By Ian Hardy
Complete Story at the BBC

There was a time when stereo sound was considered cutting edge. But since then the movie and music industries have been developing numerous formats in an attempt to liven the listening experience, most notably with 5.1 surround sound.

The move from mono to 5.1 sound systems in the living room can be traced through the cinema.

"Movies in the 1950s were battling television," said Steven Guttenburg of Home Theatre Magazine, "everyone was saying who needs to go to the movies, we can watch movies at home for free.

"So the movie industry said what can we do to distinguish ourselves from television? They had colour, they had a wider picture and they had surround sound."

Then came the DVD. The announcement of a new medium in 1995 put cinema on a collision course with the living room.

This digital format, capable of storing good quality video and many channels of clean crisp audio, became the global medium for movie watching in the home, and there was a huge back catalogue of movies readily available for transfer.

But the rapid adoption of 5.1 surround sound at home has been bittersweet for the audio industry.

Consumers spend thousands of dollars on a flat panel display but often buy the cheapest, most inferior speaker package available, almost as an afterthought.

"What's happened is that there's been such an advance recently in video technology that you can have this huge screen compared to what you used to have before," said Mark Tuffy of THX. "People get so excited about what they're seeing visually that they forget about the audio experience."

George Lucas claimed that audio makes up 50% of the impact of a movie, but some audiophiles say listening is a skill that was lost long ago thanks to a blizzard of sound that now follows us through everyday life.

There is further evidence of consumer indifference to high quality surround sound. Today's music fans have been downloading and listening to MP3 files by the millions.

Movies rather than music are driving the 5.1 wave. But there are new developments such as headphones that duplicate surround sound, and computer sound cards that take game playing to the next level, creating totally immersive environments that heighten sensations.

5.1 is slowly creeping into TV shows and there are adaptations of the 5.1 experience, called 6.1 and 7.1, which add speakers to the setup.

But for the vast majority, it seems as though sound is a low priority, merely something that goes in one ear and out the other.

The only time I have been able to detect much of a difference in music quality is when I listen to music on a VERY expensive system. Seems that if you go for a system that costs over $20,000 you can tell the difference. Also appears that vinyl is still better at sound quality (on the super expensive sound units) than the CD, even the premium CD.

Love those old vinyl records at least I always felt I got something for the 20$ I spent

If you asked an "Audiophile" to listen to 2 identical pairs of headphones, but then told them one cost 10 $ and the other cost 10.000,00 $, what one do you think they would say sounds better?

They're the same people that say they can tell the difference between different brands of CD-Rs.

Sound quality is only worthwhile if the quality of product is good in the first place.

For instance - it doesn't matter how good the sound is for "Just Married," I'd still rather stab out my eyes with an ice pick than pay $5.50 to see it.

And what's the point of "good sound quality" with most of today's riaa music? There is no point, but I'm sure if they raise the quality they'll raise the prices.

Most modern music is so damn compressed to "sound" as loud as possible that it does not matter if it is stored as a low bit rate mp3 file or broadcast over FM radio. CD's have a lot more dynamic range than the typical
modern song needs. It is a real shame that all that dynamic range is wasted to
make the song sound "loud." The ONLY real reason the industry wants you to upgrade beyond CD is to foist a more restrictive DRMed format. I don't think the consumers are going to fall for it, and I am glad. CD quality sound is much higher a quality than required by most music that is released anyway.
With the exception of "special purpose"
and audiophile listening... why bother with SACD or other "better" digital formats...

Hell, I wish vinyl were still the format of choice for general purpose listening. But the old vinyl records require too much care and upkeep for the average listener. CD is king... I promise, they will NEVER put out another format that will be better when you consider all the factors.

And hang on to your mp3/ogg players and software (and don't upgrade it to more and more DRM restrictable versions!) Mp3 ain't gonna go away anytime soon either!

Shmoo

JayBDey, the cost of an item may influence perception, but I do hear big differences, and usually I just modified my own stereo equipment rather inexpensively with better parts. One doesn't have to spend a fortune to get superb sound. Perhaps not everyone can tell the difference. Some can tell the difference, but it isn't important to them.

I used to use a Staedtler Lumocolor green marker on the edge of my CDs because it made them sound better!

There is much we don't know about audio perception. Making electronic components and speakers that measure well on the test bench is not a guarantee of something that sounds great.

I agree that sound quality past a certain point is completely arbitrary to the average listener, even in something far more hingent on listening, like MUSIC.

Many MANY audiophiles have been clamoring that mp3, ogg and such are lossy formats, and having compared them, I agree. Now there are technologies such as monkeyaudio that promise digitally loseless copies. Of course, in the p2p arena, even these hi-fi tracks are free, and in the modern day of broadband connectivity, not beyond the average broadband consumers means. However the lossless formats aren't gaining much market share whatsoever. The end result is that most consumers are more than happy, even when comparing two FREE options for the same goods.

Booooooo.

5.1 systems below $400 are usually garbage. Instead of two quality speakers, you get 6 small garbage ones. I'll take two floorstanding high quality speakers for $400 instead of one of those computer systems where the speakers are smaller than my hand, anyday.

Sven: about the market share of lossless formats, FLAC is, and some home theater systems support it, in addition to the latest line of Rio portables.

It took me awhile to recognize the inferiority of mp3 in terms of sound quality.

In the beginnin, i was so jazzed at the free-ness and convenience of it all, i just chalked up the bad sound to my computer speakers.

When I got around to improving my sound hardware, the imperfections started to really bug me, not to mention the sound from burned cd's on my home stereo.

The problem lies in the high frequencies, especially when there is a lot of cymbal work in the song. There is a "swishy" distortion reminiscent of a phase distortion effect that can be heard on low or mid- quality mp3's that I can no longer ignore.

Eventually, this sound quality problem will begin to matter to more and more people.

If the RIAA had more than shit for brains, they would be pointing this out to those folks who haven't noticed it already.

MOST people can't tell the difference between a well made 192k bit rate mp3 and a CD. Just because you can (or just say you can) doesn't make you any better than someone who doesn't.

Oh, and the thing about the green marker is COMPLETE bull$h!t. Anyone who wants to read aboutit go here: http://www.urbanlegends.com/misc/cd/marking_cds.html or maybe here: http://www.snopes.com/music/info/greening.htm

You just proved my point with the green marker comment. Get over yourself. You can't here a difference.

And to all the audiophiles who say BS like that, STFU.

sry, the 2nd URL was

http://www.snopes.com/music/info/greening.htm

copy and paste it

I'm an audiophile, and have NO CLUE wtf the green marker thing is. And after reading that link, it sounds like complete and utter bullshit.

True, most ordinary listeners cant detect reasonable bitrate (192k mp3) loss under ordinary listening conditions. CD itsself creates distortion artifacts on high frequency sounds, distorting the waveforms, but when listening to a piece of complicated music with sevreal instruments and a singer its not that easy to hear. With a test track its easy to detect, and a skilled talented listener ca hear even small artifacts, but for the home listener who just burns CD to play on their full-range speaker boom box quality isn't that much of an issue.

Even if it was, lossy compression is getting better. MP3 survives from inertia and compatability. All of the more recent codecs improve on its quality at most bitrates. These are now battleing for dominance (with microsoft doing a bit of backstabbing of course). Even lossless compression is now suitable for broadband users, if they can find the files wanted on the p2p net in the confusion of lossy files.

I've only been in the cd arena for about 5 years, the ONLY reason i EVER HAD TO BUY ANY IS BECAUSE IT WAS GETTING TOO HARD TO FIND METAL TAPES. If you use metal tape, as opposed to the cheap iron ferrite and chrome ones everyone else was using, it sounds as good as any cd... also, you can overdrive the signal a bit in the recording process, and though it does distort slightly, it only seems to add to the sound, try that on a cd and see if you can listen to a whole song without tossing it into the trash.
As for mp3 sound vs cd sound, I don't think the average Joe can tell, but it seems MOST musicians can.

sound quality? I'm not really a fan of the whole "this over that kbps" argument. I mean, I've got vinyl. I've got tapes. I've got three cd players, and a watch that holds an hour of mp3s (at 96kbps). Bottom line, I'm Joe Average when it comes to my equipment, and I don't find any difference. I'm sure there ARE differences, that's always going to be the case. My point is that me and all the other "Joes" out here don't really care as long as it's not a SERIOUS degradation in sound. I personally can enjoy the music at 96 or 100 and still be happy just to be listening to music. Sure, some of my albums/tapes have degraded over the years, and the sound is crappy, but that's from the medium, not the hardware right?
I guess musicians can hear a difference. That's kinda cool. It's like being a mechanic and being able to just start a car, listen carefully and find out there's something wrong. The driver may not hear anything, and may in fact feel the car runs fine!
Not bashing anyone here, just my own bottom line. I'm in it for the music. I'm in it because music, no matter the bitrate or format, makes me feel good.
ttmmm

"MOST people can't tell the difference between a well made 192k bit rate mp3 and a CD. Just because you can (or just say you can) doesn't make you any better than someone who doesn't. "

Well, I tip my hat to you and the rest of the hearing-impaired community. Of course I am better than you. In hearing. You probably are superior to me in many other abilities. I am disabled, so you likely have a vast number of capabilities that I do not. Don't begrudge me the fact I have acute hearing, please. It really is a small compensation compared to being able to live a normal life.

I have done blind tests comparing MP3 with WAV ripped from CD, and it was not hard to tell the difference. The MP3s were ripped with EAC using LAME VBR -- bitrate varied from 128-320kbps. I was told this was indistinguishable from CD, by someone who ran a private file-sharing web. Well, he's entitled to his opinion. Maybe for him they ARE indistinguishable.

I just hope the poor perception or the "It's good enough" attitude of the majority will not be too much of a drag on the development and marketing of truly superior technologies of sound reproduction.

Re: green markers on CDs, I'll admit it sounds like a scam. I don't know why it makes a difference in my setup with my CD player, but it does. What works best is a layer of green topped by a layer of black. I can only speak for the Staedtler Lumocolor markers. I read about them in Stereophile -- their Dutch correspondent discovered them. Other markers don't work as well. In the snopes article, the person doing the test did not use the markers recommended and used by audiophiles. The most he can claim is that the stuff HE tried didn't help.

I don't paint my CD edges green any more. But then I am listening to CDs through a crappy stock sound card, so there is little point.

the first test in wave to mp3 should be listen to the low end, do a comparison your self, take your favorite cd rip to mp3, then rip back to a wave, put the original and the burned copy in your disk player and listen to both back to back. There is a differance and the low end will not be as robust as the original wave.

I think the people deep in the heart of developing software to compress and reconstitute sound call this "physcomechanics".

There is no way a recording media can record and then replay an audio stream to truly represent the original sound. The attempt is to get the primiary sound or sounds and then to couple it with the reverberations as best possible to give the listener the sense that they are witnessing the actual event. What so much that is called 'good quality sound' is nothing more that the ability to modify the base and treble frequencies to something that suits the listener's tast.

Welcome to the iPod generation! It seems that pocketability has trumped sound quality for much of the music-consuming public.

Music only sounds so good when wearing $10 earbuds and walking around campus or when cranking out the tunes on one's computer. Of course music sounds better with nicer equipment (like my $50 earbuds or my studio monitor phones or nice speakers or...), but why would people pay for better stuff when they work or play in a noisy environment (what, not everybody has an anechoic chamber?!?) and just want tunes! Sad--but even I use my cheap headphones a lot when I'm out and about because I don't feel bad when they get destroyed. I wish I had more money for better stuff though...

Quality vs. quantity comes down to personal preference (and the willingness to pay!).