MP3s Are My Vinyl

June 4, 2015

Take a listen to NPR’s high quality audio quiz. Go on, take the test. I’ll wait.

All done? How well did you do?

Me? I got 2 out of 6. A 33% hit rate. That’s pretty dismal.

I love listening to high-quality audio recording, especially the fantastic Mastered for iTunes collection. I buy uncompressed ALAC files from hdtracks.com on occasion. I listen to them through my headphones and DAC.

(For the record, I’m using a pair of pretty good headphones: the PSB M4U 1, connected to a pretty good DAC: an Audioquest DragonFly 1.2.)

MP3s Sound Better to Me

In 3 of the 4 cases I got wrong, I chose the 320 KB/sec version instead of the uncompressed WAV. I can hear the difference between the uncompressed and compressed versions, but I preferred the compressed versions.

Twenty years of listening to MP3s—both crappy and great—have deeply altered my perception of what a “good” recording sounds like. Like the generation that preferred the warbly, noisy rendition of vinyl rather than the pristine accuracy of CDs, I prefer the rounded, artifact-sprinkled sound of MP3s.

That’s life, I guess. I’ll continue to listen to lossless audio, and who knows? Maybe in another 20 years I’d actually prefer it to MP3s.

#music

Red Dress

April 16, 2015

Photo of a red dress

See this photo in my flickr album

#photo

What I Learned From My Hospital Stay

February 8, 2015

Last week, fresh out of surgery, I awoke on an articulated bed in a private room. The next four days were spent trying to get some semblance of quality sleep, and trying to get my body to rebound from the pain and shock it had just received.

Spending a few days convalescing on a hospital bed and walking the hallways of my floor changed my perspective on the frailty of our life. I write this blog post while the thoughts are still fresh in my mind, lest I forget them.

Health Matters

It is a considerable luxury to enjoy a healthy life. How quickly the things you take for granted recede from your grasp when your body falters! Enjoying a cup of soup. Taking a walk. Getting out of bed without help. I couldn’t do any of those things during my first full day. It was frustrating to have my skills and usefulness suddenly truncated to some rudimentary level. Yet, there are people among us who suffer daily from even more debilitating ailments.

A healthy life for all should be a natural goal for any self-respecting society. I cannot fathom the logic of those who oppose universal health care. All you have to do is spend a night in a hospital to come to the same conclusion I did: no-one deserves to live like this. Especially not when we have the resources to heal them.