Neil Young Says His Music Is Too Good For Streaming Services 574
An anonymous reader writes: After years of complaining about modern music formats Neil Young today announced that he's pulling his music from all streaming services. He made the announcement on his official Facebook page saying: "Streaming has ended for me. I hope this is ok for my fans. It's not because of the money, although my share (like all the other artists) was dramatically reduced by bad deals made without my consent. It's about sound quality. I don't need my music to be devalued by the worst quality in the history of broadcasting or any other form of distribution. I don't feel right allowing this to be sold to my fans. It's bad for my music. For me, It's about making and distributing music people can really hear and feel. I stand for that. When the quality is back, I'll give it another look. Never say never."
Who? (Score:4, Funny)
Who?
Re: Who? (Score:2, Funny)
Neil Young is the son of noted Canadian sportswriter Scott Young. The younger Young is mainly known for having produced a movie starring members of rock group Devo, and more recently for dating Daryl Hannah. Like the Kardashians, Young is famous for being famous rather than having accomplished anything in his own right.
Re: Who? (Score:5, Informative)
Hmm, are you trying to sound like you AREN'T dissing Neil Young, but really are?
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
I'd say that makes him famous to anyone who's heard classic rock.
Then there's those little songs "Old Man" and "Rockin' in The Free World", to name a couple.
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Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
Neil Young has always had a bit of an "I'm not getting enough attention" attitude - which is why quite a few of the songs people credit to the afore-mentioned group were actually recorded by Crosby, Stills, and Nash.
In all seriousness, these guys were important artists in their day. I'm a big fan of the late 60s counterculture rock scene, and like (and own) a number of their songs. But I'm not sure how many of their retirement-age fans are going to be into streaming music services.
(also - the Wailin' Jennys
Re: Who? (Score:4, Informative)
(also - the Wailin' Jennys' version of "Old Man" is far superior to Neil Young's own...)
That's because Waylon Jennings can sing in key, in time and his voice doesn't sound like a tomcat being gang-raped; his complaints about the lack of sound quality on streaming services is likely self-delusion. Most of the air play he still gets is due to CanCon [wikipedia.org] regulations.
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Sadly, the poor sound quality of online music steaming would likely help Neil by masking his bad singing and guitar playing.
The streaming services don't need him around anyhow.
Re: Who? (Score:4, Informative)
So? He's done a shitload since and is still less of a self-promoter than many others who have done far less. His song "piece of crap" sums up a lot of things, including the quality of streaming audio.
Listening to "Revolution Blues" and then discovering it's about Charles Manson is like looking at Van Gogh's "Wheatfield with Crows" and then hearing it was his last painting (it wasn't). Maybe compared to the genius of Lady Gaga (I thought "he" was a porn star) Neil Young ain't much.
"Needle and the Damage Done", "Turnstiles", "Broken Arrow", "I am a Child", "Mr Soul", "Cinnamon Girl", "Homegrown", "Down by the River", "Cortez the Killer", "Powderfinger", "Cowgirl In the Sand", "Ohio". that song he did for BP "Vampire Blues", the one he wrote for Donald Trump's Presidential campaign "Keep on Rockin in the Free World" - yep, no doubt that he was never as good as, um, Justin Beiber. But he did turn out the occasional song worth humming to in 45 years. None ever were more than foot-tapping mood music - I can't claim they promoted or inspired change, like, um, what's that band with the lead singer that went out with Brittany Spears? And I very much doubt he would have ever been sued for "not being himself [lateralaction.com]" (such a self promoter him).
He's also a promoter of many other bands - but I must of missed the years when he shamelessly promoted himself.
As for "streaming is crap".... I seem to recall he had something to do with Pono [wikipedia.org]. I hate it when people just criticise - without providing a better suggestion. Neil Young has even less staying power than he has integrity and musical ability.
Re: Who? (Score:4, Funny)
Re: Who? (Score:4, Funny)
no, the other crosby, named after the search engine.
Re: Who? (Score:4, Interesting)
Is he more popular with the 50-60 crowd I take it?
Nah, he's just not very good. Let's take the Rolling Stones as an example. Everybody has heard of them and most people have at least heard a few of their songs, regardless of their age. They are timeless.
Neil Young never had more than a small following and was quickly forgotten by time.
I Think you got that backwards. Rolling Stones get constant airplay on Classic Rock, but they are very forgettable musically. Neil Young is a far, far better musician than any or all of the Rolling Stones. Songs like "Old Man" and "Cinnamon Girl" are timeless. Then there is the harmonies he lent to the compositions of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.
I'm sure he sits well with the 50-60 crowd, but I'm only 45, and there are plenty in my age group who like him.
I love the irony of people saying "who is Neil Young" because they are listening to some pop star who in 1 year will be getting less airplay than Neil Young will be getting.
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45 years old = Neil WHO? High school years were not spent listening to music like this, they were Def Leppard, Quiet Riot, and Rick Astley years. This is music for old codgers, although probably better creatively than the formulaic top 40 stuff now.
I've noticed that classic rock stations have got in tune with actual listener demos because we're getting older. When I was a kid, oldies stations would play Chuck Berry and Elvis, music that only senior citizens would have heard new. Now I turn on the classic ro
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I'm 43 this year and I knew who Neil Young was in the early 80's. I did have older brothers (like 5 years older) so I did have my music influenced by 70's and earlier a bit.
I do agree with Neil that music quality has gone to shit. This is obvious if you pay attention to what has happened with the loudness wars. Also I think ultimately he is not criticizing the listeners, he is criticizing the process before the listener gets listening access. Ultimately streaming is going to try to get the lowest amount of
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Music that is classic and also rocks.
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Funny,
To me the classics are Judas Priest, Twisted Sister, Black Sabbath, early Bon Jovi, Iron Maiden.
All bands that started in the mid to late 70's and peaked in the '80s and their music never faded into obscurity. The metal and hard rock scenes were niche then, and they are niche now, but within that nice those bands remain incredibly popular.
Find any metal club in the world, put on Fear of the Dark or The Trooper or Night Crawler or We're not Gonna Take it - and I dare you to find a single person in ther
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Re:Who? (Score:5, Insightful)
That guy who's songs are on the AM radio stations, usually the ones that are nearly out of range.
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Worse. He's claiming that AM has better sound quality than streaming.
In truth, all the songs I can remember by him weren't exactly audibly precise even on FM. There's a lot of artists I'd worry more about losing sound quality on than him.
He's not as famous or as well-played as he thinks he is, and all this is going to do is make him even less so.
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I'm 66 and I *definitely* can hear the difference between a bad MP3 and a decent lossless recording. But I'm fortunate to have mostly kept my hearing this far.
But the discussion raises a question. Are people satisfied with poorer sound than they once were? I see people listening all the time on cheap earbuds. I've done reviews on Amazon of dozens of earbuds and headphones, and I know what those things sound like. (I also ran a small recording studio and location recording business for quite a few years, so
Re:Who? (Score:4, Insightful)
bose?
as they say, "stopped reading there..."
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Bose products are good enough that a human with average hearing can definitely tell them apart from whatever cheap headphones/earbuds originally shipped with your mp3 player or diskman. They might not be good enough for audiophiles (who are generally deluded anyway) or recording engineers, but they are definitely sufficient to provide a whole new enjoyment of music to someone who has only ever heard stuff over cheap crap speakers or headphones before. A set of Bose headphones were my first non-crap headphon
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Re:Who? (Score:4, Insightful)
Mandatory xkcd: https://xkcd.com/915/ [xkcd.com]
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Re: Who? (Score:5, Insightful)
Neil has invested a lot into the Pono Player, hence his complaints about streaming and other digital formats, he is trying to make a buck.
Personally, I think his acoustic work has bordered on brilliant. Electric? Not so much.
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I think he tried to do something like the Eagles 'Paradise lost', unfortuna
his music is good.. (Score:5, Insightful)
and pretty well known. saw him live two years ago in Helsinki. a pretty good concert.
HOWEVER when it comes to his hifi music digital audio player, he's full of shit.
this is just so he can sell/promote PONO. I'm not sure if he believes that the hifisupadupasound of PONO is really better or if he's just a knowing shill. it's just a player that plays lossless files - nothing special there!
besides, streaming services have BETTER sound quality than RADIO and his music is played on radio all the time. streaming is also much better than cassettes.
he says it's not about the money, but sound quality blabla.. IT IS ABOUT THE FUCKING MONEY.
also, is he going to do home calls and check that his music is only played on hifi stereos and never on multimedia speakers?
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fm (and am even less) can't be better than a good stream.
that's not what he cares about. he cares about the pono and selling lossless-better-than-cd music through it.
and he's hating that all the internet is calling him a jackass for that, for saying that his magic digital audio player is just another player which it is.
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Uhh, no, I have not. Don't try to tell me what I have and haven't experienced.
You're right. For all I know you have managed to avoid every single movie and television show that his music has been featured in, have never listened to anyone else's car radio that happened to be tuned to classic rock, have never been to a sports bar or restaurant that had classic rock playing. I mean I guess there is maybe a one in a billion chance that you have not ever heard any music by Neil Young, but I think chances are far greater that you have and didn't know it.
never (Score:2)
Tidal? (Score:4, Informative)
Tidal streams losslessly. What his excuse for not putting his music on there?
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This must have something to do with the FLAC player he's been trying to hawk for a few years now. It's his music, and he's free to do what he wants with it, but all the MP3s are available for torrents, so all he's doing is narrowing his revenue stream down.
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There actually a lot better then the RIAA wants you to believe.
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The former would be more pragmatic; but believers in superhuman auditory perception are not always defined by their pragmatism.
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Cool so when someone blows a dog whistle in a song, it will be accurately reproduced for my hound to enjoy.
44kHz just isn't suitable for dogs in the slightest.
Re:Tidal? (Score:4, Informative)
Most studio microphone frequency charts typically drop off before or near 20kHz anyhow [sweetwater.com], so it's unlikely it would even be captured in the first place.
Pfft. Not that I care if people want to blow their money on formats or equipment that's over-engineered by several factors beyond what they could possibly hear. And if they feel a bit more special believing that, unlike most other humans, they alone have "golden ears" that can hear the difference... well, that's fine with me too. Just don't try to shovel that shit in my direction [xiph.org]. Prove it to me with a blind A/B test, and then I'll take your claims seriously.
It's pretty telling when you actually hear what Neil Young thinks about compressed audio file formats:
“We’re in the 21st century and we have the worst sound that we’ve ever had. It’s worse than a 78 [rpm record]. What happened?
“The MP3 only has 5 percent of the data present in the original recording The convenience of the digital age has forced people to choose between quality and convenience, but they shouldn’t have to make that choice.”
“If you’re an artist and you created something and you knew the master was 100 percent great, but the consumer got 5 percent, would you be feeling good? “
It's clear he doesn't really understand the technology, and thinks that compressing a song to 1/20th of the original size means that it's only 5% of the value of the original. Yes, you can overcompress audio until it sounds like crap, and MP3 is getting a bit long in the tooth. That's why most people have switched to 256kbps AAC (Apple music streams at this quality, btw), and the overwhelming majority of people in A/B tests can't tell the difference between compressed and non-compressed audio, nor between 16-bit/44.1kHz vs high resolution audio.
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There is another benefit to high-res audio that most people seem to overlook. Young also isn't entirely wrong about streaming sounding crap.
Many high-res formats mandate proper mastering. With CDs you can do pretty much whatever you like, cranking up the audio compression and making everything clip like crazy. A lot of otherwise good albums from the 90s and 2000s were ruined by that, and then a decade later re-released in "remastered" form with the loudness turned down a bit.
Formats like DVD audio and other
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Not enough audiophile rubes.
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What his excuse for not putting his music on there?
Because it's not really about the sound quality, as he asserts.
As it happens, I've listened to Neil Young on and off over the years. Excellent sound fidelity is definitely NOT especially noticeable on his records, nor is excellent sound fidelity something that his music particularly benefits from. His strengths lie elsewhere, which is why this whole PONO thing and now his fake streaming protestations ring especially hollow.
Stop the false headlines (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Stop the false headlines (Score:4, Interesting)
From the facebook page "It's bad for my music". Face it a music geek with his head up his ass, lives in the delusion that people must worship them and their creations. Most people buy music to bring the emotions back associated with memories when they first heard that music and does not have that much to do with the music itself.
For me all dead music is shite compared to a drunken sing along with a happy crowd, that's real music. Being a nothing passive consumer of main stream media marketing about what you have to listen to, what makes you lame if you do not listen and how laughably you protest the oldies by conforming to marketing and buying the currently most marketed music.
You do realise by far the majority of marketing shite associated with performance industry, is just that, marketing shite targeted at minors because they are readily manipulatable and then they are either stuck with it as they grow older or realise they have been scammed by professional con artists. You really want the best music, then create it with others don't passively listen to it thinking you are achieving something because modern hugely manipulative marketing has convinced you that you must or you are a uncool loser.
Would the world be a lessor place if non of that now not good enough for streaming music never existing, no, not in the least. Would the world be a lessor place if lessor no quality drunken sing alongs never existed, of course it would, those a real moments of shared creativity and happiness.
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Mod parent up. There have been too many click-bait headlines like this lately on slashdot.
Worst? Heh (Score:3, Informative)
I'll bet a steak dinner that he couldn't tell the difference between any of the streaming services and a CD, or any other commercially produced medium, in double blind test. Most sound engineers can't tell the difference between $11,000 speaker cables and wire coat hanger.
The reason most music sounds like shit is because the sound engineers compress the hell out of it, and balance it to make it sound louder. The streaming services can only stream what they're given.
Re:Worst? Heh (Score:5, Insightful)
Compression used for streaming certainly affects quality. There is no debate. I can easily tell the difference between low bitrate and high bitrate MP3. It not even close. So you need to be more specific.
320Kbps MP3 can sound great, but often has clipping due to improper gain setting. So as a medium it has its problems.
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Where's the results of the ABX test you took to prove your claims? Numerous ABX tests over decades have backed up what the GP says.
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I agree there are ridiculous audiophile claims out there, and a lot of psychology at play, but to broadly claim that lossy compression cannot degrade quality is just is ridicu
Re:Worst? Heh (Score:5, Informative)
To be perfectly fair, nobody is talking about bit rates that would be considered low in any universe.
Most streaming services use at least 256kbps, and some use much more. Most streaming services use vastly superior codecs to MP3, such as Vorbis or AAC, that fully eliminate any rational complaint about lossy compression, even at low bitrates (which is irrelevant still, because we are literally only talking about extremely high bitrates).
Nobody has made the claim that lossy compression never perceptively degrades quality. You argument is a straw man.
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Note very carefully that I never mentioned anything about comparisons, or anyone telling the difference between two codecs or signals.
My interpretation is that you are making an argument that is weak, and that you are doing so by discussing situations where lossy encoding is clearly inferior as if they were relevant, when they are not.
Presenting the opposition argument in an overly broad, narrow, or otherwise indefensible manner, is called the straw man fallacy.
To rise above the standard of internet trollin
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I can easily tell the difference between low bitrate and high bitrate MP3. It not even close.
It's not enough to tell the difference. You must also determine which is actually better.
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Depending on bitrates and content that is not particularly difficult to do, given good equipment (high quality headphones), however any claim that stream is the worst medium is just laughable.
Both vinyl LPs (once used a few times) and FM radio are often significantly worse, not to mention AM radio.
Just about all broadcast TV and satellite radio are also compressed as much, if not more.
So I figure he is limiting his music purely to CD and the rare 'HD' versions of that?
He is of course just trying to get some
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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You are confusing sample rate and bit depth. Increasing sample rate doesn't lower the noise floor, raising bit depth does by increasing the dynamic range of a recording. Increasing the sample rate permits one to capture and reproduce higher frequencies, however this in practice has a collateral affect of RAISING the noise floor. This happens because although there is practically nothing musically interesting happening in the ultrasonic range, you do end up picking up electrical noise from your equipment, th
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Wire coat hanger ain't a bad DIY fancy speaker cable. It's good heavy wire, and an air dielectric, and depending on how the coathangers are twisted it might be very little inductance. It's fine to tease overly-wealthy people waving magic rocks at their stereos, but there are a lot of things you can do WITHOUT spending silly audiophool money that will help your monitoring system perform. The stuff worth having tends to work on basic concepts like capacitance, inductance, adequacy of power supply, isolation f
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I'll bet a steak dinner that he couldn't tell the difference between any of the streaming services and a CD, or any other commercially produced medium, in double blind test.
I'll take you up on that. I l like a nice Delmonico steak, rare, with all the fixins. I can tell the difference, and so can every audio engineer I've ever met. People who make their living from their exceptional hearing tend to take their music seriously.
As for Neil Young , I've never met the man but I'm inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt, given that his considerable career is based on his ability to produce sound others pay for. He's done things I don't care for, but he's probably not losing a
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+1 for mentioning over-compression, which should be punishable with stocks and public fruiting.
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The reason most music sounds like shit is because the sound engineers...
FTFY
Though there are sound engineer unions, there has never been any movement within these groups to ruin music with dynamic nor bit compression. The trend of national music, known as the Loudness Wars, made possible by audio technology (not necessarily new or cutting edge, either) and those that competantly op
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I'm sure this isn't about Young vs Trump, right? (Score:2)
For me, It's about making and distributing music people can really hear and feel. I stand for that. When the quality is back, I'll give it another look. Never say never.
Being as Neil Young recently called out Donald Trump on using his music without permission in a rally (and went on to say he would never support Trump for president) the awful misquoting in this summary suggests sour grapes. Being as "failure machine" Samzenpus has an established history of posting pro-conservative gibberish to the front page of slashdot, it wouldn't surprise me if this was done for that reason.
Re:I'm sure this isn't about Young vs Trump, right (Score:5, Informative)
No, Neil Young is not being misrepresented. Straight from his Facebook page:
I was there.
AM radio kicked streaming's ass.
Analog Cassettes and 8 tracks also kicked streaming's ass,
and absolutely rocked compared to streaming.
Streaming sucks. Streaming is the worst audio in history.
If you want it, you got it. It's here to stay.
Your choice.
Copy my songs if you want to. That's free.
Your choice.
All my music, my life's work, is what I am preserving the way I want it to be.
It's already started. My music is being removed from all streaming services. It's not good enough to sell or rent.
Make streaming sound good and I will be back.
Neil Young
I hope for his sake that he is really just trying to push his magic sound machine and doesn't believe any of this.
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Do you see no difference between "streaming services are not good enough to sell or rent" and "my music is too good for streaming services"? The former is about the quality of the output. The latter is about the quality of the input. See the difference? He said the former, not the latter.
Re:I'm sure this isn't about Young vs Trump, right (Score:5, Insightful)
> Analog Cassettes and 8 tracks also kicked streaming's ass,
This is where he proves to be full of shit.
Have you ever listened to an 8-track? AWFUL SHIT.
Cassette? Perfectly fine - if it was encoded with HX Pro and Dolby C, and you have a deck with Dolby C decoding, AND you've aligned the heads properly, AND demagnetized and cleaned them regularly. In that case it would sound near-CD-quality--- the first few times you play it. Cassettes degrade over time. Streaming already sounds way better than 8-Track (even if highly compressed, low bit rate), and as far as cassettes are concerned... I don't miss them.
Neil Young is obviously deranged from the Damage Done.
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Personally, I find that hard to believe. Does he allow his music to be sold as non-streaming MP3s? Does he allow it to be played on FM radio? What about AM radio?
Yes, he even considers AM radio better, which is provably false... using math!
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AM radio was restricted to 30khz channels even in its best days, which would mean a maximum frequency response of 15khz. Now it is even lower, something like 10khz. Pretty awful compared to the 22khz that can be expressed by modern digital audio stuff.
Beyond that, AM is antique. It is vulnerable to multipath propagation, and the receivers generally have awful noise rejection.
It would feel warmer because of the implicit low pass filter effect, and more natural because of the terrible SNR. It renders voic
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The whole quote is not on your side here, find it!
So what about radio (Score:4, Insightful)
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I'll let you know if the BBC stop playing Neil Young on local radio. It is funded, after all, by the TV Licence.
In other news (Score:5, Funny)
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you were probably on drugs when WATW came out, Dylan didn't write that one.
Dylan wrote such game-changers as "All Along The Watchtower" (covered by Hendrix and most recently by Bear McCreary), "Mr. Tambourine Man", "Like A Rolling Stone" (twice voted the Rolling Stone Number 1 Single Of All Time), "Knockin' On Heaven's Door", "Blowin' In The Wind" (the quintessential protest song), "Lay Lady Lay", and many more too numerous to mention.
Too late... (Score:2)
It's okay for radio to play it but not stream it? Stupid and ignorant. ... he sounds good by the way...
I already have everything he has done. for a long time. I will listen to it how I want to listen to it when I want to listen to it.
On my phone, tablet, radio, 8-track tape, via my cat
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But I agree his music overcomes the medium, so he might be one of the least to need to worry about it.
Suck it, Neil (Score:5, Interesting)
A 256Kbps AAC is objectively equal to CD sound quality, as confirmed by double-blind test after test. Furthermore, a huge portion of listeners will be hearing your angel's choir over cheap-ass ear buds or crap laptop speakers. Maybe you have a golden ear and can tell the difference between a CD and a FLAC file (are those good enough for you, or do they lack the sharp ones and smooth zeros of the digital masters?). Maybe you're not actually a delusional once-great who has lousy hearing and permanent tinnitus after years of playing rock concerts, and, well, being almost 70. Maybe your home hi-fi (do you still call it that?) was hand-wired by a wizened master of recording engineering fame. Maybe you have your own private anechoic chamber so you're not exposed to anything but the pure and sweet sounds of your own singing. But the rest of us listen to normal-person music with a dynamic range that's been shot to hell in the loudness wars, via normal-person audio formats, through normal-person digital-to-analog converters, into normal-person speakers, in a normal-person environment with kids playing and horns honking and dogs barking and coworkers chattering.
Your music, pristine to the heavens though it may be, sounds no better than Miley Cyrus when piping out of my MacBook. You've become a crotchety old curmudgeon trying to remain relevant to those kids who won't stay off your lawn, and maybe it's time to sit down with a hot cup of keep your yap shut and enjoy a nice book.
Good day, sir.
Re:Suck it, Neil (Score:4, Informative)
Ah, another vintage slashdotter! We're coming out of the woodwork here.
The crappiness of your Macbook isn't Neil's fault, and he didn't make you buy it. Nice burn on the FLAC file, we both know that's lossless and there will be no difference (unlike anything where data's truncated or lossy-compressed). And you can still get tons of music which isn't all 'loudness war', across the entire range of recorded history in fact. If people aren't making good recordings anymore, listen to something else, over headphones that block some of the distracting noise.
If you don't want Neil or his music, he's done you no injury. If you are mad at him continually suggesting that the digital formats we're using are inadequate, or that your playback stuff is plebian and lame, you should tell him to go make his own. Oh, wait, he did! And put it up for sale at a price that strikingly undercuts most of the 'audiophile' world. And nobody is making you buy that, though it's markedly cheaper than your MacBook. I'm given to understand there are computers running Windows and Linux that will also play your Miley Cyrus.
Re:Suck it, Neil (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, but I like stuff like Tangerine Dream, or obscure psytrance bands from Sweden, where there IS no 'lyrics' and the sound is literally the only thing. It's OK if Neil is being insulting to you, you don't have to care. He's brought out some playback gear that's really, really good at playing the music _I_ like, a lot cheaper than that stuff usually runs.
I prefer fancypants 192K (or 96K: same to me, frankly) 24 bit, to vinyl. Unhesitatingly (though there are times when the vinyl mastering helped the sound of the record, and just taking the master tape wouldn't give you as good of a mix).
But I prefer both to CD quality, except when the vinyl's real noisy. Assuming I can pay attention, because if I'm doing something else none of it matters. But if I'm doing something else I'm NOT listening to music at all.
And I prefer CD quality to any form of lossy compression: and have told them apart in ABX testing, up to and including a 320K mp3 example. It was a castanet sound, and if it had been some other instrument (such as a flute, or an 808 kick sample) I would never have been able to tell. The attack of the castanet sound had less personality as 320K mp3, and I ABXed it successfully that time (it's a challenging test!)
I am not obliged to listen to crap just because, if the crap was playing a 300 hz sine, I wouldn't be able to tell the difference. I can use something that's equal to any listening/content situation I can throw at it. Or, I can get something that's happily overkill and know there's no way I'll ever have issues with it. To me, 96K is already overkill, probably 64K would suffice, but 44.1K is a little chintzy.
I have a car that'll drive way faster than 90 mph, too, even though I stick to around 65 most of the time. Is that immoral? Am I obliged to only drive something that struggles to get to 70, that being faster than I'll generally use?
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Does he ban hearing impaired people as well (Score:3)
Joking aside, I'll admit I'm a Neil Young fan and I enjoy a lot of his music, but this is just silly. The quality difference between a lossless and compressed stream isn't going to be noticeable at all to most people because of the low quality earbuds or headphones that they're wearing.
What makes it even funnier is a previous
Eh? (Score:3)
Eh? Worse than mono AM radio? Worse than cassette tape? Yeah, we believe you Neil...
Having listened to a lot of Neil Young in my time. (Score:4, Funny)
That claim is not true.
In fact, I said "When the quality is back, I'll give it another look." just the other day... about Neil Young's music.
Hmm... (Score:2)
It's his catalog, he can do whatever amuses him; but I have to wonder if he could actually tell which is which in a suitably blinded test.
Consider the listening environment (Score:2)
Lots of people listen in the car, on crappy earbuds, in a crappy room..etc
VERY FEW people listen in a treated room with excellent, calibrated monitors
Yes, trained, critical listeners, in a great room, with great equipment and great ears can tell the difference
No..it doesn't matter for most people
He's got a right (Score:2)
To make sure the consumer is getting 100% of his product. He's was endorsing a digital player earlier this year. He's pissed that the consumer has NO IDEA what the compression is doing to the art.
http://nypost.com/2015/01/11/d... [nypost.com]
He's still got it.. Incredible!!
What about FM radio?!? (Score:2)
For my money, 320kbps Ogg Vorbis is just a *slight touch* better than cassette tapes!
Monster Cables (Score:2, Funny)
Stubborn Man (Score:4, Funny)
Stubborn man
better keep your head
Don't forget
what your pocketbook said
Re: (Score:3)
Stubborn man
better keep your head
Don't forget
what your pocketbook said
burma shave?
AM Radio? (Score:3)
Re: bad headphones (Score:3, Funny)
Which is why Pono's DRM only allows you to play back through Neil-Approved headphones.
Re:bad headphones (Score:5, Interesting)
Or AM/FM radio transmission. I wish they would at least be honest and say "I'm not making enough money on streaming".
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Streaming isn't the same as a live performance. You may hear the difference on a CD or Vinal if you have a good set of speakers.
But let's face it. Most of us myself included (with a minor in music from a prestigious music school) really doesn't put the attention to listen to these finer points in music of a song we heard hundreds of times before. Unless you are more then a casual fan.
Re:worst quality in the history of broadcasting (Score:4, Funny)
Nonsense. I have one. It sounds awesome, comparable to a Lavry DA10 at several times the price that can't play all the digital audio the Pono can.
Everybody I know who has one or has heard one, who actually know what they're doing audio-wise, think it sounds great.
If you get used to tone like that then it becomes more understandable why Neil would respond with a 'nuuuuu! go 'way!' to compressed streaming audio. Is it up to him to decide whether the experience of sonic presence and tone color is all that matters? When there are things like notes, lyrics, stuff not related to how good the sound is? I don't know. Not like you can't get everything he's done by mp3 anyway.
The real reason to bail on streaming services is, it's a con and ripping off the artists even worse than the original music business did. Everybody in the business knows rates are a sick joke, meaningless. You don't have to care about that but any musician has a right to 'nope' out of there, at least unless or until the tech industry sets up mandatory licensing so musicians can't even opt out of streaming if they wanted.
It's pretty classless to curse out Neil Young for doing this. He doesn't have a right to go and make his own tech if he doesn't like what the computer industry's done with his medium? As if CDs weren't bad enough. You can say "fine, shut up and go make your own music tech!" and I'd have thought that would be a real mic drop line right there.
And he DID. I own a Pono, thing sounds extremely awesome, ridiculously good for $400 (I have numerous digital converters worth more than that, it's my day job). He DID go make his own, and you're still bitchin'?
Re: (Score:3)
Everybody I know who has one or has heard one, who actually know what they're doing audio-wise, think it sounds great.
No true Scotsman, huh? What's that, you heard the Pono and don't think it sounds great? Hmm, you must not know what you're doing audio-wise.
Whatever, if Neil Young doesn't want me to listen to his music on a streaming site because it's the worst quality ever, fine, I'll just request and then record his songs on local FM radio the way he intended them to be heard.
Re:worst quality in the history of broadcasting (Score:4, Insightful)
I think you'll find most people making arguments against the thing have not heard it. I'm thinking of a variety of sound engineer and musician friends not associated with Young. One guy was a mastering engineer, one's a modern-day musician who does interesting stuff with sampling and sound layering, including sounds like a dog bowl whirring on concrete.
It'd be pretty dumb to say 'the Pono doesn't sound great' when it blatantly does (it's battery life that sucks! :) ). What some people are saying is that everything, all the streaming and earbuds and detritus of the 2015 audio life, also sounds great, wonderful, perfect.
errrrrr no.
Re: (Score:3)
I'll just request and then record his songs on local FM radio the way he intended them to be heard
Quite. With the tape recorder sitting in front of the radio. So you can capture the sound of A/C, the whiny fridge, the clock ticking, and the neighbor beating his wife, allowing you to recreate the whole experience later when you listen to this music on your yellow walkman.
Offtopic again - streaming at 256kbps? (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Well, I heard ole Neil put her down
Well, I hope Neil Young will remember
A Southern man don't need him around anyhow
Sweet home Alabama...