Comment by stinkytaco | Hacker News Reader

Comment by stinkytaco | Hacker News Reader

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Well, lots of people do prefer vinyl. One of the things that soured me on the whole "audiophile" thing that I did for a while was the fact that some of my favorite music sounds worse due to the high quality of the playback. Prince's 1999 does not sound good on high quality headphones from a digital source. That and the money and snake-oil.

I think some of this will change with time as people get more used to the look and the production gets better (effects, costumes, etc.). Music is also an artificial construct from the get-go, even live, but most narrative film is meant to reflect real life in some way, shape, or form. That means that anything out of place is caught immediately by our expert eyes.

All that said, when I was in the industry, one thing I noticed was how easily you could gloss over minor visual details like set dressings or small props (think food on plates), but even the slightest error in sound production was enough to destroy the effect.

Thanks for sharing that insight. I guess that in terms of perception and experiencing – at least when it comes to what consumers are used to –, sound is a different beast altogether. And then you have to differentiate music recordings from sound production for cinematic content, where the latter is of course more about recreating real life.

It's funny that 2D stereo still works so well. Perhaps that will also change again, with binaural recordings and object-based audio, but that's something I don't see the music industry using anytime soon.

2D stereo is all about the equipment. We have two ears, headphones have two speakers and cars have two sides (I realize there are often 4 speakers in a car, but the layout impedes the sounds). Considering so few people consume music at home in a high quality setup, but rather on the go with low quality equipment, I don't see that changing. Interesting that the long running debate about Beatles in stereo vs. mono is centered largely around the fact that the music was mixed to be listened to on a mono phonograph speaker that most people had. As far as we've come, low quality is still how music is delivered.

There are some good DVD-A or SACD's with 5.1 audio, but they are niche and expensive.

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