“Most critical listeners from outside the recording industry don’t realize that most audible artifacts are part of the recordings they buy, not the gear used to reproduce them. These folks, often called audiophiles, spend their lives trying to work around the nasty things we do to the audio before it gets to you. Do your own tests if you prefer. Beware that many of the defects many people blame on data compression are in the CDs they bought in the first place. I listened for differences between the original CD and the iTunes rendition. Hearing no difference is perfection, and I got that at 128kbs VBR. Better compression schemes can’t get rid of defects.” [via Blivet]
He is pleasantly surprised with the audio quality he gets from his iPod, having been given one as a present after turning up his nose at the whole idea. He goes on to tell you how to tweak your settings for maximal listening enjoyment.
