[Thomas W. Bethe]

Originally Posted by StarfishMusic

I would like to see a movement in the other direction. A new audiophile movement where the end product is 24 bit and at least 88.2 sample rate. Where the end of chain limiting is just the right amount to make the song sound it's best. Where the quality is high and the quality of the listener is high. ahhh but I'm sure it's the standard engineer dream.

It's no secret, I think we all want this. but let me ask why the hell hasn't it happened? Can't most any new computer sound card play back files like that? They'd just have to auto-detect the resolution instead of be manually switched and even if the listener did have to manually switch it. Does the end listener just not care? and it's not like we can't send around files like that on the Internet. It's just takes a little longer. Anyone watched the comcast slowskies commercial?..... the Internet is so fast now people send me 24bit stereo tracks in under 2 minutes!!! Would people not wait 15 minutes for a album download of superior sound quality? I think the bigger artists should just make higher res files available free with the lower res ones to get it started. Yes I know some are starting to do that. but damnit why does 16/44 even exist anymore? we've been recording 24 bit almost ten years. It's ridiculous. The loudness wars come from this same mentality of the listener just doesn't or can't hear the difference. Why then do some audiophiles buy speakers that cost more than a car? and yet they play a 44/16 or even an MP3 thru them.

ok, rant done.

A lot of people across the US still have dial up Internet . I read one article recently that said about 22% still are using dial-up. I know that I live in a small town and the best I can do with a cable modem is about 750K which means that a 600 MB file takes over an hour to download. We also have a very artificial 2 gig download limit from our ISP and after that you have to pay by the MB. So even though you have a fast Internet connection a vast majority of people still are working with less than "state of the art Internet" but you are correct that in a few years this will not be the norm and high speed Internet will be available to most people if they want it and can afford it.

Most people today want portable music. Music that they can take into their cars and with them while walking to class and most of this is on MP3s or CDs. I was recently in a big box merchant and I simple could not believe the amount of space devoted to MP3 playback equipment. Everything from IPODS to big ticket surround systems that have a place to plug in your MP3 player. I think the hand writing is on the wall and MP3s have become the "standard" playback medium.

I was at a high end stereo shop recently. Even some of their really high end equipment has a place to plug in an MP3 player and we are talking systems that start at $15,000 and go WAY up from there.

There are some audiophiles and some golden eared people that would pay for the higher sampling and bit rates but I think the whole industry has been dumbed down to thinking in the MP3 world and are not concerning themselves in the least with anything of higher quality. Maybe in the future this will be different. Musical taste have a way of swinging like a pendulum between content and technology and right now it all seems to be content driven.

Best of luck on your idea and I personally think it would be a great thing to have available but I wonder seriously how much it would be used????