Why so serious?
Famous Canadian Neil Young thinks Apple is responsible for ushering in an age of terrible audio quality. At a conference in California, the rock start accused Apple of “driving down the convenience highway,” whatever that means. The poor quality of MP3s (not Apple’s fault, but who’s counting?) and the iPod itself, I don’t know, are ruining music.
Methinks Neil doth protest…
Does he make a point? Kinda. The earbuds that Apple includes with the iPod are horrendous, but how many people listen to complicated music on their iPod? It’s all overproduced pop nonsense anyway, mastered to take into account people are listening on somewhat low quality devices.
I believe it was Neil Young himself who ushered in an era of poor audio quality. As the godfather of grunge and a crooner who can barely carry a tune, he’s really the last one I’d expect to be complaining.
I do love Neil, btw, and I listen to him all the time on my iPod. I’m going to do it even more now just to piss him off.
What a whiner ….. Neil welcome to the 21st century … something tells me he has other beafs … Like the freken 8 track (the music medium of his time) tape had such high quality sound ! Not to mention the record before it.
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Geez, complaining about the earbuds apple supplies is like complaining about a set of speakers that comes with a fully integrated stereo. Even “back in the day,” if you wanted good fidelity, you upgraded — pair of JBL bookshelfs, top-quality audio gear, etc. I upgraded the earbuds from my 3G iPod to a set of Shures that cost more than the ipod — and couldn’t be happier!
Maybe instead of blaming MP3’s for poor music audio he should blame poor music on the rise in popularity of poor quality MP3’s. Music is pretty bad these days and I could care less if I hear the latest Kid Rock song in Hi Fidelity or as a 64K MP3 through piss poor earbuds - it will suck either way.
Does anyone really give a crap what this old coot says?
I love me some Neil Young. I have every album he has ever created in mp3 format. But, he is very ill informed on this issue. MP3’s have the ability to sound just as good as CD’s if ripped with good settings. I rip all mine as 192 MP3 VBR High. I consider myself to have a pretty good ear, and I truly can not tell a difference between the original CD and my mp3 rip. As long as you know what you are doing, MP3’s are a great format for music listening and archiving. Sadly, there are a bunch of boneheads out there still ripping at 128 MP3 CBR.
Every audio file sold on the iTunes store has a 128K bitrate. Whether you agree with him or not, between that and the earbuds, he’s right.
“It’s all overproduced pop nonsense anyway, mastered to take into account people are listening on somewhat low quality devices.”
Maybe on your iPod. My 3/4 full 40 gig has none of this “overprouced pop nonsense” on it. Almost all is V0 LAME rips, which when played through my Shure earbuds or my car’s stereo via aux-in, sounds bloody great.
This is why he dislikes sub-standard quality kids, from greatness comes greatness… figure it out for yourselves…
http://www.thedailyswarm.com/watch/neil-youngs-archives-preview/
I tend to agree with Nate, maybe the Ipod is too tech for him. Anyway, he’s entitled to his opinion.
i love neil young and i love my ipod. When i want to listen to high quality music i dont listen to my ipod, i just put a vinly on and sit play it through a good system with nice speakers.
What im saying is i love good quality audio but im not expecting from an ipod, no matter how good they headphones, or bitrate. ipods are for the conveinience, which i love too!