In this Wall Street Journal article, a number of recording technicians and sound engineers posit that current music listening technology (iPods, compressed digital audio formats, cheap headphones) has been detrimental to the overall quality and, by extension, beauty of modern recorded music. Why?

"Because both compressed music and the iPod's relatively low-quality earbuds have many limitations, music producers fret that they are engineering music to a technical lowest common denominator. The result, many say, is music that is loud but harsh and flat, and thus not enjoyable for long periods of time."

While I understand where these guys are coming from both aesthetically and technically, I think that their immediate connection between audio fidelity and musical quality ignores many important factors and is a clear case of trying to find some silly, simple solution to a much more complex question. [more...]