solely to listen to hi fi music (and do nothing else) probably seems absurd to today's youth. But if you're going to have the level of kit that folks on this forum have, doesn't it require at least some dedicated listening with high quality recordings to be truly appreciated?

In the town where I live you will see a lot of people walking about with full size headphones on. To me this shows that people do appreciate good quality sound. I suspect that MP3 is simply a result of the limitations of storage capacity and internet speeds from a number of years ago.

Full size HPs offer isolation relative to earbuds, but are not necessarily an indication of better sound quality. Folks in the US spend lots of money on over ear Beats HPs. They provide a huge coloration on the bottom end and are looked upon stylistically as Nike-Airs for the ears.

I see very few people with Beats anymore. However, if you dislike them that doesn't mean that those that buy them are not hearing an improvement. Heck, I ended up buying Bose as my latest portables having listened to quite a few.

At both gyms where I train Beats by Dre are VERY common - more so with my African-American buddies.  I use a pair of Able-Planet noise cancelling headphones; they were at Costco and are fine for working out...where the amount of weight moved is much more important to me than the music sound quality.

I think the main advantage of over-ear vs buds is less potential for ear damage.  SQ can be better, but when you are listening to lossy formats it really becomes a point of overkill.  I know the few mp3s I have on my VB sound like crap through my Naim system - like Dave said above - very shrill and fatiguing. 

That is also my "beef" with Amazon; mp3s.  I get a free mp3 download with many CDs I buy, and it's like "who the f*** cares?"  I wish they had non-lossy formats too.  But they are pandering to the lowest common denominator I guess.

Great article Iver - thanks for sharing!