Those of you familiar with the recent out-pourings from Neil Young, will be aware of his views on the quality of modern, digital music files. In his book 'Waging Heavy Peace' and on the opening track of his album 'Psychedelic Pill', Young rages repeatedly against the quality of the sound on CDs and particularly on MP3 files. In fact he goes so far as to say that 95% of the sound is lost when recorded music is transferred to such formats.
So strongly does Young feel about this matter, that he has developed his own system for storing and playing files digitally whilst retaining the quality of the original recordings. His PONO system is due to be released next year and is said to be compatible with existing music files but will enhance the sound considerably.
Now, far be it from me to disagree with the illustrious figure of Neil Young, of whom I have been a lifelong fan. However, I just cannot believe that 95% of the sound is lost when files are transferred. In my lifetime I have purchased my music on vinyl, tape, CD (including many so called variants such as SACD) and MP3. Oh, and I have also used so called 'lossless' formats such as FLAC. I was never a huge fan of music cassette tapes although I appreciated their portability and the fact that it was possible to record music onto them, something you obviously couldn't do with vinyl. However, I generally steered clear of buying pre-recorded cassettes as I was unconvinced by the quality of the sound when compared to vinyl. Ironically, this applied particularly to the first album by Neil Young which was absolutely dreadful on cassette. The sound was muddy and Young's voice was almost buried in the mix.
When I started buying CDs in the mid 1980s I was swayed by the hype that surrounded this new way of listening to music. True some of the digital recordings were crystal clear when compared to the warmer sound of some of my vinyl albums, but at the end of the day, the only true difference between vinyl and CD lies in the longevity of the latter. Of course, that is only my opinion. You may disagree.
The emergence of MP3 files has brought about a revolution in the way we listen to music. Being so portable, it is now possible to carry around huge music collections on a wide variety of MP3 players that are available. In fact mobile phones now fulfil this function and I can now use my own mobile to play anything from my music collection wherever I happen to be. And the music is not even stored on my phone, but is held somewhere magical that is known as a 'music cloud'! What the hell???
Consequently I would say that the majority of my time spent listening to music is done so in MP3 format. I have literally tens of thousands of music files stored on my computer (and backed up on an external hard drive) and they take up no room at all. Unlike the racks of vinyl that I used to possess and the shelves of CDs that I still do.
So, we now come to the difference in the sound.
Well frankly, I can't differentiate between an MP3 file, a CD and a song on vinyl. Well actually I can usually spot the vinyl because of the distinctive surface noise. Otherwise - no difference. Possibly this might be because my ears are now 61 years old. If yours are younger, you may have an advantage over me and be able to tell MP3s from MP4s but returning to the gentleman who started me off on all of this. Neil Percival Young has a pair of ears that are six years older than mine and I suspect that standing in front of speaker stacks for much of his adult life has not left them undamaged. Yet, he dares to berate me for listening to only 5% of the sound of his 26 minute opus 'Driftin' Back'.
I look forward to hearing Young's PONO system when it does hit the streets and I will gladly revisit this subject in a post if I find myself convinced that I have been missing out. Meanwhile I will carry on listening to my MP3 files most of which sound superb to me. Anyhow, I'd love to hear what you think. Let me know.
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