Rock star Neil Young made some interesting comments at the Fortune Brainstorm Tech Conference yesterday including his suggestion that music sound quality has been "dumbed down to Fisher-Price toy levels" since the inception of the iPod.
?Apple has taken a detour down the convenience highway,? Young said. ?Quality has taken a complete backseat - if it even gets in the car at all.?
Young ... [ read the full article ]
Please read the original article before posting your comments.
Originally posted by llongtheD: Uh, not everyone can afford a "real tube amplifier" and an audiophile quality turntable to spin that vintage vinyl Neil. Like a couple of the other posters noted, be glad someone is keeping that dinosaur shit alive.
For what you pay for that over priced iPod you should get a high quality system sorry but your wrong here.
Neil hits the head square and this has been my biggest complaint with most of the flash/micro drive players. I prefer WMA lossless (variable bitrate) and the size isn't horrible but the problem is the audio player?s quality of reproduction which shouldn't be the problem since low amplifier design should have much better specs and sound quality, THD & frequency range. Its obvious that pretty and small is their ONLY concern and the average user thinks 128 is OK, what a joke, wake up please. If you could here my HiFi system you would never consider such cheap crap.
@Mr movies,
for the price you pay for an ipod, you can get a high quality system?
For the price of a high quality turntable alone, you could get 3 ipods. Check your facts bud.
Quote:For the price of a high quality turntable alone, you could get 3 ipods. Check your facts bud.
Actually he doesn't have to. A decent turntable, my favorite were the Duals, cost about half the price of an ipod. Great tables, but then of course you have to have a decent cartridge. The sound was phenomenal and they ran virtually forever. Who knows? I never saw one die. For the money is no cost Audiophile gone nuts the Oracle table was something of a connoisseurs delight. It wasn't just something that we played records on, it was a holy cradle rocking our musical world on a disc.
So how does this relate to an iPod? There is no comparison!! An ipod has the sound quality of those digital talking dolls. You know the ones where you pull the little string on its back and it says "mama."
I understand what your saying, but he was suggesting you could get an entire "system" for the price of an ipod. The turntable would just be a part. In the end its ridiculous to compare any high quality audio system with any portable music device, not just the ipod. As soon as Neil young invents a PORTABLE music system, bluray or what have you, that can stand up to even a mediocre home system, I'll buy one. Its also possible all those concerts have dulled Youngs hearing range as well.
Quote:I understand what your saying, but he was suggesting you could get an entire "system" for the price of an ipod. The turntable would just be a part. In the end its ridiculous to compare any high quality audio system with any portable music device, not just the ipod. As soon as Neil young invents a PORTABLE music system, bluray or what have you, that can stand up to even a mediocre home system, I'll buy one.
I was just being funny and reminiscent. For $249 I purchased 5:1 surround Logitech Z-5500 powered speaker system, that has 505 watts RMS of power as well as built in surround sound decoders. Those are about the price of a lower version of iPod alone, but many times the quality.
I agree that trying to compare an ipod to a full audio component set is a bit of a stretch, but not by as much as one might think.
I agree with this article. The iPod, while high quality and easy to use, has terrible audio quality. With a nice set of earbud headphones, I can hear a distinct difference between the iPod and the Realtek HD onboard sound on my motherboard. The Realtek HD being superior.
The Soundblaster X-Fi is way ahead of both in audio quality, and I'm just using a 32W Logitech 2.1 setup. I get rich, full bass and amazing audio detail. It whacks the crap out of an iPod especially with Sennheiser HD212 headphones.
What can I say though? The iPod is a sweet little piece of technology. I love mine and I use it every day. So that has to mean something.
