[BC] Cascading Algorithms

[Kevin Tekel]

John Buffaloe wrote:
 > All of this reduced data stuff is crap packaged as perfume.  And the
 > multitudes are shelling out for it.  Not IBOC, but iPods, Sirius, XM,
 > cell phone MP3 players, ad nauseum.  Fine.  That's what they want, then
 > give it to them then go home and hug your kids.  Maybe they'll awaken to
 > the swinging pendulum and demand more when they hear what good audio
 > sounds like in the never ending game of "gadgets."

But would that really be worthwhile?  Much of what passes for "music"
these days is already so far from the traditional ideals of quality talent
and quality audio that even the worst codec can't make it much worse.
First the "CD loudness wars" killed off the concept of dynamic range a
decade ago, and then the proliferation of "Auto-Tune" killed off the
concept of natural pitch control half a decade ago -- indeed, some of
today's biggest pop stars owe their success to Auto-Tune, while others
(*cough*Tim McGraw, Faith Hill*cough*) are intentionally misusing
Auto-Tune because they like the way it electronically manipulates the
pitch of their voice.  And now even vocal dynamics have become a lost art
-- many otherwise good songs have been ruined by vocals which are just too
damn "in-your-face" and/or have way too much Gospel-style melisma (a la
Mariah Carey).

With all this in mind, however, it's no wonder that quite a few youngsters
have taken up the once-nearly-lost art of vinyl.  Why?  Typical answers
are "rock music was better back then", "LPs have more dynamics", and "I
can get a whole record album, with really cool artwork and a dozen songs
on it, for the same price as downloading only one song onto my iPod".