Analysis: Hitting the wrong note

By Stephen Bruce

Posted on 29 Mar 2005 at 11:24

As Stereophile magazine reader Bill Contreras put it: 'iPods and similar devices quite frankly represent all that I, as an audiophile, have come to despise. In the end, I'd rather listen to no music at all than resort to listening to playback from a compressed-audio device.'

Stereophile's Wes Philips goes so far as to compare the sound quality of downloads to music recorded and sold during the 1970s. That doesn't mean there's no place for MP3s, just that many music fans don't regard them as representing value as a paid-for product.

'MP3s are fine for most uses, particularly for making a backup, but you do lose sound quality during compression,' said musician Martin Davey. 'Yes, you can up the bit-rate when you copy your own CDs, but many music sites are offering tracks recorded at just 128Kb/sec - that's nowhere near CD quality.'
So why would anyone want to buy a download, when for only a pound or so more they can buy a CD, receive a better- quality product that's boxed and doesn't come riddled with restrictions on its use?
Perhaps that's why CD sales - far from dying, as some predictions exaggerated - increased by 7 per cent last year, according to Nielsen Research.

Stores such as Napster and iTunes can't compete on price against the illegal file-sharing networks, which continue to flourish, and they're beaten on quality by CDs. They're fighting two competitors, and currently losing on both fronts.