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Some New Evidence that Generation Y May Prefer Accurate Sound Reproduction

post #1 of 81
6/18/10 at 8:27pm
Thread Starter 
I posted a new blog posting that summarizes some recent experimental evidence where I tested a group of teenagers' preferences in loudspeakers and MP3 versus CD music formats. This is just the beginning of a more thorough longer study, so the results are very preliminary. Still I thought it would be interesting to get some feedback.

I could find no evidence that these high school students preferred the "sizzling sounds of MP3" over higher quality lossless formats, as reported by Jonathan Berger. I also found they preferred the most accurate, neutral loudspeakers when given the opportunity to hear and compare them with something less accurate and neutral.

These results are not too surprising to me, but the media seems to have been reporting a different story over the past year.
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post #2 of 81
6/18/10 at 11:13pm
I think the media (and a lot of people in general) are confusing a preference for the convenience of digital formats stored and played back on digital media (a.k.a. MP3 players) to using physical storage media like CDs.

Also, of course, more and more youngsters have only been exposed to medium-quality MP3s (such as iTunes distributes) since digital distribution is become more popular.

I doubt that most people, whatever their age, actually prefer lower-quality media (disregarding nostalgia for vinyls, etc.). There are complicated factors involved, like price, convenience, whether it's just for playback in a car or as background music for parties (where fidelity is less of a concern) and whether they care enough to pay for more expensive equipment that would reveal the difference between low-quality and high-quality media (e.g. using something besides the headphones that came with their iPod or the cheap iPod dock stereo system).
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post #3 of 81
6/19/10 at 12:22am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kyuu View Post

I think the media (and a lot of people in general) are confusing a preference for the convenience of digital formats stored and played back on digital media (a.k.a. MP3 players) to using physical storage media like CDs.

Also, of course, more and more youngsters have only been exposed to medium-quality MP3s (such as iTunes distributes) since digital distribution is become more popular.

I doubt that most people, whatever their age, actually prefer lower-quality media (disregarding nostalgia for vinyls, etc.). There are complicated factors involved, like price, convenience, whether it's just for playback in a car or as background music for parties (where fidelity is less of a concern) and whether they care enough to pay for more expensive equipment that would reveal the difference between low-quality and high-quality media (e.g. using something besides the headphones that came with their iPod or the cheap iPod dock stereo system).

I don't disagree with anything you say. Of course there are other factors besides sound quality that factor into people's audio equipment choices. People are also confused about the relationship between sound quality, lossy codec choice, bit-rate,etc. My personal opinion is that MP3 will soon become irrelevant as it's replaced by morre transparent lossy codes (like AAC, 256 kbps, the default in iTunes) and lossless codecs (e.g. Flac, Apple Lossless)which will increase in adoption rate as the costs in bandwidth and music storage decrease.

I think the informal MP3 study by Berger, widely reported in the media, was quite clear in stating that students increasingly preferred the lower quality sound of MP3 (128) over lossless CD. This was particularly true for certain music genres where the artifacts in MP3 complimented the distortions in the music. It's not clear what sort of playback conditions Berger used in his study, whether the MP3 encoders were held constant over the 7 year period of testing, or what sort of encoders/playback equipment the students were listening to at home.

Regardless, many audio and automotive manufacturers interpreted the media stories as fact rather than what they were: irresponsible reporting. Automotive manufacturers began to ask whether we really need as much audio content in the car given that "everyone" is listening to compressed MP3. "Do we really need tweeters in the car" since MP3 has no highs and Generation Y doesn't really care how it sounds"
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post #4 of 81
6/19/10 at 4:58am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kyuu View Post

I think the media (and a lot of people in general) are confusing a preference for the convenience of digital formats stored and played back on digital media (a.k.a. MP3 players) to using physical storage media like CDs.

Also, of course, more and more youngsters have only been exposed to medium-quality MP3s (such as iTunes distributes) since digital distribution is become more popular.

I doubt that most people, whatever their age, actually prefer lower-quality media (disregarding nostalgia for vinyls, etc.). There are complicated factors involved, like price, convenience, whether it's just for playback in a car or as background music for parties (where fidelity is less of a concern) and whether they care enough to pay for more expensive equipment that would reveal the difference between low-quality and high-quality media (e.g. using something besides the headphones that came with their iPod or the cheap iPod dock stereo system).

I grew up with Vinyl, loved CDs and I love digtal music. If we want high quality then we just have to buy high quality or find the CD and rip it.

Its 100% choice still, I would never go back to the old distribution design since I have music anywhere and everywhere I go, the quality still exists even in the Ipod world since lossless ripping is no different then the quality of the recording on the CD. Heck, 320 kbps MP3 rates are CD quality. We just need portable devices with > 100GB
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post #5 of 81
6/19/10 at 5:58am
I am usually amazed by how few "gen Y's" have actually heard good, full dynamic, high bit rate, digital music played back on a good sound system. Their only reference is MP3 players or cell phones with questionable audio electronics and cheap earbuds.

The "full dynamic" comment also opens that whole can of worms about "dynamic compression" in the mastering of much current music.
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post #6 of 81
6/19/10 at 7:44am
The upgrade path to either can be a bit of a catch 22. If you upgrade the gear first, the poorer quality recordings sound worse. If the music quality is upgraded first, assuming of course the use of say stock earbuds or typical computer speakers are in play, it would be difficult to hear any improvement. Similar parallels are seen within a more micro level of either as well.

Luckily for audio, the improvement in software quality is happening regardless.
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post #7 of 81
6/19/10 at 8:32am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tonmeister2008 View Post

My personal opinion is that MP3 will soon become irrelevant as it's replaced by morre transparent lossy codes (like AAC, 256 kbps, the default in iTunes) and lossless codecs (e.g. Flac, Apple Lossless)which will increase in adoption rate as the costs in bandwidth and music storage decrease.

If there is a rise in compatible players. The big convenience of mp3 (other that file size that is becoming less of an issue) is that just about everything plays it. Car stereos, mp3 players, cell phones, etc.
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post #8 of 81
6/19/10 at 1:05pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tulpa View Post

If there is a rise in compatible players. The big convenience of mp3 (other that file size that is becoming less of an issue) is that just about everything plays it. Car stereos, mp3 players, cell phones, etc.

That's a good point. I keep forgetting that there are other options besides Iphone/Ipod I'm starting to purchase FLAC files but these are not easily handled by some players.
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post #9 of 81
6/19/10 at 1:24pm
My sample size is 2. But generally confirms your results. My kids prefer good sounding music - I think most people do. 128 mp3 is pretty low on the scale - almost anybody can tell the difference between that and lossless. I'm glad most of your subjects preferred lossless. Things get more interesting and difficult at higher bit rates.

I assume the Infinity Primus 362 is a Harmon product - Perhaps designed to work well in your testing room. Or is your testing room designed to mimic typical listening rooms, or both? I haven;t heard them, maybe a should give them a shot (if I was in the market I would just for fun.) Maybe you chose to compare them with the speakers you did based on prior knowledge?

I think it is safe to say that there will always be (a perhaps small) percentage of people who care about how their music sounds. I don't know if that is hereditary, or learned, or both.
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post #10 of 81
6/19/10 at 1:30pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tonmeister2008 View Post

That's a good point. I keep forgetting that there are other options besides Iphone/Ipod I'm starting to purchase FLAC files but these are not easily handled by some players.

But the ipod will happily play mp3, aac, alac (apples version of flac). You can go from flac to alac all day long and not loose a thing. And apple is selling 256 aac these days - much better than the 128 mp3 you tested.

Oh, and Penn, >100 GB exists. Good enough for several days of uncompressed music
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post #11 of 81
6/19/10 at 9:23pm
Hopefully we can get everyone to switch over to some sort of lossless codec only to find out that the vast majority of current music has no dynamic range and is massively distorted.
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post #12 of 81
6/19/10 at 9:42pm
This is interesting to me, however as a member of Generation Y, I think a far more important point is the fact that the proliferation of access to music gives younger people a far broader and greater appreciation and access to music despite the agglomeration of ClearChannel, MTV, and the usual crap.

If 128kbps mp3s provide access to worlds of music not available in high-res or redbook quality, I'd take access to more music over technical accuracy. Let's not lose sight of this either, sometimes the sacrifice in technical quality is for the better.

Also note that young people are reviving vinyl.
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post #13 of 81
6/19/10 at 11:19pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by ChrisWiggles View Post

This is interesting to me, however as a member of Generation Y, I think a far more important point is the fact that the proliferation of access to music gives younger people a far broader and greater appreciation and access to music despite the agglomeration of ClearChannel, MTV, and the usual crap.

If 128kbps mp3s provide access to worlds of music not available in high-res or redbook quality, I'd take access to more music over technical accuracy. Let's not lose sight of this either, sometimes the sacrifice in technical quality is for the better.

Also note that young people are reviving vinyl.

I don't disagree with you. Eventually access to music and quality will merge.

Some of my high school sample definitely listened to vinyl. One girl said this in her comments about MP3:

" I prefer it [Mp3] only for the fact that the crackling gives a little bit of a vinyl feeling, which I listen to the most"

However, in another trial she said something similar about CD:

" I like it because it has more of a vinyl sound;"

Overall she preferred CD in 58% of the trials, which wasn't statistically significant. She was obviously in love with the sound of vinyl but couldn't decide if CD or MP3 (128 kpbs) sounded more like it.
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post #14 of 81
6/20/10 at 8:03am
Can you explain more about the trials for mp3 vs CD? There's 18 kids. Did they all participate? Did one trial constitute A vs. B for one musical selection? Does that mean subsequent trials were with different musical selections? Can you share the raw data?
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post #15 of 81
6/20/10 at 11:42am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chu Gai View Post

Can you explain more about the trials for mp3 vs CD? There's 18 kids. Did they all participate? Did one trial constitute A vs. B for one musical selection? Does that mean subsequent trials were with different musical selections? Can you share the raw data?

Yes, all 18 kids participated.

4 programs x 3 repeats = 12 trials with the order of the trials randomized.
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post #16 of 81
6/20/10 at 12:10pm
Kids don't prefer bad sound. I've said this many times. What kids (and most people interested in convenience over quality) like are:

-A ton of music
-Being able to get away with spending less on a player, i.e. smaller units
-Downloads with reasonable quality.

These are the hot buttons. People ask when they buy an MP3 player, "how many songs does XXXGb equal?" The question never involves how much compression is required to get that many songs, and at what cost to sound quality.
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post #17 of 81
6/20/10 at 12:22pm
very good post

When sites like napster.com and then allofmp3.com exists. The question was always how many songs can I get for free or $X.

The world in general cares about quality only if the price is right. This is the case on all products.
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post #18 of 81
6/20/10 at 3:15pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tonmeister2008 View Post

Yes, all 18 kids participated.

4 programs x 3 repeats = 12 trials with the order of the trials randomized.

Can you PM me the raw data?
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post #19 of 81
6/30/10 at 8:58pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tonmeister2008 View Post

I posted a new blog posting that summarizes some recent experimental evidence where I tested a group of teenagers' preferences in loudspeakers and MP3 versus CD music formats. This is just the beginning of a more thorough longer study, so the results are very preliminary. Still I thought it would be interesting to get some feedback.

I could find no evidence that these high school students preferred the "sizzling sounds of MP3" over higher quality lossless formats, as reported by Jonathan Berger. I also found they preferred the most accurate, neutral loudspeakers when given the opportunity to hear and compare them with something less accurate and neutral.

These results are not too surprising to me, but the media seems to have been reporting a different story over the past year.

A nice mention of the study today here. The article is written in German, and this is the Google German-English translation.
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post #20 of 81
7/1/10 at 6:22am
It's important to remember that what "kids today" are used to isn't just low-bitrate MP3s, but low-bitrate MP3s played over mediocre earbuds. I suspect the earbuds are far more responsible for the tonal quality (or lack thereof) than the codec is. I wonder whether they'd still prefer CD to MP3 if they were listening over those earbuds, rather than a nice JBL system in an acoustically perfect room. My guess is it would be closer to 50-50. That wouldn't negate Sean's findings in any way, but it would put them in context. My hyopthesis would be that young listeners prefer CD to MP3 over a nice system, but have no such preference over the kinds of transducers they typically listen to. In which case, the market might decide (unfortunately) that it's not worth adopting better codecs.
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post #21 of 81
7/1/10 at 7:12am
Quote:
Originally Posted by mcnarus View Post

It's important to remember that what "kids today" are used to isn't just low-bitrate MP3s, but low-bitrate MP3s played over mediocre earbuds. I suspect the earbuds are far more responsible for the tonal quality (or lack thereof) than the codec is.

An iffy codec played with more fidelity would simply be more obvious as to its mediocrity, no?

Quote:
I wonder whether they'd still prefer CD to MP3 if they were listening over those earbuds, rather than a nice JBL system in an acoustically perfect room.

This is an unrealistic scenario in most cases, mainly because with few exceptions, most people are not using "acoustically perfect" rooms, and JBL doesn't make nice stuff by and large.

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My guess is it would be closer to 50-50.

So... wait. In order for this to only break even, we have to create a perfect room and find an accurate JBL system (which is like locating Nessie)? Not worth the effort. Re-ripping to lossless solves these issues with less fuss.

Quote:
That wouldn't negate Sean's findings in any way, but it would put them in context. My hyopthesis would be that young listeners prefer CD to MP3 over a nice system, but have no such preference over the kinds of transducers they typically listen to. In which case, the market might decide (unfortunately) that it's not worth adopting better codecs.

This is simply a matter of exposure. As more and more kids are exposed to HTIBs as their home audio experience, the codec matters less as do the earbuds as a limiting factor. Kids growing up with quality audio will know the difference. They may not care, but they'll understand.
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post #22 of 81
7/1/10 at 8:28am
I see a major flaw in the study: what teenagers are going to have a better full range system accessible to them other than perhaps their parents'? My children, and their friends, really like listening to our main system, and experiencing the higher def recordings on SACD and DVD-A. However, as mentioned previously, the portability of large song lists in their players, and lightweight ear buds, precludes their listening to "better" recordings on a daily basis.
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post #23 of 81
7/1/10 at 8:44am
Quote:
An iffy codec played with more fidelity would simply be more obvious as to its mediocrity, no?

Not necessarily. The particular characteristics of the codec might be quite audible on the lower fidelity system. So maybe, maybe not. But I'm suggesting it might be true in this case.

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This is an unrealistic scenario in most cases, mainly because with few exceptions, most people are not using "acoustically perfect" rooms, and JBL doesn't make nice stuff by and large.

JBL makes some very good stuff. (And watch yourselfthe OP works for the company that makes JBL.) It just lacks audiophile rep, for whatever that's worth.

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So... wait. In order for this to only break even, we have to create a perfect room and find an accurate JBL system?

You have it backwards. In the ideal set-up, as Sean showed, CD does much better than 50-50. I'm suggesting it might do no better than 50-50 on earbuds.

Quote:
This is simply a matter of exposure. As more and more kids are exposed to HTIBs as their home audio experience, the codec matters less as do the earbuds as a limiting factor. Kids growing up with quality audio will know the difference. They may not care, but they'll understand.

Many HTiB sets leave a lot to be desired in the fidelity department, so I think you're being a tad optimistic about people's exposure to high-quality sound reproduction. Also, if they don't care, they're unlikely to notice, let alone understand.
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post #24 of 81
7/1/10 at 8:48am
Quote:
I see a major flaw in the study

To be fair, that's not a flaw; it's a limitation. The study's fine, it just may not extrapolate to more typical Gen-Y systems. But let's see what Sean has to say about that.
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post #25 of 81
7/1/10 at 9:27am
I wonder if petabyte iPods suddenly became available at $100 if people would load them up with lossless or with 128K mp3's?
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post #26 of 81
7/1/10 at 9:39am
Quote:
I wonder if petabyte iPods suddenly became available at $100 if people would load them up with lossless or with 128K mp3's?

MP3s, to leave plenty of room for video.
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post #27 of 81
7/1/10 at 9:41am
I don't know if the average joe (regardless of age) even cares about lossless when music is usually just used to pass the time at work or travel listening to the latest Lady Gaga song. I doubt they're doing any critical listening that would benefit from lossless and an audiophile-quality system. They just want the storage to cram as much as possible into a device that goes everywhere they go.

Quote:
MP3s, to leave plenty of room for video.

That's true, too. Gotta bone up on watching the first two Twilight movies while you stand in line for Eclipse.

I'm only half kidding, too.
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post #28 of 81
7/1/10 at 11:05am
I think it's also worth pointing out that very affordable headphones and earbuds, even the ones included with the ipod, sound pretty good. Certainly way better compared to most entry-level speakers, small computer speakers, etc which are very common.

If we compare the average audio quality of a CD-based stereo with lackluster speakers from 10-20 years ago, would that be better or worse fidelity than a 128kbps mp3 via average earbuds or headphones?

I would suspect that the latter would actually be higher fidelity. So if you stop to think about it that way, I figure today's generation which is locked into headphones and earbuds (which are way cheaper for way better quality than loudspeakers) is probably consistently hearing better quality audio overall, despite lossy compression, than their parents generation.
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post #29 of 81
7/1/10 at 11:16am
Quote:


I think it's also worth pointing out that very affordable headphones and earbuds, even the ones included with the ipod, sound pretty good. Certainly way better compared to most entry-level speakers, small computer speakers, etc which are very common.

I find that the poor fit of earbuds has severe sound-quality effects. I found that even just switching to a $25 set of Sony in-ear phones was a substantial improvement.

But I don't disagree with your basic point. It's a whole lot easier to fill an ear cavity with low-distortion sound than to fill a room.
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post #30 of 81
7/1/10 at 11:33am
Nonsense, you can't hear the difference between earbuds and speakers. THEY ALL SOUND THE SAME!!!!!1111ELEVENTY!!!!
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