Dearly beloved, we are gathered here to witness the beginning of the end of MP3 domination as we know it. Yes, it was surprising to me, too… at last count, I had 3,763 songs in the MP3 format across my MP3 players, iPod and computers. But, alas, the end is near. As new technologies emerge and storage capacities become larger and more affordable, the writing is on the wall for compressed audio. More on our better-sounding future after the Continue jump.
A Matter of Memory
When a 256MB MP3 player was state of the art, MP3 made sense. You needed to get music files compressed small enough to be able to get a reasonable variety on a player — enough to offer more than a standard CD. But as we move into the terabyte era and Blu-ray discs start to feature lossless audio formats, why compress the crap out of your music? Don't you want the very best for your audio files? Doesn't your music deserve the very best?
The Blu-ray format can store 50 gigabytes (new optical discs with up to 400GB are in the works, though they're not technically Blu-ray). That's 50GB of video, audio or data. Thanks to the extra space, movie producers no longer have to use the compressed audio formats of Dolby Digital and DTS, which are ubiquitous on DVD. Yeah, in case you didn't know, as sweet as those 5.1-channel DVD soundtracks are, they're "lossy" — some of the original audio content is thrown away, never to be seen again. Buh-bye.
No Big Loss for Soundtracks
But Hollywood has seen the light and is putting lossless audio formats on Blu-ray. The HD video contained on a Blu-ray Disc is still massively compressed (in a lossy kind of way). How massively? It would take about 21 Blu-ray discs to store an uncompressed two-hour film. The soundtracks are actually getting a pretty good deal, since their compression is at least lossless. DTS-HD Master Audio is a lossless format that's a bit-for-bit match of the original audio track, and Dolby TrueHD is also a 100% lossless coding technology. Of course, these formats are still compressed — they save space compared to WAV files — but the compression doesn't affect audio quality.
It should be asked that if compression technology is so good that even massively compressed video can be called high-def and looks awesome on a big screen, is audio compression really a bad thing if no one thinks anyone can hear the difference? Maybe not, but it's kind of beside the point. Lossless audio files are still tiny compared to video files, so since the amount of storage needed is so small, why not? In general, as storage size increases, compression should decrease.
If Hollywood has seen the light, it makes sense that the music industry should as well. A standard audio CD has about a measly 700MB of data. That means you could store about 70 CDs on a single Blu-ray disc. Uncompressed. Every single bit, not just the bits the MP3 codec designers thought you wanted.
The latest iPod has 160GB storage. 160 GIG! The Archos 504 has that, too. Its specs state it can store up to 80,000 songs. Why don't any of these stats state that you can store better-sounding songs? Instead of 80,000 songs, why not 8,000 that sound really good and are the original quality? The average MP3 encoder tosses out 90% of the original audio. A 10 MB WAV file becomes an 854.2 KB MP3 file encoded at 128 kpbs. That’s a huge reduction. As storage capacities increase, so should compression bit rates, but most files out there are at the same level of quality they were at 10 years ago.
Lossless Music, Everybody Wins
It's true that over the average pair of earbuds, most people can't hear the difference between MP3 and original uncompressed files. However, more and more home systems are coming out that are "iPod-ready" or have iPod docks. This means you're listening to your compressed audio on your killer home system, which will make the flaws more obvious. Even headphone technology is getting better and better, and the reduced quality of compression is going to get more and more apparent.
iTunes rips all your music into AAC format (a compression technique that's superior to MP3) at 128 kbps by default. Apple could do a huge service for the ears of the world by either raising that de facto standard or at the very least doing a better job of making their customers aware that they can (and should) change it on their own.
Obviously, most people are of the opinion that increased storage capacity means they can store more music. But something tells me not everybody wants to put the equivalent of a radio station's music collection on their iPods. So why can't it also mean better-quality music? The capacities are there — soon enough we'll all be trotting around with terabytes in our pockets. For the sake of our children's listening, isn’t it time to send MP3 packing?
editor@dvice.com
By thexfile at 2:34 AM ON 07/25/08
yes that sounds senible to me...
i rip my songs at 192 anyway and trie to avoid over comercilized players like ipods...
if everybody has 1 it's just not exclusive anymore.
and i indeed started encoding musick becouse i wanted more songs on my then 1 gb player..
i now have a 8 gb player but i'm stuck becouse companies ar slow in relassing 16 gb ( or higher )micro sd card to put in my htc media device ( better then an i phone just laks multytoutsh )
but indeed the 1st songs in my player were wave files....
but i also think that headphones need to get better....
i have so called high qualety earbuds , but if i plug the same device into my steriosysthem it already sounds 3x better even at 192....
so it's not just compression that spoils great sounding songs...
but i think this is the same problem we have withe camera's and the megapixel race....
everybody things that becouse a divice has more megapixels it's better then one that has not.
while i've tried to explain to friends and famely for ages that it's not how many pixels you have , but the surface areay you aplie thos pixels to that is the issue...
for years i had a 1 megapixel camera that could ouperform a 5 megappixel mashine...
and i think tis problem is kide of the same withe the video and musick industrie...
people think becouse it has more gb it means you can store more...
not thinking about the qualety of the content....
i also think that the musick industrie for years has been boycotting technologie to increase sound qualety...
they were always against mp3 etc , but i think they secretly liked it becouse it is , like tape was , a means of making copies les good....
so they stuk op this big wal to ban mp3 , just to stal techonlogie , and stop peple sharing hig qualety content that is a reater risk to pirecy....
it's like withe poletics , if you want the people not to see 1 foult hide it withe a big controversy or a war....
then people get so cought up in 1 thing they forget the other more important reason....
and in a way i stil think this is going on...
it's a fine line i know they are walking on , but lukely some of us are getting smarter and if companies do'nt do or bidding we wil go around them and do it our selves...
in the end you ca'nt stop evolution , in wich way it may apear , it's nature...
and so far even we , the ones that see ourselves as the more inteligant spicies , cant stop evolution....
By Alex at 3:51 AM ON 07/25/08
Jesus. Please tell me you're typing with your elbows.
By nuffer at 9:34 AM ON 07/25/08
LMAO @ Alex....
Mate, that was by far the best response/remark i've ever seen LMFAO
By kschroppe at 10:02 AM ON 07/25/08
Maybe he has 6 fingers on each hand or maybe it's microsoft voice to text.
By Giga at 10:36 AM ON 07/25/08
/agree with Alex
honestly, can you hear the difference between 192 and 320 kbps? personally I can't, and I have fairly good ears and a kick ass sound system. I seem to recall 96kbps is radio and 192kpbs is cd quality. "back in the day" when MP3 players were 32MB then yea, we encoded in 64kpbs, but honestly, who still does that? 192 is standard for the most part and those who think it gains them more encode at 320. at 192, it's roughly 1MB a min. Those of us who know what we're doing have known we could get away from "lossy" audio, and to the people who don't know what they're doing and don't ask, well nuts to them.
Personally I think Dvice is just running out of steam on what to report that's why they're reporting on things we already know. I mean have you seen the number of reports on the Iphone? seriously guys, it's not that good of a phone (and you've said so yourself).
By Geomaniac at 12:28 PM ON 07/25/08
Maybe for THEXFILE English is a second language. Jeez, give 'em a break. Can you speak (or type) any other language besides English? I didn't think so.
By BobMac at 1:56 PM ON 07/25/08
I'm all for lossless. I rip everything using ALAC. Can I hear the difference?...sometimes. But I do like knowing that I have the best possible quality file. In this day of broadband connections and 1.5TB hard drives, we shouldn't have to limit ourselves to compressed music.
By Dave T at 3:03 PM ON 07/25/08
I agree that the more memory/storage you have, the better quality your content should be. I'd rather have 2500 songs that sound great than 10000 that sound merely ok.
Btw, I think THEXFILE also writes for LOLCATS.
By Svend Tofte at 11:57 PM ON 07/25/08
Lossless has been out for years and years. Storage has also been virtually endless for most day-to-day consumers, and lossless has yet not made any inroads at all.
As the technology spreads around us, keeping the data mobile will be your key concern. Ensuring high mobility will usually mean keeping it small.
By Alex at 7:06 AM ON 07/26/08
To Geomaniac: Come on. English is not his second language - you can tell by the grammar and syntax. It's not good, but it's nothing like the spelling. It's his first language, and he should be banned from using it.
Also (gotta say it), what are you? His dad? There's no excuse for that shit, and you shouldn't be defending it. And by the way, also, as well, it's not that rare to be able to speak more than one language.
Does Geomaniac translate to "violently crazy about the whole world"?
By Michael at 7:30 PM ON 07/26/08
Contrary to what the post says mobility and streaming might create an even higher demand for compression. Putting data into the cloud requires someone to pay for all the bandwidth used and that someone will want to shrink the data down as far as possible. Lossless is an option, not the standard.
By 20yoquandary at 6:39 PM ON 07/27/08
is there discussion for the technology requirements that will meet theoretical human auditory and visual limits? im interested if anyone can point me in the direction
By Anonymous at 6:05 AM ON 07/28/08
Aye kan reed ritin buut Aye can rite reedin.
By Jen at 10:31 AM ON 07/28/08
This article assumes everyone can hear/cares about the quality of their mp3s. I don't. I listen to my music on the street with cheap headphones, so I don't get to hear every single sound, or at home, on mediocre speakers. And I see no reason to spend money on a 99.1 speaker system or a home cinema or $300 heaphones.
And yes, I would much rather store 80k mp3s encoded at 192 than 8k super-uber-sound ones.
By apt-X at 12:06 PM ON 07/30/08
Like vinyl, I bet that the plain Jane MP3 format could be around for the long play. Nevertheless, more Lossless and "High-Definition" music download sites are appearing: B&W Music Club [www.bowers-wilkins.com] and HDtracks [www.hdtracks.com], for example. This development is in keeping with the underlying technology trends: faster broadband, denser memory. But watch out: the new music industry will surely follow the tricks of old and resell you those tracks you enjoyed back in the day as grainy MP3 - but packaged in bit-perfect Lossless format! Extra fidelity, my friends, is often highly over-rated.
By deadeasy at 5:35 PM ON 07/30/08
Alex , could be that XFILE suffers from Jonathan Edwards' Syndrome. Check out: www.peaceman.de/abfall/schlimme-cover/jonathan-edwards.jpg - the pianist has two right hands.
By Nerve at 10:18 AM ON 11/19/08
Although I'm all for losless audio, the fact that you think you lose 90% of your info by compressing the filesize to 10% shows you understand jack shit about how compression algorithms work and hence you are not doing anyone who cares about audio quality a favour at all with your write-up.