The Death of High Fidelity
Rolling Stone has a good report on what you probably already knew,
music doesn’t sound as good anymore.
Music is mastered primarily for playback with little white stumps shoved into your ear. Which is to say, not the optimal listening experience. It’s interesting that portable mp3 players weren’t designed to playback audio to accommodate in-ear/earbuds, rather than the other way around. When played back in home stereos, the music will probably sound awful.
This christmas, I got a nice pair of headphones, and gave them for a spin listening to Rubber Soul in a lossless format. I was amazed that I heard guitar parts, vocal clarity, and even small ‘imperfections’ in the performances.
I suspect that the pendulum will swing back to High Fidelity, eventually, once people realize what they are missing.
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