[Z-man]

Originally Posted by madcorgi

OK, I think I understand. So the iPod itself alters the compression?

Well, the ability of your ipod to decompress the sound is just one of the limiting factors: the other is what bit rate (or sampling) was used to record the song itself. For example, most songs in iTunes are recorded with a bit rate of 72 or 144, IIRC. If you rip a CD to iTunes, I believe you can set the bit sampling to 244, which is at or near CD quality. (Note: my numbers may be off, but you get the idea). So -- if you record a song at a bit rate of 144, it may take up 3.2 MB. On the other hand, if you record the same song at a bit rate of 244, it will take up maybe 5MB. Less compression = more data saved = better quality of song.

These days, in my opinion, the biggest limiting factor in sound quality is the crappy headphones that most people use to listen to their music. Upgrading to even a $30 ear-bud headphones can make a huge difference.

So for the sake of storing more music on an iPod or other MP3 player, people will sacrifice quality in order to have more songs stored and available on their devices.

Is it correct that modern albums are recorded with so much compression because they will mostly be played on low quality devices, and the compression somehow covers this up?

It is more about having more songs available than having a low quality device. Most portable MP3 players (and iPod, iPad...etc) can play back near CD quality music. But most people prefer to sacrifice sound quality in order to store more songs.

Back in the stone age when I was writing and recording original music (1976-77), the studio I used in DC had one of the first 24 channel boards in the area. Recording was on 1-inch tape. I found some the other day in a box in our storage unit.

The producer had me sing through a new whiz bang device called--to my amusement--an Aphex Aural Exciter. I think this was an early compression-type device but I'm not sure. It seemed to improve my voice from horrible all the way up to merely bad.

A current web search shows they are still going strong. The Aural Exciter has been joined by a product called an "Optical Big Bottom."

Merry Christmas all.

Don't know too much about studio recording equipment, but for the consumer, music started to be stored digitally with the advent of the CD and the DAT (digital audio tape). Your Aphex Aural Exciter may have digitized your voice in order to clean it up a bit, but I suspect that the 1 inch tape stored the sound in analog format, not in digital format (unless it was DAT).

Merry Christmas to you too!
-Z-man.