High-End Audio-A Calling For Porcupine Tree Leader

thanks for the link.  While I don't believe that the convenience of MP3s is an absolute negative, Wilson does make some very good points - I particularly like his analogy of compressed music being akin to the JPEG of a classic work of art. 

good post!

Eh, lossy compression is okay if you have a high enough bitrate. Studies have proven there's no appreciable difference for those with normal hearing capabilities. IF you have damaged hearing  in a particular way, you can sometimes tell, but for the average joe, its not a prob. Additionally, the comparison to visual media is not completely valid, as the human brain performs way more inter/extrapolation on audio than on visual stimuli. Literally, we often hear what we want to hear.

Edited by Deathrabbit - May 18 2010 at 00:56

Henry Plainview wrote: MP3s really aren't that big a deal if they're decent quality, even the worst MP3 isn't as bad as looking at a cell phone picture, he should be complaining more about people listening to music with terrible iPod earbuds and $5 headphones.

Particularly the ones that crank it to maximum volume, thus forcing me to listen to every single second of their awful music's treble.

What's a no brainer to me is that his analogy is way off. Sure, technically mp3 is to CD audio what jpeg is to an uncompressed image. But in both cases, the compression ratio is the decisive factor. Any painting (or a digitalized version of it) can look marvelous as a jpg, even on a big LCD. Likewise, a properly encoded mp3 file can sound just as great as the real thing - which, in case of CD audio, is also reduced in quality compared to the master tape, which in turn is inferior to the actual performance. If we extend Mr. Wilsons analogy, any audio recording sucks, and if we appreciate music as a work of art we should only listen to live performances.

there's no difference between

^ of course live performances hugely depend on the location and the sound system, as well as the sound engineer. I wouldn't blame bands too much for bad live sound ... usually they can't influence it, and they can't hear it either on stage. 

I have to admit to liking his approach to making music, and I agree with him in spirit that the best way to experience music is off of something where the compression isn't noticeable, as a whole album. I still listen to mp3s, because I am at my desk in front of my computer all day and my stereo is in the basement. The best experience is from the stereo for sure.

The majority of people I know of that have Ipods don't even know there's a difference between audio compression levels... they all listen to 128 kb songs, which sound utterly horrible, and and don't know they could be listening to much higher-quality music.  It's all a result of downloading from P2P sites, of course... I find it sad that they don't even know how bad the quality of the music is that they're listening to... I totally agree with Wilson... at least he's brave enough to admit there's something horribly wrong with the "download culture."  Kudos Steve.

AS to the Helsinki concert you cannot judge a particular performance audio to recorded .
Live sound can be a number of different factors working for or against an FOH engineer including the engineer not being very good.
Room design, System capabilities, Sold out or half house among other things can change the sound. A very good engineer will account for this during sound check or his prep for show.
As for the mp3 debate where can I read this from PT's guy the link did not work.

I can give Wilson some credit for the remaster of "In the Court of the Crimson King". It sounds stunning indeed, compared to the EG records CD release I had from the olden days.

Edited by Rottenhat - September 03 2010 at 12:51