EDIT: Just a bit more context. Neil Young has been trying to sell an 'audiophile' grade audio player. This post seems like nothing more than trying to stealthily promote the supposed virtues of his own product.<p>I'm sorry but what an utter absolute load of crap. Especially given this:<p><a href="http://gizmodo.com/dont-buy-what-neil-young-is-selling-1678446860" rel="nofollow">http://gizmodo.com/dont-buy-what-neil-young-is-selling-16784...</a><p>Read some of the comments down on his Facebook also. His fans are not happy (rightfully so).
An interesting stance he's taking.<p>Spotify, Google Play Music, and Rdio all stream at 320kbps MP3 or OGG, and Apple Music streams at 256kbps AAC (which is approximately the same quality as 320kbps MP3). [0][1]<p>Yet, the vast majority of people cannot tell the difference between 256kbps MP3 and lossless, let alone between 320kbps MP3 and lossless (tested many times, for example: [2]). I'm not sure Neil has much of an argument to make here when it comes to audio quality, particularly for the use case of casual listening.<p>[0]: <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2015/6/30/8863315/streaming-music-service-comparison-apple-music" rel="nofollow">http://www.theverge.com/2015/6/30/8863315/streaming-music-se...</a><p>[1]: <a href="http://www.whathifi.com/news/apple-music-tracks-are-256kbps-aac-files" rel="nofollow">http://www.whathifi.com/news/apple-music-tracks-are-256kbps-...</a><p>[2]: <a href="http://blog.codinghorror.com/the-great-mp3-bitrate-experiment/" rel="nofollow">http://blog.codinghorror.com/the-great-mp3-bitrate-experimen...</a>
> the worst quality in the history of broadcasting<p>because his stuff was never transmitted by FM radio, let alone AM radio. What.<p>Seriously, Neil Young is 69 and has played feedback-drenched noise for the past forty years. If he can tell compressed stream quality from source CD in A/B/X testing, I'll give you and him a lollipop. Two lollipops.
Huh? I am sure he is completely fine having his music streamed over the analogue airwaves on FM Radio stations. Now THAT isn't exactly great quality...
I like Neil Young. I have a lot of his albums, but this will probably just result in me listening to his music less. Streaming music just provides so much more comfort, and must people will not be able to hear the difference through cheap ear buds.<p>I would've respected his decision a lot more if he just said that it is about the money. There is definitely a hidden agenda here, especially considering that many of his albums had a pretty miserable recording quality to begin with.
They needed a much better explanation. I listen to most of my music on the subway with a lot of background noise; I never worry about low sound quality.
I have never heard any stereo remotely duplicate the sound of hearing, say, a violin acoustically live. I don't think the difference is a higher effective bit rate. There's something else going on. Maybe it's the shape of our ears.<p>If someone wants to revolutionize music reproduction, how about solving this problem?
Personally sound quality is more important to me. I'd be a lot happier if Taylor Swift had put her foot down for FLAC-encoded downloads being made available or something.<p>Because trying to find those is literally impossible.