ongoing · The Great CD Migration:
For the Nay-Sayers There are those out there who consider that audiophilia is disease, that the effects are imaginary, the specifications misleading, the culture anti-scientific. The Wikipedia’s write-up (
5) is generally coloured by this viewpoint. Lending support is the fact that some high-end vendors make claims that are ludicrously beyond belief, and that indeed, there is quite a bit of snake oil for sale.
It’s all a tradeoff. Once the notes are loosed from the instrument, be it the vocal cords of a tenor or the crash of a cymbal, any reproduction of them is less than the original. The arguments over whether tape sounds “better” than digital (11) recording in the studio or whether vinyl sounds better than CD still rage.
I figure this is all like finding sounds: maybe they’re not as pristine as we would like but we get to hear them just the same. There’s a diminishing return in it for me, as I can never count on optimum listening conditions (and unlike Tim, I’m not unplugging the fridge).
{music}