Apple is 'Fisher-Price' of sound quality, says Neil Young

All valid criticisms (the iPod argument is a little unfounded since they're phasing it out in favor of the iPhone OS-based Touch, but they should have done it sooner), but they have nothing to do with the article at all.

To be honest, I prefer the click wheel.

And Neil Young should direct his criticisms at consumers, who have made it clear they prefer convenience and smaller file size over sound quality.

At the very least he should direct his criticisms at labels, who make many of the determinations on quality when it comes to the music they own.

I often wonder: All these musicians who complain about quality: 1) Do they offer their music in highest-quality formats? (Some do.) If not -- or even if so -- have they approached Apple as individuals (or any other company) to talk about the possibility of providing their content at the highest possible bitrate from iTunes, or Amazon, etc?

Not all musician's seem to share Neil Youngs idea of the Apple Audio system it seems

Teaching audio engineering while on the road with Ozzy

Greg Price doesn't mince words when it comes to giving career advice to aspiring audio engineers who want to rise to the top of their field.

"There are two prerequisites to becoming a great audio engineer," said Price. "First, you have to play an instrument and second, you have to use a Mac.

Price should know. He's been around the music business as an engineer for 33 years, working with artists like Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Van Halen, Ozzy Osbourne and Zakk Wylde, and bands ranging from Steely Dan to Lamb of God. He has worked with every piece of gear you can think of, but he always makes sure he has a Mac nearby.

Macs are better for video processing than audio.

I have not done much with audio myself on a mac, for still motion video like photoshop in large RAW format, I usually end up using my imac, but have not done much with live video.

Not all musician's seem to share Neil Youngs idea of the Apple Audio system it seems

I think we may be comparing apples to oranges here. My read leads me to believe Young was talking about the end-user experience (iPod) as opposed to studio tools.

What does his voice have to do with anything? This is about his ear, and he has a damn good one. There aren't many musicians out there who can remix/remaster their own albums - but Neil can.

To an audiophile, Apple stuff is Fisher-Price.

OK, Dennis. You bring up a valid point for for audiophiles and audio techs. Apple is definitely lacking in that aspect.

This is about his ear, and he has a damn good one.

I am a singer with a damned good ear, and no amount of technological wizardry can improve Neil Young's voice.

Yeah...And Neil Young has a voice unlike most any other voice also...He and Stevie Nicks are pretty demanding on any audio system.

No, the word you are looking for is trying, not demanding.

demanding can also be read as burdensome, grueling, punishing, exhausting difficult and high-maintenance according to my built in Thesaurus, so I think that covers most of those notes pretty well :-)

To an audiophile, Apple stuff is Fisher-Price.

To an audiophile, all current compression is Fisher-Price. Apple isn't unique in their position or their offerings, and the same audio dynamic range criticisms apply equally to players from Microsoft, Creative, and Sanyo. It's a limitation of all file compression, not anything Apple themselves are doing.

It's just kind of silly to single out Apple, although it's perhaps a compliment of sorts that somehow "consumer audio" has become synonymous with "Apple" is some people's minds (including Neil Young!).

I have vinyl and HDTV :-) and tons of live concerts over the years...and even tube amplifiers

Tube amps?

Now you're talking.

But see, the problem isn't really Apple. The problem is digital music. The iPod generation has never really heard what music should sound like.

Guys, I feel sad for the kids who have never heard vinyl or who watch movies on playstations on their commute. WTF! I have a CD system ok enough and am trying to get up the cash and gumption to get a vinyl playback rig back. I left behind a collection of vinyl over 500 albums large moving from Manila to the States! My brother has possesion of it now.

The problem is digital music.

Yeap....My ears are still analog....They hear tunes, not 1 and 0's....Hell Yes Tubes, I still have my Fender Classic Guitar Amp and Carter Music Amp :-) Nothing warmer sounding then a tube amplifiers

I grew up with my brothers plugged into Fender tube amps and speakers. It was always smiling times back then...

No doubt. And give me the raw crunchiness of a telecaster over a strat any old day!

It still boggles my mind that people listen to compressed music as their main source of music. It's kind of like a recent (Verizon?) commercial that showed people watching movies on their phone.

I won't watch a movie on my 22" widescreen PC monitor. On a phone? Why, oh why??

When I left Los Angeles in 84, there were still a couple pro studios left that (proudly) sported all tube gear. Some people just like the warmer harmonics you get from tubes over solid state, especially when you overdrive them. Wonder if they survived.

On the flip side, vinyl may be making a comeback. Apparently someone making a large order for a record chain accidentally used the code "LP" instead of "CD". As a result boxes of LPs were delivered to stores across the country. Many stores put them on sale.... and they sold out. And the same article went on to say that turntables are getting slightly easier to find again.

Chaos mathematics makes it quite clear that you can't really get away with rounding off reality to the nearest digital plateu. You ALWAYS lose something that cannot be recovered.

Don't get me wrong, digital is great for textual information and even for images and sounds to a point. But it would be neat to see technology advance to the point that analog can be married back into the digital stream as analog.

What I always find interesting is just the general lack of understanding what the difference is between analog and digital is. I grew up in the analog world building all my audio equipment from Heathkit back in the late 1960's watching my brother so I learned the stuff years ago and run into people telling me all the time that there is no difference between the two.

The most recent "battle" was all about Vinyl and the ipod, I was told by a large number that the Ipod can now play any Vinyl directly.....with a new technology by Ion Corporation...well...not exactly..

I've got a dirty secret: we ran some double blind trials at the college radio station when CDs first appeared using high end equipment and we found that far less than 10% of our sample audience could tell a CD from vinyl except in the most extreme cases (the one almost everyone got was the Telarc recording of the Cleveland Symphony's 1812 Overture, I think.)

On pop music and rock, it was less than 10% as I recall. The fact of the matter is that very few people have a producing engineer's ear training, and few of those who don't are willing to undergo it. Hell, I've had some of that training, and I have a hard time telling a pop CD from vinyl on consumer grade equipment. With a good pair of headphones and tube amps, it's pretty easy, but on the speakers you got from WalMart and threw up in your living room to connect to a cheapo digital receiver, the sound is essentially equivalent. In fact, the compressed version on the iPod will often sound better, particularly with decent replacement headphones and using the appropriate EQ for the style.

Very true. Unless you try that trick on someone that has heard the original recording in vinyl from something like Deutsche Grammophon classics and then listen to it again on CD and its just not the same thing at all or listen to Woodstock remastered on CD without the hiss and errors and then it sure stands out. But your right, a good set of headphones can do wonders with a ipod for many users.

(the one almost everyone got was the Telarc recording of the Cleveland Symphony's 1812 Overture, I think.)

And classical music is the most difficult to record faithfully. IIRC, some of the advances in early recording technology were driven by the need to record classical.

I would love to do a double-blind test on some of my friends who "refuse" to listen to CDs (let alone any lossy compressed format). I'm skeptical they really see that much difference (although some of those friends are into classical and jazz).

Tedd: That turntable looks like a sweet deal. I've got some old vinyl that's never been re-mastered into CD, and that might be just the ticket, since it can do WAV. Thanks for the link. My need wasn't quite high enough, nor my time available enough to go searching.

Chris,

A couple of my friends have that turntable and for the money its a pretty decent deal, the Seattle Times did a pretty good review of it about 3 months ago and the main complaint was a lack of a graphic equalizer which I think is in the works. The local Best Buy and CostCo have them around here and sell a ton of them.

Ah, yes. Best Buy and I have a very special relationship. They want as much of my money as possible, and I quietly give it to them.

Thanks again for the reference!

Yeah..I got rid of all those little bad habbits and addictions (except for diet coke) years ago, however never been able to go cold turkey on Best Buy, seems to follow my around forever, first thing I read when I get the Sunday Newspaper...Deadly place for me and my wallet.

For me it's Diet Mountain Dew. I keep switching to water (which in some regards I like better), but I just like my Dew. And, heck, it's just carbonated orange juice (read the label sometime, you'd be surprised).

Best Buy and bookstores. Either one I visit invariably bumps my credit card balance.

Dammit Spooky. Ok. Funny.

I had not heard that, I knew that after he had his brain aneurysm back in 2005 he had to cancel a couple concerts in Winnipeg due to some severe bleeding from his brain and that second surgery was patched up via his Femoral artery which should not have an impact on hearing, but the bleeding sure could have as well as an aneurysm as he had to go thru a series of Neuroradiology to patch that area up.

However he was able to do all of the ""Freedom Of Speech Tour '06" with no problems

And his:
Live at the Fillmore East [LIVE] came out on November 14, 2006, so my guess is he was doing ok.

I had heard that same rumor also, but never found any proof to it.

Tedd, Spooky was being sardonic. Neil has played loud a whole lot of time, occupational hazard.
The aneurysm would not be anywhere near his middle or inner ear or he would no longer be playing.

Don't you worry none about Neil. If anything, any hear loss from exposure to high spl's will affect only sound intensity/dynamic range, not pitch.

My only concern is from a human point of view and know what brain aneurysms are and also a rather devote fan of Neil Young since the days of Buffalo Springfield in 1967.

They're focal. Once found, any intervention, though risky at times, will be focal as well. Nothing spreading. I think he got through the episode and is still here with us, irascible with his art as ever!
The man hates digital!

Agreed.

I'd kill for Prince's "Sign O' The Times" on vinyl.

Get a top flight analog rig and you will pee in your pants.

Particularly when the credit card companies come calling with cudgels for your late payments.

And we "got" more than a few audiophiles with our double blind tests in college. Once you don't know you've spent a few large on the speakers and other equipment, it appears your enjoyment level is reduced.

Any sound system is only as good as it's weakest link.

Did I hear you say you conducted these double blind these over the radio?

The radio part sounded weird to me also. I have never had a person not be able to tell the difference between an ipod with headphone (good ones) vs my Carter Tube Amp system and either using my Technics SL-1200MK5 (my workhorse for years) or my Linn Sondek LP12 turntable via my Bose 901 Series VI speakers that still is a awesome combo.

No, Dennis. In the studio. With some very high end gear, some consumer gear,a spare broadcasting studio some blindfolds and the psychology department helping out. We discovered that less than 10% of people can actually tell the difference, objectively. We were looking at CDs (which had just come out then) versus vinyl.

The station provided the engineering talent and facility. We were not broadcasting the sound.

One of the tech magazines did a similar test about a year or two ago...can't remember which one. They had high-end audio equipment and used the same equipment with both a turntable and a CD player connected. They blindfolded the test subjects and asked if they could guess which one was CD and which was vinyl (both playing the same songs.) The experiment showed that people couldn't tell the difference. They had a wide range of subjects, from casual listeners to self-professed audiophiles. Even the audiophiles only got it right about 50% of the time (which means they really had no idea...)

The station provided the engineering talent and facility. We were not broadcasting the sound.

Ah, ok. Good, because the other way it would have just been goofy.

Tedd! How long have you had the Linn? Wow. Major fit of envy here.