AudioTechnology: George Massenburg speaks at Integrate 2009 Sydney

[Oneness100]

there is a lot more than just compression. Check out what Meridian Audio is doing with their Reference CD player and other equipment to solve problems with jitter, crossover distortion, Pre amp distortion and Pre-ringing and other aspects of digital recordings. Their stuff gets expensive, but their digital playback systems are the best in the world. worth checking out.

[jubbalo]

The audio is badly distorted. This is AT's channel. Hahaha!

[Elsoddo]

Someone please tell me! What's best? FLAC or WAV?

[SmokeWeedWithDiddy]

he's just mad no on wants to pay 10k a day to rent his ridiculous studio. lol.

[dinnerpianist]

Even at very low quality (45rpm singles) many listeners can still glean the impact of culturally relevant musical expression. Most pop/rock/metal music today can still engender a powerful visceral impact with compression tricks and perfectly sculpted samples even mixed down to MP3. Maybe the high noise floor of our culture has mandated the MP3 format. We don't listen in any environment which would justify 24/48 capturing and stamping.

We just couldn't hear stuff meant to be heard at a whisper.

[FenderRhodes2]

I thin society would be better off if people were inclined to listen to jazz and classical music since most of it doesn't have a ton of signal processing and sampled instruments.

[FenderRhodes2]

What about TrueHD format running 24/192 for both stereo and 5.1?

[nuronn888]

with love it's ironic that the audio quality is suspect here-

odd mic & placement. why didnt someone say something?

was there a sound check??? (:

[PETAVER]

cant you buy lossless audio files from itunes?

[lonewolf091]

@PETAVER I wish!

[EcBaPr]

I think he is wrong on some accounts here... MP3s have become popular because in the past 15 years there has been very limited bandwidth.. MP3s have made sense in this enviroment, but as the bandwidth of the world gets better i would expect to see a transition slowly back to higher quality formats.. What got us to the point of crap MP3's has nothing to do with peoples expectations of quality its all been about convenience.

[MrNytn2001]

@EcBaPr

well said and i love george's work.

but you are right.

[eitan25]

@EcBaPr that may be true as it pertains to how mp3 has gained popularity in the first place, but by now it has become a matter of expectations as well as convenience. People have become so accustomed to hearing mp3 that they don't even notice the difference any more, so why would they bother? It's a matter of standards.

[eitan25]

@EcBaPr that may be true as it pertains to how mp3 has gained popularity in the first place, but by now it has become a matter of expectations as well as convenience. People have become so accustomed to hearing mp3 that they don't even notice the difference any more, so why would they bother? It's a matter of standards.

[BackInnaDays]

what's funny, is that is mic actually sounds like crap lol

[Seaclam67]

I whole-heartlingly agree with him, but unfortunately most people, especially in this economy, don't have the money to buy a decent hi-fi system to bring out a good recording. I've been fortunate enough to be able to buy some nice stuff and have appreciated DVD-A and SACD. It's too bad the means and the desire by the public "ipod society" at large doesn't want to just sit and really listen and get the most out of one of the truely beautiful things in life: MUSIC.

[funkyant]

You have to appreciate the irony of a presentation about sound quality, when the mic is clipping and the source material cannot be heard in the mix.

And it's been encoded to flv format for web streaming.

lol

[chris25meza]

This is just a presentation. Judging the audio quality of this is stupid. I mean, analog also presented problems. What is most important is the music (like Massenburg said). If you have a crappy song, poorly arranged, it will always suck no matter if you recorded it on a million dollar studio. Case in point, current pop music.

[TWEAKER01]

Unfortunately listeners' conditioning via commercial radio also has much to answer for... with its playlisted programming carted from CD and vinyl to average bitrate mp3 (and via multiple dsp up and down sample rates and bit depths, then through the wringer of an Optimod or Orban).

Here's to a new decade of higher res music appreciation, as with video. As George says, there's no *real* reason why not. Demand it!

[rismorismo]

Sound quality of this video really nails it...

[Atomtroy]

How can you possibly comment on any audio while using that piece of junk headset mic. Who ever got him that mic, needs to be fired.

[moogus8000]

if thats all you can say after listening to what he said, i pity you.

[Atomtroy]

There are a lot of problems with what he is saying, including mp3's in Pro Tools. I'm being nice.

[cs80fred]

Modern sh*t music may "resonate with the listeners" because it's being force fed to them. It's almost like the music industry is trying to take "music" to the very lowest state of being before it becomes pure 100% irritating noise. Massenburg is a genius, god bless him, maybe check out some of his stuff. I feel this issue goes way beyond just personal preference... Massenburg does not like Brittany Spears etc because, in terms of an AUDIO presentation, it does truly SUCK. It just does.

[aliasfreq]

Shame about the audio quality.