[swirlee]

Neil Young's answer to digital distribution is physical media? A disc you have to go the store and buy in person or have delivered by a guy in a truck? A disc, I think it's safe to assume, for which you have to jump through hoops in order to get the music onto your iPod (assuming you have a Blu-ray drive in your computer)? Neil, you truly are a visionary.

[nickb]

I don't buy his aversion to mp3s. Vast majority of the population can't even tell the difference between 128kbps and 192bps. I guess quality is a red herring and a way to market his new product.

[rms]

>Vast majority of the population can't even tell the difference between 128kbps and 192bps.

That is true. However, I think most people could be taught to tell the difference on proper equipment, if they were given a double blind test and they heard at the 50th percentile or better.

There is a very real difference between 128 and 192 kbps MP3s in the sound quality that you can really perceive. In 128 kbps MP3s you lose all sounds above 16khz. With 192 kbps there is enough headroom to keep most of the way to 22.1khz which is the frequency limit of CDs. On some very loud passages (like most modern music) a V0 lame MP3 would probably start rolling off the upper frequencies.

192 kbps with variable bit rate is plenty of sound quality for distribution on the internet. You just can never re-encode it so you don't own the music quite as much as if you had the original CDs.

Since I doubt Neil Young is promoting ideally encoded MP3s, you're probably right about the red herring.

[bootload]

"... I don't buy his (Neil Young)aversion to mp3s. Vast majority of the population can't even tell the difference between 128kbps and 192bps ..."

I do.

Firstly it shows good taste. NY is a sound quality nut and I for one is grateful ~ http://news.cnet.com/8301-13953_3-9937142-80.html

    "We are trying to give them quality 
     whether they want it or not. You 
     can degrade it as much as you want, 
     we just don't want our name on it."

When I listen to Old-Black http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Black with the amp cranked up loud I really want to hear the sound (distortion and all) and not the technical limitations that some company puts on it as is the case of iPods. Don't beleive me listen to Doug Kayes explanation on mp3 recordings ~ http://podcastacademy.com/shows/detail1600/

As for marketing I don't think the "rich hippy" really needs it.

[nickb]

There have been so many double blind tests of various codecs (just browse here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codec_listening_test ) and they all show that vast majority of people simply cannot tell the difference between 256kbps MP3 and a CD (certainly not within two standard deviations). Sure, some golden ear guys can tell but even they have hard time coming to two standard deviations.

Also, some music actually sounds better as MP3s! Yes, strange...

The fact that some of the 128 kbps samples were consistently judged to be better than their original CD counterparts by this skilled group – even by the best among them – stunned our editor (who participated in the test although his results were not included in the evaluation, and had to confess that he got only 15 points). It seems safe to declare that there is no musical genre that is especially well-suited or ill-suited to compression. It is apparent that there are quite other factors related to the technical aspects of recording that will later adversely affect the results at low bit rates.

Finally, most of the people listen to their music on portable players and/or computers and speakers on those are so bad that you can't really tell the difference between 128kbps and 256kbps. Double blind tests show that there's no statistical significance when you listen on these devices.

So yeah, NY's latest 'better than CD' ploy might work out with audiophiles... same people who buy $400 digital cables and $500 wooden knobs so their music sounds better.

In the end, it all comes down to good mastering and not codecs and delivery medium. Modern music is heavily compressed and there's a lot of clipping and that has nothing to do with MP3s.

[rms]

>So yeah, NY's latest 'better than CD' ploy might work out with audiophiles... same people who buy $400 digital cables and $500 wooden knobs so their music sounds better.

One extravagant audiophile investment that would make an actual difference is tapes from this company that sells copies of reel to reel master tapes. http://www.tapeproject.com/ Why bother with a delivery medium?

[bprater]

Yep, even the folks promoting Bluray are making the realization that most folks can't tell the difference between it and DVD.

[rms]

On a properly configured TV, it is easy to tell the difference. My grandparents (85 and 90 years old) can tell the difference between HD and non-HD. They were actually surprised and excited by what a big difference it makes. My grandmother especially got that initial HDTV euphoria, where anything, even sports, is fun to watch as long as it is in HDTV.

The problem is that most folks can't properly plug in and configure an HDTV.