At the ripe age of 28, Jon Zimmer is
sort of an old fogey. That is, he is obsessive about the sound quality of his
music.
A onetime audio engineer who now works as a consultant for
Stereo Exchange, an upscale audio store in Manhattan, Zimmer lights up when
talking about high fidelity, bit rates and $10,000 loudspeakers. But iPods and
compressed computer files — the most popular vehicles for audio today
— are "sucking the life out of music", he says.
The last decade
has brought an explosion in dazzling technological advances — including
high definition television and 3-D — that have transformed the fan’s
experience. There are improvements in the quality of media everywhere —
except in music.
In many ways, the quality of what people hear
— how well the playback reflects the original sound — has taken a
step back. To many expert ears, compressed music files produce a crackly,
tinnier and thinner sound than music on CDs and vinyl. And to compete with other
songs, tracks are engineered to be much louder as well.
In one way,
the music business has been the victim of its own technological success: the
ease of loading songs onto a PC or an iPod has meant that a generation of fans
has traded fidelity for portability and convenience. The marketplace reflects
the change. From 2000 to 2009, Americans reduced their spending on home stereo
components by more than a third, to roughly $960 million, according to the
Consumer Electronics Association. Spending on portable digital devices during
that same period increased more than fiftyfold, to $5.4
billion.
"People used to sit and listen to music," said Michael
Fremer, a professed audiophile who runs musicangle.com, but the increased
portability has altered the way people experience recorded music. "It was an
activity. It is no longer consumed as an event that you pay attention to."
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