haha, i hadn't heard this. i think the idea of creating low-resolution masters to begin with, while initially disturbing for the same reasons you mentioned, will ultimately be a fad. those engineers/labels that would do such things are ultimately only interested in the bottom line: the money. i know quite a few producers and recording, mixing, and mastering engineers who would NEVER consider compromising the audio quality for the "easy adaptation" to mp3 format. in fact, i would say the vast majority of us in the recording business are constantly looking for ways to record at even higher quality.

take, for instance, the fact that not even 10 years ago, the highest recording quality was 48kHz/16-bit sample rate. nowadays, you get up to 192kHz/24-bit sample rate, and a respectable studio wouldn't have anything less. 192/24 recording takes 10 times the hard drive space, but that's obviously not really a problem these days. for another thing, my friend bob boyd, who mastered our last release, recently spent $15,000 on a 5-band EQ. he knows most people will listen to his music on less than average speakers, but for him, and many others like him, it is about the love of music for his sake. in the same way, i mix my music to where it sounds great to me on my speakers, understanding not many people will ever hear it this way. however, there are more audiophiles out there than ever before, with whom it is like a quest for the holy grail to find better quality mediums, speakers, etc.

i find the idea of low quality masters a bit strange anyway. iPods have decent built in EQ features that even the EQ-clueless can manage: "Bass Booster", "Acoustic", "Lounge". If you can't tell enough difference to change the EQ for your iPod headphones anyway, you won't notice any difference between the original "high quality" master and the mp3 "mid quality" master. i would even venture to guess your average music listener couldn't tell much, if any, difference between a CD and a 128kbps mp3 (terribly low quality).

as far as the other point, mastering an audio file at a louder volume overall shouldn't change the amount of damage a listener can encounter. like you mentioned, it's all a matter of how loud you turn it up anyway. a softly-mastered song can still damage your ears if you turn it up all the way.

eric, it's weird that your comments won't allow you to use the word e-x-a-m-p-l-e. it gives you an error. :-)

Kyle, thanks for weighing in on this. I suspect that there are a few sound engineers in the unlikely position of not having the time to devote to the pursuit of perfection, and have succumbed to pressure to produce as many recordings as possible in as short a time frame as possible.

The master volume issue wasn't raised in the context of causing hearing damage, by the way. I didn't quote the article, but the gist was that some music execs perceive that many listeners prefer loud music, and so they make sure the initial recordings are optimized for loudness. I assume this is done by tweaking various frequencies, but that wasn't explained in the article. Anyway, it cuts both ways; you can always turn down loud music (but if it's optimized for loudness, you'll probably lose even more of the original "flavor.")

And that comment filter thing is driving me bonkers. I've gone through my blacklist numerous times and just cannot locate the entry that's causing that particular error!

Subtitles might be handy, hearing loss or no.

Then again, I suspect there are some tracks I wouldn't listen to any more, if I really knew what the lyrics were.

optimizing for loudness involves some frequency tweaking, but mainly, it's a compression issue; not compression as in "quality", but compression as in controlling the volume levels. if you compress an audio file to where - dynamically - it doesn't get too soft or too loud, you can crank up the overall volume incredibly loud, to where the actual wave file looks like a brick; there are never any drastic dynamic changes. heavy metal and hip-hop would be e-x-amples of this type of mastering. blues or anything classical would not employ this mastering.

mastering engineers get paid handsomely for their work, and it is definitely an exact science! in fact, it's incredibly interesting.

I knew that volume limiter thingy was there. I have it turned on.

Most frequencies, I can still hear. But I can't hear that teenager dog whistle sound, thankfully.

It's strange to me that producers would "teach to the test" as it were. They didn't when cassettes came out. Have you listened to a cassette lately? Woah. I'm with Kyle... it's a fad.

One other thing: it's all in how well the original, individual tracks were engineered. There's only so much one can do with a sub standard recording.

The opposite is also (mostly) true. You almost have to try to make a sizzling original recording sound bad. It is possible, though.

Foo, I hear you (or, at least, I read you). I once bought a Guns n' Roses CD (for reasons which now escape me) and while enthralled with some of the music (which made for more interesting treadmill workouts) once I clearly heard some of the lyrics I lost all enthusiasm for it.

Kyle, Jim – The sound engineering you describe falls into the realm of "a sufficiently advance technology that's indistinguishable from magic." I suspect for most of us uninformed listeners, we can hear the differences between superior and inferior recordings, but when pressed to describe what those differences are, will just shrug and say something like, "I dunno; one just sounds better."

Eric, Tim considers me a musical luddite because I am definitively of the "Dunno, but I like that one better" mindset. He'll spend hours (literally hours) tweaking things in the theater and then drag me in there to show me what it used to sound like and how it sounds now and isn't that so much better. I can only rarely tell that anything is different, and a good half of those times I liked it better before.

He has a hard row, my hubby. :)

Eric, Tim considers me a musical luddite because I am definitively of the "Dunno, but I like that one better" mindset. He'll spend hours (literally hours) tweaking things in the theater and then drag me in there to show me what it used to sound like and how it sounds now and isn't that so much better. I can only rarely tell that anything is different, and a good half of those times I liked it better before.

He has a hard row, my hubby. :)

Sorry for the double-tap there -- it said it timed out. Teach me to believe the silly computer. :)

Beth, it sounds like Tim needs to form a support group with Kyle and Jim.

But, now you know how we guys feel when you girls ask us, "which shoe goes better with this dress?" ;-)

I have 4 pair of shoes...that question really never comes up. Usually I can figure it out on my own. ;)

But I get what you're saying.

And the support group's probably a good idea.

I think it's you luddites who need a support group.
:-p