A Note on the Loss of Quality in Audio, Image and Video

On September 9, 2009, EMI will at long last issue newly remastered
versions of the Beatles’ albums and singles in stereo and mono on CD. 
On that same day will be released a version of the popular videogame
Rock Band featuring the Beatles’ original recordings, which very well
might outsell (in volume, total dollars and profit) the CD versions. 
Though nearly impossible to quantify, the Beatles Rock Band’s cultural
impact will dwarf that of the CD’s, which as a medium is fast becoming
a relic.  Teenagers and their parents will congregate to “play” the
as-yet-unnamed songs, signifying interactivity’s transcendence over the
relatively passive phenomenon of our parents’ screaming at TV screen
while the Fab Four played the Ed Sullivan Show.  Of course, we will
have to wait through one more holiday season of the Beatles being
unavailable via iTunes and Rhapsody, though they are available via the
indirect sources of Pandora (and Rhapsody artist radio stations), so
EMI, Apple Corps and the publishers can have one last financial hurrah
before the CD’s demise.

Yet, something seems amiss.  This sunset of the CD’s predominance feels like the end of an era and sensibility that I’m not quite willing to let go of.

We Are Drawn to Technology
In 1985, my dad purchased his first CD player.  It marked the next
generation of audiophilia for those who had purchased Original Master
Recordings and half-speed mastered vinyl.  With the CD’s sampling rate
of 44kHz – that is, 44,000 times per second – Dad, in his own mind, was
getting closer to the artists he loved.  It was as if Frank Sinatra,
Sammy Davis and the Rolling Stones were crooning or clanging in his
ears.  

Piped through a quadraphonic stereo into Bose 901 speakers – before the
brand became well known – the music sounded incredible, as if we were
there at the recording.  No hiss or “wow” and “flutter” of cassette. 
Now, there was sheer silence between songs.  What’s more, the CD was
much more convenient than older formats.  It was smaller and more
portable than an LP; you could effortlessly skip tracks; and the sound
was free pops and crackles.  The sound of CDs made me a lifelong
Sinatra fan when I listened to his first album with Antonio Carlos
Jobim.

At the time, it would have seemed that hi-fi had reached its pinnacle,
even though purist audiophiles and musicians like Neil Young claimed
that the human ear was able to hear a far higher resolution.  Luckily,
CD mastering improved over the next 15 years, and new formats (Super
Audio, DVD Audio, etc.) were introduced though not widely adopted by
consumers.  Over the next 10 years, Dad replaced most of his record
collection with CDs: the Sinatra Capitol Years 16 CD box set Concepts,
Hot Rocks and Sammy Davis, Jr.: That’s All, along with hundreds of
others.

Give Us a Taste and We Crave More
But in 2000, seventeen plus years after the CD’s introduction, digital
technology and consumer behavior began to re-jigger, focusing on price,
volume (meaning ‘amount of content’) and convenience; soon, music
collections swelled and could be taken anywhere.  Even before the
original Napster’s launch, compressed formats like MP3, WMA and AAC had
already been essential to efficiently fitting music on hard drives and
portable audio devices.  When Napster became popular, these formats’
small size enabled mass file collection, trading, sharing…and piracy
via the Internet.  Included in the files were the metadata that allowed
the music to be easily filed, sorted and played on demand.  “Songs” had
become lower quality “files”, which interestingly didn’t influence the
vernacular.

As the iPod became popular and its capacity doubled twice yearly,
ultimately to 120 GB, consumers could eventually fit between 5-10,000
songs (1,000 albums!) onto their devices, sorted by artist, album, song
and genre.  Many of these files were either 128kbs MP3 or AAC files,
and the sound wasn’t pretty good through the iPod earbuds.

When the iPod’s capacity reached the point of diminishing returns (how
many people have, or have interest in, 10,000 songs?), there ensued a
minor revolt amongst moderate audiophiles to improve the sound
quality.  What sounded fine through earbuds sounded downright muffled
and tinny through higher quality headphones and decent quality
stereos.  Apple responded by offering iTunes Plus, which offered
certain tracks and albums at a much improved 256kbs and without copy
protection, but still below the richness of CD quality sound.

What’s my point?

Let Us Experience It How It Was Intended
I am nostalgic for the quality that we’ve lost in artistic
verisimilitude and for what it represents.  I have the same craving and
desire for quality in image.  I miss the feeling of feeling closer to
the artist’s creation by finding that perfect medium or representation
that captured his or her art.  Of hearing the studio’s atmosphere on
Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue.  Of the synthesized heavy, airy bass drum on
Prince’s “Kiss”.  Of John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman’s warmth, breath
and spit on their all too short Impulse album.  Of the richness of
Radiohead’s Kid A and the reverberated mud of Marvin Gaye’s What’s
Going On?  Of seeing Vertigo for the first time, in re-release, on the
big screen in faux VistaVision.  Of facing William Claxton, Horst,
Irving Penn or Francis Wolff’s photography on a wall in full sized
prints.

I don’t always want a Rock Band-style interaction and participation. 
Some of the time, I want to merely appreciate, passively.  I at least
want the option.  To have a front row seat without having to play or
interact.   To appreciate someone’s talent or art without having to
approximate it.  To be in awe.  To be close to the creation without
having to create.

This desire for “closeness” might represent nostalgia, perhaps even for
exclusivity, as much as a penchant for quality, but it represents a
type of communion between the beholder and the artist’s art.  It gives
me the feeling of being close to ‘there’ that moment of artistic
creation, of bearing witness, which I intellectually know is
impossible.  In the modern era of auto-tune and compressed audio, of
jpegs and MPEG, and importantly interactivity, I feel we’ve lost some
of that proximity to artistic creation and replaced it with other
things that are important to commerce and connection, but are
potentially deleterious to beauty and quality.

Technologist though I am, I’d love to see us strike more of a balance in the future.  

Nevertheless, I’m happily going to plug my laptop into my $35 JBL
computer speakers and listen to Jamie Foxx and T-Pain’s unlikely
monster hit “Blame It” via my Rhapsody subscription.  Old habits can be
sublimated…even amongst audiophiles.

Jonathan Cohen