Marginal Revolution: MR Readers’ poll about Radiohead:
To all who complained of the MP3 quality: the band did that partially to save on bandwidth and partially in the hopes of keeping the album off of places like Oink, where 192 kbps is the minimum quality for torrents. That having been said, it’s almost certain that they had to mix and master the album differently for this purpose than they would for a lossless CD. Note how Thom’s vocals and Phil’s drums are so crisp compared to the guitar and bass in most of the songs. I’m looking forward to the discbox, so I can hear what I’m missing right now, and I’m sure as hell not going to complain about the quality of a product for which I chose the price.
So why 160? Why not 180 or even 191?
I expect the post-production stuff was geared toward this (I remember hearing the ZZ Top’s stuff in the 80s was mixed using car stereo speakers for the same reason). Wonder if the disc box goodies will be different? Are they really shipping vinyl?