Slashdot Mirror
Young People Prefer "Sizzle Sounds" of MP3 Format
Hugh Pickens writes "Jonathan Berger, a professor of music at Stanford, tests his incoming students each year by having them listen to a variety of recordings which use different formats from MP3 to ones of much higher quality, and he reports that each year the preference for music in MP3 format rises. Berger says that young people seemed to prefer 'sizzle sounds' that MP3s bring to music because it is a sound they are familiar with. 'The music examples included both orchestral, jazz and rock music. When I first did this I was expecting to hear preferences for uncompressed audio and expecting to see MP3 (at 128, 160 and 192 bit rates) well below other methods (including a proprietary wavelet-based approach and AAC),' writes Berger. 'To my surprise, in the rock examples the MP3 at 128 was preferred. I repeated the experiment over 6 years and found the preference for MP3 — particularly in music with high energy (cymbal crashes, brass hits, etc) rising over time.' Dale Dougherty writes that the context of the music changes our perception of the sound, particularly when it's so obviously and immediately shared by others. 'All that sizzle is a cultural artifact and a tie that binds us. It's mostly invisible to us but it is something future generations looking back might find curious because these preferences won't be obvious to them.'"
I think the Jonas Brothers already proved this.
Dick Cavett said "As long as people will accept crap, it will be financially profitable to dispense it." Little did he know that if all people know is crap they actually begin to prefer it.
Haiku for you!
I encountered the same feeling when I walked into a Best Buy the other day. I don't generally go into places like that, so when I did and I saw all of the flat-scren TV's, my GF and I couldn't get over how BAD we thought they all looked. The looked too sharp and too bright. I need another TV but I'm having trouble finding anyone that sells good CRT's any more!
Huh?
I didn't catch that. Could you speak up?
I think that it really just points more to the fact that most people can't tell the difference between what they like and what they are used to.
Wait, that makes no sense. If somebody voices a preference for the "sizzle" of mp3, then isn't precisely because they like it?
Or is there an objective preference function somewhere deep in each of our souls that we need to learn to access?
French press coffee tastes horrible. The coffee at Denny's tastes better.
Also, get off my lawn.
high freq is the first to go, so a distorted high end combined with a loss of any real soundstage (which is compounded by turning the LA2A compressors up to max to pump the sound even more at mastering) feeds the material effect of the sound for the sociological issues described in TFA.
In 30 years, when the oil's gone and hordes of cannibalistic zombies wander the ruins of Western Civilisation, these young punks will be easy pickins. Deaf as posts, obese, incapable of complex or convoluted thought, lazy, self absorbed, crybabies with a massive bolt of self-entitlement. Yep. They won't be able to feed themselves and will either join the zombie hordes or be eaten by them.
All thanks to the iPod and the Xbox.
Yep yep, I tell ya. Things just haven't been right since the Coolidge Administration. Zombie hordes back then? Fuck - we'd hear 'em from MILES away...
ghmgnghnhgmghhngmhngmhnmghng...
The sound of zombies. Heck - we'd just sit on our porch with a shovel and beat the fucking crap out of them. None of this "Oh, I'm sorry, did that hurt?"" No way. It's more like "I'M (smack!) GIVING (smack!) YOU (smack!) THE (smack!) BEATING (smack!) YOUR (smack!) MOMMY (smack!) AND (smack!) DADDY (smack!) NEVER (smack!) GAVE (smack!) YOU, (smack!)YOU (smack!) STUPID (smack!) FAT (smack!) FUCK! (smack!)(smack!)(smack!)
Yep. THAT would teach them fat zombie fucks a thing or two.
S, if you wanna do something for the future that's REALLY worth doing, do this to your kids:
1. DON'T be their friend. Be their PARENT. And sometimes the parent has to be the avatar of the kid's bad karma. Punishment is good when doled out judiciously and without mercy.
2. Take away the iPod. They want to listen to music? They listen over speakers and at a reasonable volume, because they have to live with others.
3. Get rid of your TV set.
4. Read books, and have your kids read books.
5. Teach them how to grow food gardens.
6. Teach them how to play an acoustic instrument.
7. Teach them to be as good as their word and to not lie. Ever. Their word must be their bond and they must be held accountable. No excuses.
That's a start.
The beatings will continue until morale improves.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
What Dishevel is trying to say is that you plebs have no right to have an opinion about music unless you hear it, from uncompressed studio masters in 188kHz form, on his $45k audio equipment with gold wires, sound-dampened walls, perfectly tuned speakers, and cleanroom-like air filtering so that the very DUST ITSELF cannot disrupt the purity of the music (make sure to wear your protective suit as you walk into the studio!). Only then will you truly know what you "like", only if you agree with Dishevel.
a) Wrong Story b) What if you miss?
-- Lattyware (www.lattyware.co.uk)
It's freedom press, you insensitive, unpatriotic, red clod!
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
My father used to mock me everyday and now that is what I am used to and feel comfortable with. Now when I start feeling normal I get an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of my stomach and have to do somthing to cut myself down so I can "Feel Good" again.
I only feel good when I feel comfortable.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
Personally, I find nothing captures the authenticity of perfomance, the essential "you are there" je ne sais quoi-ness of musical experience, quite as well as the Edison Wax Cylinder.
Gold is only good if the component will be unplugged and plugged back in a lot, or will spend a lot of time sitting around.
As opposed to components that spend a lot of time jogging.
>>>close your ears when assorted fellaters of Beelzebub pollute the airways, lest you get used to their massproduced, RIAA-pocket-lining crap.
Agreed.
Ever since 1750, music has been going downhill. People like Mozart claim to be "making music for the masses" but I just call it noise. Now Bach - there was a man who could compose REAL music, with multiple levels of chords overlapping, it was truly music for the nobility. Anything else is just simplistic twaddle for the uneducated commoners. Bah. Humbug.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Huh?
I didn't catch that. Could you speak up?
HE SAID WE LIKE HIGH TRIBBLES.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
As for scalpers, the simple fact is that prices are too low. If you have people willing to pay often ten times the face value of a ticket, why in the name of god are you selling them so cheaply? Sell them at what the market considers a fair price and the scalpers will be out of business.
[FUCK BETA]
Forget air filtering... I only listen to my music in a perfect vacuum, so that the air itself can not color the sound.
oh, wait.
No, no, I've got it. I listen to it in a room full of pure helium, so that everything sounds like Alvin and the Chipmunks.
The CB App. What's your 20?
Because unverified personal anecdotes are enough to invalidate anything anyone says. Of course.