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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 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.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
This is not surprising at all. Talk with anyone who grew up listening to records and you'll hear a tale of music with character and soul. That "character" and "soul" is the pop and crack of dust, scratches, and whatnot that the record needle picked up - all the imperfections in the record player and record that we could hear. It's a comforting and familiar noise in the sound. The digital generation has its own pop and crackle and it should come as a surprise to nobody that their reaction to it is the same as the record generation's reaction to the sound of a record playing.
I think what it really points out, is that people don't or won't differentiate between what they're used to hearing and what really qualifies as "high quality". It's like an older person who has been drinking Sanka all their lives not liking more expensive coffee brewed using a method like french press; the latter is acknowledged as infinitely better, but if it's not what you're used to then "different" is likely to be considered "bad", at least at first.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Little did he know that if all people know is crap they actually begin to prefer it.
And that's why 2009 will not be the year of Linux on the Desktop.
that is an odd statement at best.
Most people like what they are used to and don't like what they aren't used to. Saying that can't tell what they like from what they are used to shows an in-depth lack of understanding of other individuals.
Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
Pops of the 70's phonograph
Hiss of the 80's magnetic tape
Sizzle of the 00's MP3s.
Sounds like we had a perfect format in the optical disc - now we just need audio engineers that don't fuck up the mastering with everything cranked to 11.
french press ... is acknowledged as infinitely better
... by those that prefer french press. Those that prefer Sanka clearly do no acknowledge french press as infinitely better.
Your argument is totally circular: You should prefer french press because if you prefer french press then you'll find that you prefer french press.
(not to mention the hints of elitism).
Except most people are playing their music through basic headphones while going to work, school, gym ,etc. and all the background noises associated with the activities. They are not sitting in a sound proof room with the best speakers, amps, etc. to notice a difference.
For those that might notice the difference I bet you the marginal benefit of getting to the next level does not out weight the marginal cost so people don't care.
He could have phrased it better: People don't know why they like what they like, particularly they can't tell if they like something because they're used to it or because it has other likable qualities.
This is an important realization for requirements engineering: Don't ask people what they want. To want is to have an anticipation of liking. As people can't tell if they like something because they're used to it, they will often tell you they want something but later don't like what they wanted because, since it's new, they're not familiar with it. So either you give them something familiar with small tweaks or you have to use another way to find what people "really" want.
Since there are no real standards that define one taste as being better than another, such remarks are an attempt to justify that the one making them is somehow superior to others. I prefer to use the words 'I prefer this food over that one' rather than 'This food tastes better'. I would rather offer my personal opinion about something that is purely subjective, than act like an oaf and state as factual something that isn't.
... I must really like that one' and then pretend to enjoy it.
Wine and cigar aficionados have certain standards they use, but it is only within that circle they are true standards. Outside that circle they are irrelevant. Saying one has to be 'educated' to appreciate it is also elitist. I smoke plenty of cigars, and use the ratings as a guide to try new things, not as 'oh
I love high-end tequila and bourbon, but that doesn't stop me from having a shot of Sauza or Wild Turkey sometime. There is something about their bite that I love. Given the choice between Red Breast or Wild Turkey it would be unlikely for me to choose Wild Turkey. But that doesn't mean it doesn't taste good to me.
What I have found is people assign 'fine' standards to items that are expensive, rare, or seem to be liked by a few people. Lobster used to be used as fertilizer because it was deemed 'trash food' and apprentice contracts were written that forbid having to eat it more than a few times a week. Now it's a 'delicacy' to some. As someone who lived in Maine for 20 years, I think it tastes like crap except in a lobster roll with plenty of mayo.
I can enjoy an Oscar Mayer bologna sandwich on white bread with store brand yellow mustard as well as I can a fine steak served with a blue cheese butter. Neither taste is better than the other, they are tastes and I am perfectly capable of finding something good in both of them.
Maybe those that don't like the bologna sandwich just don't have as refined a palate as I do to appreciate the subtle flavors and textures.
I rarely read replies, it's my opinion and if you thought about your opinion a little more, I'm OK with that.
There is no accuracy in coffee that expensive coffee is closer to than Sanka is.
Who says 'accuracy' is a desirable quality of a musical recording?
Certainly not the musicians who "punched in" re-takes of passages where they were unhappy with their first performance, or the producer who demanded that the singer's performance be processed with autotune, or the engineers who applied reverb, compression, and EQ to each recorded part individually, made volume adjustments to everything during mixdown, and then applied more compression and EQ to the finished product, or the CD duplicator that took the 48kHz/24-bit master DAT and transcoded it down to a 44.1kHz,16-bit master...
No it doesn't make any sense.
Why would people prefer the distorted sound produced my MP3-128??? As I just said - it's distorted. I grew-up listening to AM and FM, but I certainly don't prefer either - too noisy. I prefer the uncompressed FLAC or CD because it's as close to live as one can get.
I can only conclude the college students are nuts to prefer the "buzz" of digital artifacts. I can tolerate digital artifacts, but I definitely do Not like them. Screw MP3-128 and give me MP3-320 or a CD, since both are superior.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
That's one possibility, another is that there's a huge incidence of hearing damage in young people. Mostly from playing music too loud or listening through ill fitting iPod earbuds. Or listening to music that's too loud and through ill fitting earbuds.
A couple years back I tried listening to some of my oldest MP3 files and they sounded terrible, at 128. These days I listen pretty much just using the typical Lame preset. I think that comes out at a bit rate of 192kbps variable and basically identical to the original for most purposes.
The other possibility is that people listen through crap equipment which really can't properly convey the encoding. I know when I moved up to my Shure e2c and Sennheiser HD 477 that suddenly higher compression rate files were unbearable to listen to. I'd guess with really good equipment like Grados that it would be even more pronounced.
So the question is why is music this way and, say hi-def video NOT this way?
I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that the reason is that music is not audio. I'd expect if the question was centered around, say more generic audio quality, say listening to recorded conversations, or bird sounds or whatever the higher quality may be preferred, in a manner that's analogous to preferring higher quality video.
In other words it may be the difference between Content and Delivery. Higher quality DELIVERY is almost always preferred, but when aspects of that delivery work their way into the CONTENT then the content preference will win.
No one ever talks about the warm feeling of low-def TV, but you may find lots of folks who prefer hand drawn cartoons vs "higher quality" computer generated cartoons.
In my case regarding music I do know that I have a preference for recordings of live music vs studio recordings. It evokes in me a sense of a shared experience (even though I know this is a fantasy), it's like I'm there in a concert with others. A studio recording, on the other hand seems more like a solo experience. I suppose I'd prefer higher quality live recordings over lower quality ones, but I also suppose I'd prefer lower quality live recordings over higher quality studio recordings.
Why would people prefer the distorted sound produced my MP3-128??? As I just said - it's distorted.
The same reason people prefer the "colorized" (ie distorted) sound of a tube amp, or the "compressed and limited" audio of a radio announcer.
"Sounding good" has nothing to do with the faithful reproduction of the source material. It is a perception.
--fatboy
Yeah.. there's nothing more fun than taking something enjoyable and pointing out all the flaws until you can't stand it anymore. Hey, if you're not busy later, maybe you could come over and criticize my wife too.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
It doesn't hurt that the SM57 can be had for under $100 and is nearly indestructible. There is no fragile cage over the element (that's what the SM58 is for), and though the reproduction is colored, it is generally adequate onstage. They also Just Work, every time. I have personally switched to using a Sennheiser MD-421U for these jobs, but they cost at least three times as much and aren't nearly as bulletproof (mostly because of the stupid clip design).
Don't rule out plain old cheapness and ubiquity when it comes to gear choices.
Mal-2
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
MP3-320 may be better than MP3-128, but it's generally overkill. Most people's impression of the quality of 128kbps MP3s comes from the era where most MP3s weren't encoded with VBR.
I don't think that even fixed bitrate 128 mbps is inherently quite as bad as people used to claim. I understand where it got this reputation, because I've listened to downloaded 128 mbps MP3s (*) which are quite clearly compressed with artifacting, etc. and demonstrate why some people used it as the benchmark for convenience-over-quality music.
Yet I encoded stuff for myself at 128mbps fixed-rate around the same time, and it sounds miles better. It's still not hifi, but the difference in quality is noticable.
Why? Good question. It's possible that the crappy downloaded MP3s had been re-encoded, but it's more likely that they were simply done using a low-quality encoder. I used notlame, which was supposedly one of the better ones. IIRC a few years back, the quality of encoders *did* vary quite a bit. Nowadays I'm guessing that the ones in use are much better and much closer in performance- not to mention that higher bitrates and use of VBR make any differences less obvious.
Back to the point; you won't get hifi at 128mbps, but neither should you damn it completely by the quality of a mislabelled MP3 you downloaded from Napster in 1999.
(*) Downloaded via, erm... "non-favoured" channels circa 2001 when most people still used fixed-rate 128mbps.
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