Annoying Whinge of the Day

As mp3 (and aac) becomes the new standard for music storage in the digital era, the complaining of audiophiles about the lack of music quality gets louder and more insistent. Via Arts and Letters Daily, here's a good example of what I'm talking about. Sure, I too am disheartened when I read that recording levels are being manipulated for volume (for best results on a portable mp3 player) at the cost of quality, but the anguished moaning about how an entire generation of kids is growing up with no experience of a quality music recording is starting to annoy me.

Here's something that no one seems to be considering: Moore's Law. In ten years, our portable mp3 players will probably be able to hold every surviving audio record ever made at lossless quality and still have room for rips of all three Lord of the Rings boxed set DVDs. Fear not audiophiles, the current trend towards shite audio quality is just a passing phase, the birth pains of the digital era. In a few years you'll be able to go back to arguing over whether the kind of wire used in your headphone cables makes the music sound 'warmer'.