Jim Lindner wrote:
> Is it just me who wonders about this? With the hundreds of articles I 
> have been reading on the changes in media distribution (literally 
> hundreds and is this a REALLY big surprise??) I have not read one - not 
> one - that makes any mention of the fact that the quality of the 
> recordings being distributed by download are significantly compressed 
> and poorer then those distributed on media. Of course it does not have 
> to be this way - there is no reason why .wav files could not be being 
> downloaded instead of AAC or MP3 - but no one seems to care - at all.

It is not you - and it is a phenomenon of interest. The market for video 
and for audio *appears* to be bifurcating. Part finds cost no object and 
clamors for SACD, Blu-Ray, architecturally designed media rooms and the 
like. The other appealing part is ear buds, iPhone, highly compressed 
downloads. Whether either division is substantial financially has not 
been addressed; for example, the high-end video-disc offerings are 
subsidized by the format competitors, yet even so do not have credible 
published statistics.

It may be worth noting that the audio degradation for download is likely 
to be minor relative to that used by the producers. It is, indeed, of 
different form. Published recordings use dynamic compression, clipping 
and other distortions to achieve target sound quality, where compression 
for sharing is of a different sort. Still, whatever audio qualities were 
in the track originally have been largely lost in the commercial 
preparation and their preservation for sharing is of little interest to 
the bulk of the audience.

It has long been my own contention - not based on law and not voted on 
by the industry - that low-fidelity sharing should be encouraged. It 
provides evidence of everything but the audio quality of a recording; 
for that, one should turn to the published form. The low-rate files 
would be analogous with a review of a book or a catalogue of an art 
exhibit (say, of photographs) and would be a spur to the purchase of the 
volume or original prints.

Mike
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