[BC] Could our concept of audio be all wrong?

[RichardBJohnson at comcast.net]

I discovered that MP3 has harshness built in. If you
take a steady-state tone that MP3 will compress because
it is stead-state, and slightly (smoothly) change its
frequency, the MP3 output will have clicks between the
old output tone and the new output tone. This means that
rapidly-changing audio such as the stuff we use for entertainment
will have embedded clicks everywhere. That, I think, is the
"harshness." It's awful that the developers of MP3 didn't
test the stuff of, if they did, they thought that the
artifacts would somehow be covered up. It's as bad or
worse as video pixellation.

Cheers,
Richard B. Johnson
Book: http://www.AbominableFirebug.com/

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jeff Johnson" <jeff at rfproof.com>

Harsh MP3 audio seems now the norm. I recall when hi-fi became the rage in 
the mid-50s. It was also considered bright and harsh compared to the 
muffled sound of AM radios and phonographs with little above ~4 kcps.

Jeff.Johnson at rfproof.com
WNKU