[James Tanner]

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10215931489221553&set=a.1060834962563.10116.1276617780&type=3

[neekomax]

I think this might be quite misleading. They studied 7,200 "POPULAR" songs over that period of time. What does that graph look like if they instead studied a more random collection of all music produced, instead of just pop? (Pop by definition being popular tracks).

Yes, compression is used and overused these days. But compression judiciously used, depending on genre, improves recordings, period.

SO, to answer your question, it all depends on what your customers are going to be listening to. If it's 'Despacito' well not so much. If it's modern jazz like the Julian Lage album I'm streaming currently, or lots of other stuff, then hell yes.

[James Tanner]

I think this might be quite misleading. They studied 7,200 "POPULAR" songs over that period of time. What does that graph look like if they instead studied a more random collection of all music produced, instead of just pop? (Pop by definition being popular tracks).

Yes, compression is used and overused these days. But compression judiciously used, depending on genre, improves recordings, period.

SO, to answer your question, it all depends on what your customers are going to be listening to. If it's 'Despacito' well not so much. If it's modern jazz like the Julian Lage album I'm streaming currently, or lots of other stuff, then hell yes.

Good point !

james.

[CanadianMaestro]

For classical musik, definitely worth it.
Cannot imagine listening to it on low-quality gear.

[Mag]

There are different kinds of compression. There's the kind used in codec to reduce size of file such as mp3. This kind has lost a percentage of harmonics depending on the amount of compression. I can listen to it, but the music has lost that rich quality that I crave being an audiophile.

There is compression used to enhance recordings. This is done on a mixing board in production. In the hands of a pro you don't know it's there.

There's another kind that I cannot define but know when I hear it. This I believe is the kind talked about in Loudness Wars. It's used in TV commercials to make the commercial sound louder. It's also used on some music recordings I have. I find it subconsciously irritating, fatiguing, annoying, unlistenable though I can't define why.

I tweak my stereo using a mixer to eliminate compression as much as possible. Since I inserted the mixer in the stereo chain it's been the Cats 6 and I won't go back to listening to recordings without it.

[Pundamilia]

Sometimes you have to wonder about that question! Not just for audio, but for many other things such as furniture, etc., since so many markets seem to be driven primarily by price. As others have pointed out, the salvation of audio is that in some niches/genres the high-quality objectives have NOT been compromised. The other consideration is that there is a huge base of recorded music existent out there in various forms and there is still a devoted (though possibly in the minority) following of advocates of quality sound.

[veloceleste]

I may way off base,  off target or clueless about this, so feel free to correct, no offense taken but does the increase in the use of compression have anything to do with the change over the years in the way music is delivered to the end user? Does compression make the delivery of MP3's more efficient bandwidth wise, or streaming faster?

Ironically, you would think the great increase in the use of headphones over the last several years would make music producers want to reduce compression. Users of all headphones, especially IEM's, sealed headphones and noise cancelling headphones would benefit from music with increased dynamic range. 

[neekomax]

I may way off base,  off target or clueless about this, so feel free to correct, no offense taken but does the increase in the use of compression have anything to do with the change over the years in the way music is delivered to the end user? Does compression make the delivery of MP3's more efficient bandwidth wise, or streaming faster?

Ironically, you would think the great increase in the use of headphones over the last several years would make music producers want to reduce compression. Users of all headphones, especially IEM's, sealed headphones and noise cancelling headphones would benefit from music with increased dynamic range.

To answer the first question: Nope. Dynamic compression and data compression are totally different things. One has basically nothing to do with the other.

[john1970]

Making quality equipment still very much makes sense.  I listen to classical music and for the genre there is very little compression in the dynamics.  It is very unfortunate that pop music today is so compressed, but hopefully the trend will reverse itself. 

[dB Cooper]

+1 on john1970. It's sad that dynamic contrast- an important element in the vocabulary of music- is so absent from today's music (most of what people hear, anyway) that you might think it had been outlawed. It's one of the reasons I've been getting more and more into orchestral music, and acoustic jazz, in my middle age. I'm not holding my breath waiting for it to change, sad to say. Fortunately there's enough music already out there that is well recorded, and DOES have satisfying dynamics, to last a lifetime.

Thanks to James Tanner for the find. For those who don't know, Sean Olive is a big muckity-muck at Harman, which makes about a dozen brands you've heard of. I believe headphone research is on his radar these days.

[HsvHeelFan]

Just like there will always be a place for Porsche's and Ferrari's,  there will always be a place for quality audio equipment.

The market may shrink in overall percentage of the marketplace, but there will always be customers around that want something better than they get from a mass market box or a smart phone and be willing to pay for that.

Since the recording technology change and microphone improvements in the early 50's,  there are plenty of fine recordings out there to enjoy.

Just keep in mind that recordings are just that "recordings" and that the producer and the recording engineer has a LOT to say about what you hear.

HsvHeelFan

[artur9]

I have a theory that the Loudness Wars have led to the prevalence of rap and percussion and the death of melody.  After a song has been dynamically compressed to death that's all that's left to hear.  People's addiction to that chest-thumping bass is unfortunate IMO

I am not suggesting that rap/percussion is lesser in any way other than in not needing dynamics.

[JLM]

We live in an increasingly noise filled world.  A recent studied showed that hospitals are getting 5 dB louder every 10 years, which I'm sure is just a reflection of the 'civilized' world in general, and points to a level of overall agitation.  So I take this dynamic compression as music producers reaction to cope with increased background noise.  This is one big reason for having a well designed/separate listening room (with a well isolated room where you could gain 40 dB of dynamic range with a lower noise floor or simply listen at lower sound pressure levels and save your hearing). 

OTOH digital technology has allowed for greatly increased dynamics over vinyl/tape/radio, so compared to say 50 years ago we're experiencing more dynamic range.  Supporting this is greatly improved portable listening technology (personal/car) over those years.  I believe what the link indicates is that we experimented with presenting more dynamic range in our recordings when digital was new and since then to pendulum for popular music has swung back. 

[NekoAudio]

I listen to a ton of pop music and without a doubt it sounds significantly better played back through high quality gear than not. As others in this thread have implied, compression doesn't make a song less or poorer quality or somehow "noise" that doesn't deserve the highest fidelity playback.

[Elizabeth]

All that matters is : Will anyone still BUY high quality equipment?
No one will make if if no one buys it. And obviously if folks want the stuff, then manufacturers will come along to make it.

The 'reasons' folks buy it do not matter to this idea.

[restrav]

my understanding is that compressed music is a byproduct of the convenience that consumers want and music, as a product is tailored to what consumers want.

as someone who enjoys a vast array of heavy metal, and even extreme metal, music I was stunned when I discovered how miserable they sound over a proper hifi system that is dynamic and high resolution. almost every single metal and hard rock album that I own (more than 15000 tracks all mp3 and a vast majority of them 128kbps ripped over 15 years ago) sound much much better over an ipod touch and a pair of 30 dollar sony in ear headphones, compared to my stereo that, by now have a good 7k in it, complete with walnut platforms on top of isolation feet. when im digging listening to my testament, orphaned land, WASP, darkseed, dark tranquility, bathory, judas priest, korn,  paradise lost, tool, manowar, Elend, jon oliva's pain, inflames,  empyrium, dimmu borgir and pretty much any alternative or hard rock from 90s and 00s  , etc I prefer to listen to 128kbps mp3 over my phone rather than my listening to the same album in uncompressed .flac (CD quality) on stereo (with double subs) because over my stereo they sound so compressed, so monotonic that guitar riffs that are supposed to sound powerful, aggressive, and gut thumping, sound like my $35 black and decker power drill. just miserable. but over my crappy 30 dollar IEMs they actually sound the way the sound engineer intended them to i guess. the V shape reproduction of these 30 dollar headphones gives me a vauge but thumping bass and I also hear the vocals clearly, and there is some sparkle on top and that's about it. when I listen to these tracks with my planar magnetic headphones with high quality DAC and propoer ammplification, I hear so much imperfection and this thing that i call sound fillers, it is blocks of noise or sound each a few seconds long, that some of these bands just put in there to fill a wall of sound, i do not hear any of them over my phone and my crap headphones and i definitely prefer that. i hate hearing those things and over my phone all of them are just smoosed together and you dont hear those details at all (anyone else notice that?)

so my point is that the problem is not with the compression of the mp3 file since as I just said, the cd quality of these albums over proper hifi sounds awful, they are designed to sound their best over crappy headphones. to bring it back to my original point, this music is manufactured and tailored to what the consumer wants, very much like bubble gum (in Leonard Cohen's eternal words)

[Wind Chaser]

It seems to me there are more people/manufacturers making high end audio gear now than there was back in the late seventies and early eighties. I'd like to think that market conditions in time will turn around and that there will be a greater demand for quality than there is now among the masses.

[bobbyhamil]

    Something will take the place of compressed music, it always does over time.Whether it be hi end or not we do not know. however it's a new breed of bean counters in charge now and things maybe won't ever go back to the 50's 60's or the 70's maybe we long for the simple times but it will not happen. i am not a doom predictor,but take a step back and look at where we are now. tks

[CanadianMaestro]

sadly, I think compressed is here to stay....

Headphones and personal audio will keep steamrolling all else, and the internet generation with their microsecond attention spans will keep demanding mobile compressed musik...convenience rules. There may be hope if a big company (Apple iTunes?) adopts hi-res but it's still an uphill fight to "sell" the format to the masses.

What happened to Pono?

[Pundamilia]

It seems to me there are more people/manufacturers making high end audio gear now than there was back in the late seventies and early eighties.

I have often had the same thought and I wonder who is supporting this high-end industry by buying their gear. Is it just baby boomer fogies who could't afford this level of quality in the '70's but still yearned for it after all these years? But then I look at the "What are you listening to?" thread and either many of the fogies are listening to newer music or their is some "new blood" in the industry who share the passion for high-quality sound reproduction.

It would be interesting to see a market analysis of sales by price by age cohort and see what the distribution actually is.