“You know what the biggest problem with music today is?” John Paczkowski asks for AllThingsD. “Sound quality.”
“That’s Neil Young’s take on the issue, anyway. For years, the musician has been obsessed with improving the way modern music sounds, sonically speaking,” Paczkowski reports. “In an interview with Walt Mossberg and Peter Kafka at our D: Dive Into Media conference, Young, the perennial music purist, said that while modern music formats like MP3 are convenient, they sound lousy.”
Paczkowski reports, “So what’s the solution? New hardware capable of playing audio files that preserve more of the data present in original recordings, said Young. Ah. But who’s going to produce that? Said Young, ‘Some rich guy.'”
“And evidently there once was some rich guy working on just such a device,” Paczkowski reports. “The late Apple CEO Steve Jobs. ‘Steve Jobs as a pioneer of digital music, and his legacy is tremendous,’ Young said. ‘But when he went home, he listened to vinyl. And you’ve got to believe that if he’d lived long enough, he would have done what I’m trying to do.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple Lossless.
Dinosaur = extinct
Are you referring to vinyl or Young? Either way, both are doing quite well.
Neil Young is a witless douche…
The only reason people are aware of him is because of his association with CS&N. Had it not been for them, Neil would remained an obscure, anonymous ‘musician’.
NY is the ‘Ed Begley, Jr.’ of music… aka: ‘the cousin kept in the basement that none of the other family members want to talk about’. They know he exists, it’s just not polite to speak of him in public.
NY is a buffoon. End of story.
Neil Freakin’ Young? One of the WORST singers and guitar players ever, want’s better sound quality? Why, so we can all hear how how horrible he sounds in excruciating detail?
Feel the same way about Dylan?
Dylan’s not great either but at least his lyrics are leagues better Young’s. Dylan’s voice is also far more entertaining to listen to even if it isn’t a good voice per se. If William Hung spoke English better than he does, his singing ability would be on a par with Young’s.
The Mac, you’re a funny guy, tone deaf, but funny.
Do you yell at the neighborhood kids if they walk on your newly cut lawn?
Two musical icons ( I’m not a fan of Dylan) and you think they are shit. Pointless comment from a pointless poster.
I hope Young succeeds because he is CORRECT.
No. What’s really pointless is having this bullshit discussion about MP3 and vinyl, which at 320kbps are undistinguishable in any but the most expensive sound reproducers, while every recording that came out after the 80s has been butchered digitally by being compressed into oblivion….
i disagree, i can hear difference between 320kbps file and uncompressed one, without any problem
Don’t tell me, let me guess, you’re an accountant who thinks he knows music better than those who perform music. You are living proof that most people have horrible taste. Young’s an icon? Sure, but so are Spears, Simpson and Cobain….GAG!
By the way, if you actually knew something about the subject, you’d know that there’s no such thing as “Tone Deaf”. It’s Pitch Deaf and Young couldn’t hold a pitch if his life depended on it.
I also don’t like either of those performers… but i respect them because they earned the respect they got. Today’s artists think respect comes from wearing a giant diamond studded cross, or chunking out stupid obscenities on top of a hit from the 80’s and call it a ” remix”. total crap. Although today there are some great ones. Lady Gaga is one…. I would love to get her work on vinyl! Even if someone doesn’t like her, they have to admit that the recordings produced are rich and dynamic. The sound is unexpected from todays slacking artists.
Lady Gaga? Oh, You mean “his” work. When a person has a penis we refer to them as “he” or “him.” And yes, for a dude, he can really sing like the best of the great female artists. Too bad his content sucks.
Young and The Mac are both correct.
Hmm… who DO you like, just out of curiosity?
Buck Owens
Then you are by default a Dwight Yoakam fan?
How about both…
http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/dwight-sings-buck/id266314686
TT! Not me, silly. I was humorously attributing that to the commenter above (The Mac That Roared).
Although I am fond of T. G. Sheppard…
Then you would not be impressed with my large collection of country music (including all of Dwight’s!!!)
That’s alright…I have a huge blues selection, tons of jazz, a whole bunch (but never enough) R&B, and Rock of (all) Ages.
Sadly, I have only 7 hours of Classical, mainly because I enjoyed it on vinyl way more than I ever could digitally and consequently never converted it.
Time to buy a new hi-fi….and rock muh knee’n off!!!
TT. I like Jimmy Reed, does that count?
All good music counts.
Here is one of the greats from my small hometown
Odd how many are from a 50 mile radius of where he was born
I am sure you’re a much better singer and guitar player, and have sold many more recordings. Music choice is personal taste. Others, perhaps many others, have preferences different than yours. Live with it.
Well, I would have to disagree to some extent. Just because they have sold more recordings doesn’t mean their better. Thats why everyone hates the Grammy’s, because its based on album sales. But people still kind of have respect the Oscars, because there is an institution that decides it. not to say that people power isn’t great….its just swayed by large media organizations usually, but maybe one day we can trust the people’s song album purchases.
If Oscars were awarded based upon merit, Liz Taylor, for example, would not have won an Oscar for Butterfield 8, a near-fatal bout of pneumonia notwithstanding. There are countless other examples of sympathy Oscars.
Music is a matter of personal taste and from your comment, it seems most is in your mouth.
One thing I agree with Neil is that mp3’s are the worst. Studies have shown the superiority of AAC > mp3>wma in their abilities to uncompress into a fuller sound range. However, all can be improved by increasing the sampling rate so using either lossless AAC or at a high AAC sampling rate, almost everyone of us (over 30) would NOT be able to hear the difference.
Everyone can hear the difference, unless using crappy speakers or headphones….
When MP3 compression came to be, we were limited to the capacity of HDD. I remember encoding music at 128 while others used 96. I hated 128, but back in the 90’s , with slow cpu and small drives, there was little choice.
Now, drive space and cpu isn’t an issue. I refuse to have anything less than 320, but watch out. some distributers have taken music that was last compressed at 128 and re-encoded it at 320 so during playback it shows 320, but the sound is far from it.
…And that’s the issue, the gear that’s affordable to the masses to play music is crappy. I was one who didn’t get why people kept thinking that vinyl was better. On my old system back in the day, when I finally upgraded to CDs, it was a million times better compared to my crackly, thin sounding LPs. Then last year, I was visiting a cousin who played an vinyl album on his stereo, and I was astonished at how warm and clear it was. It sounded like I was in the studio listening to the band play, and was waaaay better than digital. The only problem was that it was a $10,000 stereo system.
So, yeah, if you can afford a $10,000 dollar home system, $5000 car system, or $500.00 headphones, vinyl or lossless will definitely sound better, but for the masses with their $500 home system, $300 car system, or $50.00 headphones, it really doesn’t matter. Neil Young should be including that, in addition to the file formats being better, the hardware to play it also needs to be better and be way more affordable, otherwise it doesn’t really matter.
Through $30.00 headphones, vinyl or lossless really won’t sound any different than a 160kb mp3.
However, on that note, Lossless should be an option for those who can afford the gear. When purchasing music online, a lossy and lossless option should be available, along with the option to download the lossless later if the lossy option is chosen at the present.
You taste appears to be at the other end of the alimentary canal.
I fully agree AAC and applelossless are better formats, nor do I believe NY will come up with something better. That was not my point; my objection was using this as an excuse to slag off on NY. He wrote one of the greatest songs CSNY ever recorded “Ohio”–I stood there where the 4 students were shot down, “Ohio” captures the mood of those times and still evokes emotion whenever I hear it. Very few composers could pen material like that.
Five years ago Neil Young was promoting his 100 mpge electric Lincoln Continental, the LincVolt. The guy is just struggling to be relevant again.
I respectfully disagree – he’s a legend.
If one has an average, run-of-the-mill, bought-it-at-BestBuy listening environment, then mp3s and the like will do you just fine. But if you have anything resembling a decent audio setup, their audio shortcomings become crystal clear. Young is mistaken if he thinks that most people care; they don’t.
While SJ certainly used to listen to vinyl, I’m not so sure about NY’s claim that he still did (if that was what he was inferring).
a Southern man don’t need him around anyhow.
Real funny comment coming from a Yankee lover…….
elbow, ass, ass, elbow.
Sorry, that was misdirected… whoops
Neil raises good points, but the issue doesn’t lie with the playback of digital music, but the initial recording and especially the mastering. The insistence of record companies in having pop music sound louder, because teens play it through tinny phone speakers or crappy headphones means that it’s being compressed, so that there’s no light and shade in the music; the dynamic range has disappeared. Plenty of music is being recorded by artists who care about dynamic range, the difference between soft and loud, but they don’t get played on mainstream radio stations, you have to turn to stations like BBC 6Music to find it. People like PJ Harvey, Laura Marling, Gemma Hayes, Kris Delmhorst…
I suggest people interested read ‘Perfecting Sound Forever: The Story Of Recorded Music’, by Greg Milner. It’s very enlightening.
Oh, and those who bitch about MP3’s being crap because they’re compressed, while vinyl is so much better; well the stereo master tapes for cutting a vinyl master metal stamper were compressed to reduce the dynamic range, to prevent ‘ringing’ in the lathe cutting head which would cause overheating, and help prevent grooves having excessive transients that would cause the stylus to jump grooves, or even grooves to merge together. I have old vinyl where that happened, in particular Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Rumours’.
And as for cassette tapes and 8-track, well…
listen to Lou Reed too for audio finess
Now you’re someone who knows his stuff. Finally!
And speaking of crappy headphones, I feel sorry for drone children who are so ignorant they can’t take time to research. Today we have idiots like “dr dre” who sells 300$ headphones claiming they are the best sound ever… Simply looking at the size of the magnet and the dynamic range of the headphones, plus the sensitivity rating etc etc… they’re crap! but today people are easily mislead to think… well he said so , so it must be true!
Regarding dynamic range… Ive taken all my favourite music that is in the highest digital lossless format, and transferred them to 10.5″ open reel tapes at 7.5 ips and am left with 3 hour tapes that sound just as clean and dynamic, with the natural warmth of the tape compression. My hifi is from the 70’s, speakers too. It has unsurpassable sound then the “top of the line” yamaha amp that I had. I’m actually thinking of retiring the iPod and going back to using a walkman and a handful of Metal or Chrome tapes. Crazy, yes, but I love clear yet warm dynamic range 🙂
as for 8-track..well.. 🙂
He is right. We need better sound quality. Don’t hate because you may not realize this. We absolutely need purer sound.
After one hit it all sounds great as long as it’s Floyd.
+1 if you include old Genesis
See Emily play
Audio quality and sound is a matter of personal taste. I’m sure some people actually DO prefer the sound of vinyl.
But it’s really about convenience. I can remember pulling the record carefully out of the cover, and then from the sleeve. Then, I place it on the turntable, and push a button to set the needle. It plays the first track, but if I want to hear the third track, I have to move and set the needle manually. When I’m done, I do everything in reverse to put the record away.
And there’s the matter of finding and acquiring the music on physical media, versus downloading from iTunes. Plus the physical media wears out (and is susceptible to damage); digital media is pristine forever.
There is NO WAY i would do all that “analog” stuff today, even if I though vinyl sounded better. It’s a matter of convenience.
Exactly. Vinyl may be superior, but the advantages of digital far outweigh those advantages. For most people. Just being able to carry around thousands of songs on an iPod, iPhone, etc. is worth any advantages to me and many others.
Your points are true. Something it made me think about, and I am real curious what others think..
Back when it took some effort to change a song ( cassette, vinyl), I was more prone to “play through”.. to just listen to most of everything. Now with digital, I find I am skipping songs much more, and not because i don’t like the song… I really don’t know why actually. Its like if you have a remote for the tv in your hand, and you’re just surfing the channels, not looking for anything in particular, just doing it.
Is this familiar to anyone else, or did I just kill too many brain things with the wild hairsprays i used in the 80s?
It’s very familiar to me. For lack of a better term, it’s mood. Now that it takes zero effort to change songs you can better tailor your music listening to suit how you’re feeling at any given moment.
Listening to music has become a completely different activity, at least for me. Before, it was more like watching TV. You put one a record (or tape) and your activity was listening to the music. Now, more often than not, I listen to music while doing something else. The “something else” (like running) is the primary activity.
So I listen to much more music these days (because of the convenience), but there is (usually) less focus on the music itself. And I have no regrets about this change. I’m happy that it is so easy to listen to my favorite music these days.
What’s he hearing that I’m not?
He’s hearing the difference between his master tapes and the compressed versions available on CDs and mp3s.
And, for the record, on vinyl as well; I don’t have the source, but I’m pretty sure he’s complained about the discrepancies between master tapes and LPs.
Nothing will ever sound as good as the original master tape played back through the mixing console 1/2 analog tape encoded with Dolby SR is about as good as it gets.
I just cringe every time I come across some self professed audiophile. They likely have poor and untested hearing while claiming that they can hear the difference between ‘X’ format and ‘Y’ format. If they would take a hearing test, they would find out that they can’t tell the difference and realize that they are just prejudiced snobs. If they want the original fidelity, they would reproduce the sound studio control room and listen through the headsets of the mixers.
If Neal Young wanted great sound from his own recordings, he would get better strings on his guitar that don’t produce that annoying squeak as he slides his fingers up and down the frets. What a jerk.
They squeak because he restrings before recording. It’s like a baseball superstition or something.
I note your disdain for certain audiophiles. I’d suppose you take a dim view of Xanadu-priced audio cabling, too.
I thought the squeak was from the brass wire wound around the base strings. This could easily be solved by passing the strings though a swage or using a pipe shaped brass sleeve swaged tightly around the string to give it the mass needed.
I’ll tell Neil to start using flat wound strings.
Or start using Chanel Precision Sublimage Serum Essential Regenerating Cream. Money is no object when the challenge is to assuage the infantile desires of a randomly selected listener.
No one is complaining about the squeak on Paul McCartney’s Blackbird!
Hah!
BTW, Neil’s “Harvest” album is available as a reissue on vinyl along with a good looking T-shirt, but MDN won’a allow the link for some reason.
That seems like a rather harsh judgement when all we were discussing is signal purity. Just because there are no string manufacturers making noiseless strings cheaply doesn’t mean that it is infantile to want them. There would be a slight increase in the cost of manufacturing but the real cost is in the music stores markup.
I get great bass out of my iPod since I had Buck at the Super Duper Stereo Shop install the tk421 modification. It’s a bass unit that basically kicks in another two, maybe three quads when you really crank.
I like Neil, but to be honest, didn’t I read his hearing was shot, so how would he be able to tell anything about sound quality?
And what of his electrified music even required good sound quality?
Yeah, really, why does electrified music require good sound quality?
. . . . .
Tell it to Beethoven
With CD ripping and copy protection now history, people can choose what ever quality they want. Including Apple Lossless.
No one needs to invent something new to liberate people. I think the public has already chosen what they want to listen to.
True: the public has chosen convenience over quality.
Where do these “audiophiles” who prefer vinyl today think that they vinyl comes from?
It’s incredibly rare to have any all analog recording these days, so the good news is that the digital originals as a source exists to give us better lossless formats in the future.
It is true most music is digitally mastered but there is something warm about vinyl. It is also true the tube amplifiers have a more pleasing warm sound.
My folks have a 65 year old all tube stereo in there living room and I swear it is the only thing I have ever listened to that makes AM radio sound good.
Anyone with a digital filter can create the resonance distortion and attenuation profile of that old technology to make a stereo sound system sound ‘warm’. It is just added distortion and signal loss.
Not really. If you have ever enjoyed music thats analog and played through hot vacuum tubes is like breathing fresh air in the wilderness as opposed to breathing fresh air in the city. Digital filters can mimic but cannot replace.
+1 for Neil Young’s wishes.
Also, Apple has been looking into providing remastered, studio quality songs through iTunes. Stay tuned 🙂
Right, Neil is kind of like Woz without the bipolar disorder
I do miss the incredibly fat sound that I use to get with my old albums.
Digital is good for some sounds, pop, rap (bluh) rock n’ roll, but blues, classical, hard rock sound thin and light nowadaze.
Time to bust out a Rick 4001 with an SWR RedHead combo.
Bring your Rick/SWR combo and I’ll bring my Taylor 610. Talk about an amazing sound! Now I want to get a Victoria amp to go with my Tele. victoriaamp.com
This rage and hate for people who know the truth how much better sounding properly recorded analogue sounds when played back on proper equipment is as ignorant as all the people who argue that Windows is superior to Mac because blah blah blah.
People have the right to chose convenience, i chose quality, regardless of it being “less convenient”. Everyone who’s ever hung out at my place has said how much better music sounds, without me asking or pointing out the sound difference. People who are not audiophiles, but the average person who favours convenience. So that really says a lot right there.
That said, they’re not about to spend the time or money, they will still go the route of simple.. and thats fine with me.
Agreed, it is digital at the source now, but that digital master is at a level of quality that is not found in most homes, especially not the homes furnished with Walmart cheapness.
What you’re hearing from that old set is real.. the beauty of analogue is the compression can make bad sound, sound good. And I bet the speaker cabinet is wooden, so now you have added resonance (spelling?) so you have nice bass.
FUnny thing about AM is you can occasionally find receivers that have AM Stereo! Here in Canada, those are hard to find, but the radio stations do pump out stereo at AM signal.
You bring up an interesting question: “Where do these “audiophiles” who prefer vinyl today think that they vinyl comes from?”
Is Neil aware that vinyl records and anything plastic are oil-based products? If he wants more vinyl, he’s gonna need someone drilling. Isn’t he completely against that?
Neil, has more talent in his little finger than 90% of current artists. But what has been mentioned before and Neil is referring to is most new formats improved audio quality. You can argue CD vs Vinyl but the CD generally sounded better years later, vinyl is a physical medium and is subject to wear.
With new high-speed downloads cheap Hard Drives and RAM, I agree with Neil it is time to bring some of that master tape quality to those that would like it. Apple is in a position to move the bar higher.
Exactly; instead of progressing forward in quality like all other digital media and products, music has almost de-evolved. HD audio hasn’t really gained a foothold in optical media, but it could with downloads.
Steve Jobs also said Coldplay sucked, was immune to the smell of his own BO, and listened to the tonally challenged Bob Dylan on vinyl at home.
Replace “Steve Jobs” with “grandma” , and you’ll quickly understand.
Coldplay DO suck…
Bob Dylan sang like Pavarotti. He even admitted it. And the internet rankings (which are infallible) show Dylan putting up a pretty good fight:
http://en.classora.com/rankings/compare_evolution?ranking=i78934&entries=p51608630-h51608072
Maybe the time has come for iTunes to offer files you can download to your 3-D printer to make a vinyl copy.
I realize you are being facetious, but this is actually a very cool idea. Could happen.
I wasn’t being entirely facetious. Could be a while before 3-D printers are common household devices, though.
Neil is correct. In this high tech universe it is unbelievable that music quality is no better than 10-20 years ago. Look at video which has gone from video tape to dvd to blue ray. Video at 1080p is amazing compared with what we used to watch so why not hi-def music. This is why the record companies went down the tubes because they didn’t grow with technology and if they gave us better quality recordings customers may not mind paying for this benefit instead of stealing crappy mp3 recordings. By the way you can’t knock Neil Young or any artist that has been creating music for 30, 40, or 50 years. I hope your rap artists make you proud someday.
MDN, Apple Lossless compression just retains the information present on the CD. The CD stores the results of analog to digital conversion sampled at 44.1Khz. So there is loss of information, even using Apple Lossless. Of course, the MP3 and, to a lesser extent, AAC compression techniques chop out even more information from the digital original.
That said, I think that modern CDs sound great. The early digital stuff sounded pretty bad. But they worked through that, and I certainly don’t miss the hiss and pops of the analog formats. If they can make it better without adding a lot of cost or complexity, then fine. But I don’t see a real problem with the status quo.
Blame crrappy distributers like Columbia House. CDs had the potential of delivering hifi sound, but some dingbat who claimed the human ear can only hear a certain range of frequencies, set the “tone” for the re-recorded sounds on playable media. This resulted in crappy CDs. Even music that is digital at 320, yes it is clear and has range, but you need a filter to compress it, to add warmth to it.
Vinyl records that were cut at half speed were expensive to produce, expensive to buy, but the sound! Reel to reels and vinyl produced the best sound when used properly. Todays walmart ” home theatres” are crap too. Speakers in plastic shells? no 3ways? Yes, that 2.5″ speaker in a plastic ball is going to really deliver great sound.
Anyone who was lucky to have used hifi systems of the 60’s 70’s and early 80’s know exactly what I mean. Large speakers that is housed in oak or some other heavy wood, with a real good receiver.. and buying that wicked rock record brand new.. the dynamic range…. the clarity of the highs, the boom of the lows….
“…that wicked rock record brand new”.
BRAND NEW is the operative word. Because standard quality vinyl back in the day would warp every time you played it. What most didn’t know is that you has to wait about 20 minutes for the vinyl to recover its original printed shape before you played it again. Those who played a single song over and over again without waiting were just tearing the vinyl with the needle.
On the other hand, original master recording records used high quality vinyl that did not warp when played. I don’t honestly know what quality vinyl is used these days for non-OMR records.
Early digital recordings and masters were pretty bad. Primarily because the engineers doing the mixing would mix with extra high end as they always did with analog. Of course digital doesn’t lose high end during mixdown the way analog did so the early CD’s had too much high end and were generaly much harsher. That’s why many are being remixed again now.
That all said, almost anyone can hear the differance between the old pure analog recordings and a digital remix. The catch is many can only hear it once it’s pointed out on a decent system. Once you do hear it though it’s something you notice alot. The primary loss I hear is in the imaging. On something like Dark Side of the Moon for instance through a good system, close your eyes and the speakers dissapear. Do the same thing with the CD and you’ll notice whats missing. HDCD and SACD sound better but you often still can hear differances.
What you can never escape with digital is you’re turning a linier wave into a saw wave. Higher sampeling rates make for a smoother wave but it will never be linier like the origional. At 24bit it becomes pretty hard to tell the differance but many still hear a little “something” missing though I doubt most would. ALL of the file formats that are lossy are inferior to the origional and the CD period.
It comes down to do you care? Lower end equipment, probably not. If you’re not that discriminating, great! Some people care, many don’t. If enough do we’ll see new formats at higer bit rates. Except for classical (where it’s already happening) I doubt we’ll see any major changes. Not enough demand.
Neil knows whereof he speaks. He’s been involved in the engineering and production of music for a long time, and he’s not railing against the ability of the technologies to do the job, he’s railing against the artifacts and junk that most production adds in to the original sounds. He was also one of the very last producers to record in analog. You may not like the noises he makes, but at least you know they _are_ the noises he’s made.
He is on the right “track”. Offer hardware that preserves the lossless best quality sound, add ability to enable “filters” to make the sound warmer if you like ( do away with all the stupid EQ settings they all sound stupid), and include a way to have “profiles” that can be installed to match the type of headphones you’re using.. since every style ( earbud, over the ear, closed) have a range of different capabilities ( sensitivity, bass response, frequency range, etc). Then you have a gadget that will always sound better ( as compared to now), regardless of what kind of headphones you like to use.
Those who disparage both or either Neil Young and Bob Dylan obviously have no knowledge of music history whatsoever nor an appreciation of music in general.
Young and Dylan were both pioneering musicians whose work remains as a gold standard that modern day musicians can’t even begin to aspire to–and still don’t.
If you listen to Bob Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited and don’t understand the beauty of it then you are both a fool and ignorant.
Absolutely love both Dylan and Young. But I tried to listen to the difference between my iTunes copy of a piece of music and a CD version of it. To the best of my knowledge the CD version is the best possible quality for a CD. Ie it is one of those special versions that you expect to be of highest quality possible. My system is pretty good (about 4k for speakers and 2k for Amp). I could not tell any difference. So where does this 5% that Niel was talking about come from?
Neil Young – Live at Massey Hall 1974 is
one of the best live albums of all time.
Nothing has better sound qaulity than fresh untouched vinyl.
If what you’re saying is true, that means you only hear it the best it can be heard only one time and it’s downhill from there.