I have an old Computer Shopper from around 1990
that has a 300 MB hard drive for $1600. I wonder . . . will we
all look back at this forum in 3, 6, 10 years laughing about
"audio compression" techniques.

As hard drives get larger/cheaper, what do you all think of the
idea that "compression" will go the way of the Conestoga Wagon?

Dex

I know without a doubt that if I had more hard drive space to spare, I'd be encoding in FLAC or something. But I don't, so I'm not. MPC is a more than acceptable substitute. Perhaps it even makes me stay vigilant, hoping for the rare sample where it isn't transparent for me.

If you mean that lossy encoders will became useless in 5 years I don't agree with you. Don't forget about portables, mobiles and others. Year to year they will become smaller and memory problem will remain the same.

No, no, no . . . I'm not "stating" anything. Just asking for folks thoughts.
Remember, its 2003. 10 years ago, in 1993, if you had a 30Mb hard drive
you were a computer "God". I now have a 128Mb flash card I can hide
in my T-shirt pocket.

I'm just wondering where all this is going.

Dex

When we start seeing affordable 10TB HD's & 10GB flash devices I think we will all look back & think what a waste of time.

Look at the history of image compression. We have more then enogh room to store lossless images on our computers, and we do. But we all still know and love JPEG.

I think you may have hit the nail on the head. This will all be determined by
our "connection" speed, rather than our storage capacity.

Its in the hands of the "phone" company. God help us!

Dex

I think we are going to use audio compression for a long time since the files will be a lot biggers with hi-res audio and multichannel.

You bring up an interesting point, especially if we juxtapose this to
the "four-channel" fad of the mid-to-late seventies. That didn't last
too long because it was marketed as "being in the center of the band".
No one sat on stage during a performance, and it came across as
just trying to sell twice the equipment.

The current multi-channel marketers have got it a little better down,
with the idea of "reflected" and "natural" reverberation. At least,
thats my take on it.

It'll be curious to see how this all pans out.

Dex

Interesting article to read about the potential success of multichannel audio :

http://www.stereophile.com/showarchives.cgi?854


Mat

Well, I didn't read the whole article, mainly because it starts off
with some serious misconceptions, (at least, in my view).



The premise being, that everyone listens to their stereo in an anechoic chamber. Any room that I produce a stereo signal into, will have its own rear reflections. If I try to add, artificially, the rear reflections, I'm now adding the natural rear reflections from my source speakers, plus the "front" reflections from my "rear-reflectors" from my front wall. Quite a mouthful, but I think anyone in this forum understands what I mean.

The concept of the multi-channel sound system starts to get quite messy in the environment of our "living rooms". Standing waves not withstanding . . . no pun intended!

To drop back and possibly over-simplify this dilemma, I've always been able to recreate a reasonable sound stage using only two good speakers. "Good" being the operative word here.

Dang . . . now I'm starting to sound like an "audiophile" again.

Oh well, I think everyone gets my drift.

Dex

Well, even though we might look at audio compression a few years from know and think that was a loss of time, I enjoy the time I spend in this forums and I think that I won't think of it as a loss of time.
Do you look at whatever video-games you played ten years ago and laugh at yourself for "losing your time". I guess not.
I also do not think that audio compression will go the way of the (insert favorite late technology here). iPod's and their offspring are here to stay and those of us with a substancial collection of music (and in 10 years it will only get bigger) will always try to cram as much music as possible. So, no, storing wavs won't do.

Guess I'm trying to tell you to stop worrying and love the bomb

I think there will always be audio compression codecs around even though future developments may be in doubt. While it is possible to increase storage, it is not so simple to increase bandwidth... For example, you can't increase bandwidth for digital audio broadcasts over the airwaves.. Even for encoded MP3s and AACs you still need a DSL connection to download audio files.. It is still slow on a 56K connection to download an entire album.. Unless bandwidth increases significantly, there is always a need for compressions.

Hi AtaqueEG; I'm not sure I understand your "loss of time" reference. I never
said anything like that. Oh well, not a big deal. I do agree with you
that these forums are a great resource. Music is so important to many
of us and this forum has helped to bring me closer to hi-fidelity.

BTW - I take it your a Dr. Strangelove fan also.

Dex

Actuall more peopel are sfiting away from jpeg end to jpeg2000 because of qualtiy issues

i think the same will happen for audio compression
in 10 yeras from nnow wi will be thinkin if the qualtiy me make todays i low-fi.

yes as when you get af GSM encoden file today

I think stereo and music are inserperable.

While multichannel ought to be nothing short of amazing for Techno music which is well-written for it, we will always have stereo.

Why? We only have two ears!

How are you supposed to get multichannel sound into headphones without screwing up something or losing something?