A recent posting at PC Magazine claims to "discuss" why all your sound files sound so bad, and suggests what might be better. The article kicks off by citing Neil Young as inspiration, but unfortunately for those who are his dedicated fans gives only a short reference to "something he said."

The article is too long to post here, but may be read at:

Why Your MP3s Sound Bad: High-Resolution Audio Explained

"There's more to digital music than MP3 and AAC files, as Neil Young recently reminded us. Here's why high-resolution audio is important.

February 1, 2012 03:18pm EST

"Neil Young made waves this week with some comments about digital music files—first at the Sundance Film Festival, and then later in an All Things D interview. But lost in the media frenzy is his real point. Young wasn't putting down all digital music. Instead, he was referring specifically to the compressed MP3 and AAC files most people listen to today. Truth is, they just don't sound all that good."

The article does offer some points for consideration, if you're really interested in better sound; but it falls a bit short on the promise to "explain high resolution audio." As is all too typical of "tech writers" today, the writer says "it's better" but doesn't actually say "what it is" relative to his context. (This is probably consistent with nearly all his "examples" being Apple-based but hopefully our really serious listeners/recorders/transcribers won't make that an issue.)

The article does explain, in rather rudimentary terms, what Neil Young finds objectionable about the common MP3 (and some other) digital formats.

There is also some mention of "improvements in D/A converters" that I haven't seen mentioned in other news. There's no mention of a time frame when this may have happened, but I wonder if that suggests some people might want to look for upgrades to the codecs they may be using???

I'll leave it to those who are into audio distributions to comment on whether the whole business is evolving in ways the rest of us should know about, and for the fans to clarify whether Neil Young has a point or is just being his usual adorable whiney self.

John