'Good Enough' Sound and Its Discontents
Terry Teachout recently threw down an old gauntlet again. Writing in The Wall Street Journal early last month, Teachout opined that the convenience, 40,000-song capacity, and ubiquity of the iPod and other MP3 players trumped the limitations of an MP3's imperfect compressed sound, even when listening to classical music or jazz. So why isn't compressed sound a big deal? He relates:
Like a third of my fellow baby boomers, I'm experiencing one of the more predictable consequences of growing older, which is that I now suffer from a mild but noticeable case of presbycusis, the medical term for age-related hearing loss. Not only are the sensory cell receptors in my inner ear gradually degenerating as a result of advancing age, but when young I spent countless happy hours playing loud music, which fried more than a few of those same receptors. I can still enjoy music of all kinds, but I don't hear it quite as well as I did 20 years ago, because I now find it harder to perceive the high-frequency sounds that are such an important part of recorded music.
He's not wild about his hearing disappearing. But on the other hand, Teachout admits he "really doesn't care. . . much." Now he can spend less money on equipment and more on downloads.
A couple of weeks later, The New York Times's classical-music critic, Anthony Tommasini, implicitly seconded Teachout's declaration, adding that even classical musicians are more apt to use MP3 players than high-end gear, if only for convenience's sake. He also observed that the real action in audiophilia was occurring in home-entertainment systems. Tommasini listened to a new recording by baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky on a "modestly priced system ($1,295)," then admitted, "I enjoyed this recording every bit as much during a recent flight, when I listened on my new noise-filtering headphones and inexpensive portable CD player."
Fred Kaplan, however, preaches the audiophile gospel, arguing in Slate that while age may indeed hinder your capacity to enjoy music's high end,
[T]here's more to music—and more to hi-fi—than extreme treble. Compared with good CDs and LPs played on good hi-fi gear, MP3s also flatten dynamic range (the difference between the loudest and softest sounds), obliterate dynamic contrasts (the slight variations between loud and soft), smother low frequencies (the bass), and smear transients (the front edge of, say, a drum smack or a string pluck). These shortcomings wreak havoc with drama and rhythm—the life and essence of much music.Convenience is hardly enough for Kaplan, who believes that only a good home stereo playing a quality CD or vinyl can duplicate the texture, harmonies, clarity, and ambience of live music. Anything else does disservice to the art form and potentially worse for audiophiles, suggests to manufacturers that bad sound is good enough. (Although this obviously isn't so in the realm of home entertainment, as Tommasini noted.)
I suspect that Teachout and Tommasini's advocacy of expedience over (high) quality is less a product of a diminished desire for great sound than simply a response to the realities of the over-compressed demands of contemporary journalism. To those who can eke out the time, erase the distractions, and afford the tab enough to enjoy the pleasures of an expensive high-quality sound system, I salute you. For the rest of us, chained to our computers (I prefer a nice pair of monitor speakers and a subwoofer) or iPods, good enough remains, well, good enough. But we can dream.
[via Sound and Fury]