BAASnotes.com – Bay Area Audiophile Society

“Good enough” is the New “Great”?

- Guest Contribution by Tristan N -

I just read a fascinating article in Wired called “The Good Enough Revolution: When Cheap and Simple Is Just Fine.”

We audiophiles might find the following paragraph more than a little alarming:

Of course, there are those who appreciate the richer sound of uncompressed files, CDs, or even vinyl records (regarded by some audiophiles as the highest-fi format available). But most of us don’t give it a second thought. In fact, there’s evidence that consumers are simply adapting to the MP3′s thin sound. Jonathan Berger, a professor of music at Stanford University, recently completed a six-year study of his students. Every year he asked new arrivals in his class to listen to the same musical excerpts played in a variety of digital formats—from standard MP3s to high-fidelity uncompressed files—and rate their preferences. Every year, he reports, more and more students preferred the sound of MP3s, particularly for rock music. They’ve grown accustomed to what Berger calls the percussive sizzle—aka distortion—found in compressed music. To them, that’s what music is supposed to sound like.

Cheers,
Tristan

1 Comment to “Good enough” is the New “Great”?

1. 

   Good enough is definitely one of the new buzz words…

   http://www.avguide.com/review/tas-195-odyssey-audio-khartago-stereo-amplifier

   I think that most of the younger people these day have permanently damaged their hearing listening to poor quality Mp3′s at loud levels with cheap headphone. They tend to gravitate towards any sound that jumps out at them… unfortunately distortion does just that.

   It sounds detailed
Joe on September 11th, 2009