Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood To Audiophiles: Simmer Down

@OMG! Ponies!: Hey, you said next rant you would give me notice so I could make popcorn!

Yeah, that's nice. Tell your richest, most loyal, most obsessive customers that they need to chill out 'cause you think they're being too anal about their music quality.

Seriously, man. That's kind of a dumb move.

"Lost to the world of high fidelity."

Yeah, man, I can't tell you what a tragedy it is that there's still people in this world with standards.

@cipotefello: I read a book on phrase origins and said "could care less" was shortened from "I could care less, but it would be difficult"

But Merriam Webster says..."Could care less is idiomatic; its meaning is not conveyed by literal reading of its component parts". from here: [www.merriam-webster.com]

davidm

@OMG! Ponies!: If this wasn't an elaborate joke, you just lost a couple points in my book.

Not that you should care about that, but if this is a serious rant, you really should get a grip on yourself.

Well your music and engineering have to be good enough to sound good as a FLAC or high bitrate MP3. Maybe this is just his way of admitting their work doesn't sound good enough to justify a higher fidelity format?

bitslammer

256kb/s+ everything.

If you intend to preserve the state of music you really can't settle for less.

@jthh: Double blind experiments show that there is no discernible difference in sound quality. That you claim there is one either means you have superhuman hearing or are experiencing confirmation bias.

drumist

@LeeMarvinsPants: If a whale farts in the ocean and a mini-disc recorded it and subsequently compressed to 160kbps MP3, would it still sound like a whale fart?

The answer is no, man. Shit no, man. I believe you'd get your ass kicked for saying something like that.

@davidm: but that means they care to a level, when you say couldn't you are implying you have reached the bottom of the careness scale

cipotefello

@TheAlmeida: Yes, but if I truly want to appreciate music don't you think I should hear it as it was recorded? So I can pick up all the nuances and not the crap sibilance coming from the compression!?

jthh

Didn't Gizmodo or Lifehacker do an article on the bit rate most people prefer? and wasn't it around 160-220kbps?

I don't usually download FLAC but i do try to get most the MP3s i get at 320kbps anyway. I just don't have the best ears anymore after playing drums for 10 years... just not gonna happen...

Besides, if you want to hear the way the music is suppose to sound... go buy a concert ticket... (And i do realize you can't see some bands because they aren't around anymore... well you either should have seen them while they were... or you were born in the wrong decade...) =p

@matthorn: Both are correct according to Merriam Webster.

davidm

If the said 'audiophiles' were that concerned about fidelity, they would support the artist and buy the music on LP.
Its not that difficult to sample a record and convert to FLAC if they really wanted a digital copy.

Phishy

@OMG! Ponies!: Well played. I runied my minidisc recorder trying to record whale farts.

LeeMarvinsPants

"It's not just super nerds who would prefer at least a -v0 bitrate instead of 160CBR."

Yes, it is.

All_Thumbs - R.O.A.C.H.

@GlenTen: Wrong. I am one of those "most picky" listeners and believe me 160 is crap. If I have to go below 200 it will be 192 for space sake. 256 is tolerable but you gotta go lossless all the way, I mean that's the way they intended listeners to hear it.

jthh

@OMG! Ponies!: GAWD! This made my YEAR! I had to stifle my laughter in my office!

jthh

The coloquealism "Could care less" is wrong - if they could care less then that's not saying much is it ? next time try, "Couldn't"

matthorn

Haha, I can't tell if that's satire or not, but it sure seems tongue-in-cheek to me.

LowellVintage

@GlenTen: I think its more about preserving the original audio quality.

@jp182: and this one as well:

"SFJ: Freestyle here. Inject any relevant, burning thoughts.

JG: I find this sound quality stuff both fascinating and ridiculous. It’s like the pixel resolution of digital cameras: higher numbers are better, but that discussion always pushes the actual photography to one side, somehow. "

I think this is another case where it makes more sense to read the linked article before commenting.

@TCMcQueen: You know the way out.

TheAlmeida

@OMG! Ponies!: I actually have some whale farting recordings, but they are in MP3. :-(

@OMG! Ponies!: cool rant brah

cipotefello

@FooSchnickens: duly noted

dbaet

i think this is a good quote from the article:

" SFJ: What are your feelings about the various audio formats?

JG: Sonic quality is important. I’d feel frustrated if we couldn’t release CDs as a band, but then, it only costs us a slight shaving of sound quality to get to the convenience of the MP3. It’s like putting up with tape hiss on a cassette. I was happy using cassettes when I was fifteen, but I’m sure they were sneered at in their day by audiophiles. If I’m on a train, with headphones, MP3s are great. At home, I prefer CD or vinyl, partly because they sound a little better in a quiet room and partly because they’re finite in length and separate things, unlike the endless days and days of music stored on my laptop. "

@cipotefello: mmm it's so salty

@cipotefello: don't get me riled up Scott Tenorman. I'll make your dumb radiohead come and call you a crybaby.

Subnote: I like radiohead

Its definitely much ado about nothing. 160kbps is perfectly fine for even the most picky listeners.

And I welcome a discussion about listening to the Pixies in high fidelity, or anything recorded before the late 1950s. Live vs Recorded is also crucial to this discussion as the business model for making music changes with its distribution channels (Pirate bay = more live concerts = less concern about lossless recordings?)

Also, I just ate a disgusting piece of biscotti that tasted kind of like pinesol. I might have just eaten a posion cookie.

Screw you, Greenwood!

First, you dupe us into going to your site to get free music, but then, it turns out to only 160kbps. And in FUCKING MP3 format to boot. That is like the shittiest format of all time. I've listening to recordings of whales farting that sound better than a 160kbps mp3.

And then, to top it all off, if we want the CD, we have to wait more time and by the fucking thing. What kind of fucking scam is that?!

You're a goddamn fucktard! I downloaded that shit and - BIG FUCKING SURPRISE - it sounds like crap on my iPod.

I guess you rich bitches don't understand that some of use don't roll around in chauffeur-driven Maybach's eating caviar and Grey FUCKING Poupon and drinking Hennessy and Cristal. Some of us ride the subway and want to hear something that doesn't sound like it was filtered through dogshit on our morning commutes.

Your music was a fucking ripoff! I hope you choke on a horse-dick!

The Obama Government should come down hard on you lying scheming ripoff artists! If you're going to give away free music, it should be at a decent encode rate! I hope they convict you and lock you in a prison cell with Barney Madeoff so that the Ponzi Schemer can fuck you up your ass for the rest of your rotten life.

@Aleks Vujovic: but if u are really concerned about quality, why not just get the CD?

@Aleks Vujovic: "Yeah the last album didn't seem like they cared about the music much" -- WTF? did you listen to IN RAINBOWS? it was friggin' awesome. And seeing as they launched it as a "pay what you want" download, downloading it for free revokes any right to complain.

stackedrecords

I'm sure they use tons of expensive recording equipment and instruments...why wouldn't they want the sonic quality from those things to be persevered in flac quality

@dilpickies: Thank you. Was gonna do just that.

Haha because wanting a lossless file format that I can do anything I want with in the future without fear of degrading the source is LOST TO THE WORLD OF HIGH FIDELITY. What an asshat. Good thing I hate Radiohead.

TCMcQueen

@TheAlmeida: Agreed. These men deserve respect.

ryno365

Green - wood [hardy chuckle]

Zukis

I think he's going to be getting a lot of flack for these comments... hardy har har

This is one awesome musician. If Thom is half Radiohead, he certainly is the other half.

People nowadays are too busy jerking off to media and quality standards (even analog ones) to truly just simply sit down and fucking appreciate music.

TheAlmeida

Yeah the last album didn't seem like they cared about the music much. 160kbps? You kidding me? Might as well release it in 128kbps. i mean 160 is okay for a free release, but seriously....

Aleks Vujovic

@Renegade_IsBored: Look at this CRYBABY

cipotefello

Seems like a pretty dickish thing to say to your fans who want to hear your music in better quality.

They COULDN'T care less.

dilpickies

I think most people who care about FLAC don't even have the proper gear to listen the difference, and if you cared that much about quality then you would have vinyls.

cipotefello

flak, FLAC... I GET IT!!!!

V0 or go home!

themightykorean

What a big blasted bag of bullshit.
Sure the rule "You should listen to music, not equipment" holds true, but if certain equipment helps you enjoy the music more, then go for it.
If your listening-pleasure already peaks when consuming music through your iPod earbuds, then listen to this Radiohead dude; you won't be able to tell a difference with those buds anyway.

@squirrelbo1: Damn straight! And I'll raise you a spelling nazi: "grammar".

This is Radiohead. Does it really matter?

not to be a grammer nazi or anything, isnt it "couldn't care less" not "could care less" because could care less implies that they do have some concern for it.

squirrelbo1

@circa86:

Cheers loudly in agreement!

He's getting way too much flac over this.

3Djesus

@Kaiser-Machead: I don't think there's any 'maybe' about it. They're busted alright.

@tptmanno1:

No.
(I'm partly responding to this because I am a photographer.)

Have you even seen great photographs printed on crappy printers? Case in point, John Issac's "Celebrating India" series, and when they're printed with 1mm pixel blocks through the image, that's an issue regardless of how great the image is. (This was at Maine Photo workshops, and I know he was at least there himself to open the exhibit.)

Now, the same thing can be applied to music, I have a $350 pair of cans, not top end, certainly not low end. But there is a difference between 192kps and FLAC, a huge difference in fact.

I have no qualms listening to music at 192kps, but if I have two apples, one half eaten and the other fresh, which would you prefer?

Poison_Shroom

@Ko0lHaNDLuKe: I don't know about greatest live performance they've ever done or will ever do, but I bet it was amazing.

wakeupbomb

I am in no way an audiophile, but I am a DJ that has recently switched from vinyl to digital.

I have to say that, yes: it is almost impossible to tell the difference between music played from vinyl vs. music played from CD or even 320 kbps MP3... through headphones.

BUT!

If the same music was played on a big soundsystem with bassbins and horn tweeters, the difference may not be heard, but it definitely can be FELT. The music played through vinyl rumbles through your body and shakes the floor. Music played from digital has much less of this quality.

But for home listening and headphone listening, digital music is totally fine. I've just noticed on live performances on big soundsystems that analog really shakes air, walls and floors.

Moordryd

It was a digital release that people could have (and in a lot of cases) paid $1 for. I'll take amazing music at 160kbps and rip it from the CD release later at lossless.

It's a blanket statement, obviously, but I think the background of that particular release has to be factored in to his attitude on the subject.

Michael Wiegand

@salient1: Oh well bless your golden ears. Jesus.

Kaiser-Machead

Somewhere, Nigel Godrich is beating himself in the head with a U47 power supply.

@lpranal: I may love you. Or, you know, be your brah, depending on your gender.

@GinevraZeiram: I do have a few of their albums.. but my main like is TOOL

Uncletwitch

I had this argument several years ago with a young work associate when the first iPods were taking over the world. Having lived through the transitions from 45s to LPs to cassettes to CDs I found it appalling that her generation would be so quick to accept a highly compressed and clearly inferior digital audio format, and at that listened to it through $10 headphones. Her snappy remark went along the lines of, "well my generation is listening to the music, not the equipment." I had no clever rejoinder for her, as my jaw had dropped to the point of temporary uselessness. Years later (and at a point where I have neither the time, nor the drugs to simply sit in front of a set of speakers and "listen") I have my entire music collection streaming through the house from one Mac to another at 192 kbps and couldn't care less.

jimmyg

To all arguments/Greenwood Hating that seems to be going on...

If you read the whole interview you would understand what he is trying to say. Greenwood is a MUSICIAN, not a precision audio technician. If you are quibbiling about how he should care about every little technical thing, it is like saying that you don't like a photograph because its pixel count is too low.
Its not the point. Just as pixels are the means to express what the photographer wants, audio fidelity is the means of getting across the MUSIC.
And Greenwood is all about the music.
He even says that for something like a violin concerto or something, CD quality is better, and sometimes the fidelity does help.
But not for what Radiohead is doing, which is to create music that is listenable anywhere, anytime.

He even says he likes the "Crunchyness" of the lower quality.

@Justinpaulson: sorry, that was confusing. I wasn't talking about in rainbows (I bought that CD), I was talking about their new release.

@salient1: In the article, Mr. Greenwood has this to say about .mp3s

"They can even put a helpful crunchiness onto some recordings."

The use of lower bit rate could very well be an artistic choice by the band, not merely a way to thumb their nose at audiophiles. Not everything has to be sterile and sound like a Dave Matthews album. Nebraska is one of my favorite albums, and that thing has feedback in it. They don't want to encode at 256, or whatever, maybe that's because they like what the lower bit rate does to the recording.

And before you start lecturing me on your superior listening skills, I'm an FOH mixer.

@(Starman) AnalysisDialysis: I believe in ponies as I would believe myself.

Mr.DuckSauce

Radiohead (and esp. Jonny Greenwood) have always been like that.

A guitar mag interviewed Greenwood several years ago, and was asking questions like, what cables he was using and picks and stuff. Jonny got annoyed, saying it really doesn't matter. Sure, he prefers certain equipment (he notoriously uses—or used to use—a cheap non-tube amp), but in the end it's about the fingers and mind, not about the gear.

(in before *it's all about the music, mann!*)

NewSc2

couldn't care less... not could care less.. they could NOT care less..

Churrito

@Lupison: His points are not factual, but clearly he considered them all, and believes everything he says. He may not have your respect, but it sounds like he wasn't in the market for it.

I loved Creep, but I haven't really kept up with Radiohead since 1992, so I couldn't tell you how digital compression would affect their music. It's clear, though, that you think you can, and he thinks he can.

I'm guessing you both think the same things about compression, in the end, but enjoy your music in different ways. As an artist, he has responsibility neither to share his interpretation of his music nor to adapt to yours, but he has knowingly and openly chosen to do the former, and I personally respect that.

CaseyG

@OMG! Ponies!: I have the feeling that by the next time we see you, we're gonna have to... dig a pony!

(Starman) AnalysisDialysis

It really depends on the music you're listening to. A few years ago, i encoded some Tori Amos into 192Kbps VBR. Sounded terrible on just about everything I played it on. It wasn't until I moved to 256Kbps that it was comparable to the CD that I had.

On the other hand, just about everything else I own sounds fine at 192 Kbps encoded from CD.

I read somewhere that sounds from harpsichords (Tori Amos uses it in many of her songs) require higher encoding (256Kbps+) to sound good.

BLToday

So, as FLAC is the same audio quality as CD, you can replace "FLAC" with CD at any point in his little diatribe. Basically he is either incorrect about his assumptions on FLAC, or he is lumping in the CD in those "lost to the world of high fidelity". Either way, it's an opinion.

Lizard_King

@Azures: Try VBR encoding. That way it can hop up to 320kbps when it's able, and come back down when the music is more ordered. You end up with a file smaller than your 256kbps CBR might have been.

anderlan

Think back to 1987. Was the transition from cassette to CD pointless except for the fact that now they're probably cheaper to make than tapes would be?

anderlan

@Ko0lHaNDLuKe: iTunes music is 256kbps AAC now.

Kaiser-Machead

@tekamul: I'm sorry you can't hear very well so that extra detail in sound has no value to you but don't explain to me (who is a musician) what it is to listen to music. I've been doing it all my life and I savor every ounce I can get out of it. People like you are the equivalent of people with 20/80 vision telling people with 20/20 vision to shut up because all that extra detail isn't important when watching a movie. That detail isn't the only thing but it adds to the whole experience and I have no desire to get short changed by people who have poor quality senses thx. Honestly, why do you even care? You have no skin in this game anyway.

salient1

The great thing about .flac is you can un-compress it to a .wav and make it whatever you want. If you want to make it a 160 Kbps CBR, by all means do it but for the rest of us... it provides the option to whatever we please.

codykniffen

@OCEntertainment: Oh stop, it's not really as serious as all that... You could still go get the CD and rip it at whatever you want. That's what I did.

pixelpushing

@Sean Keeney: I'm pretty certain that the vast majority of listeners out there are not re-encoding time and time again when newer codecs/equipment are released. Most will be living with their mp3's for as long as they retain the data on their hardware.

Kaiser-Machead

@Lupison: That's Absurd.

Despite any snarky comments their guitarist might have made, you'd think "They" would have a bit more good will built up after putting out over a decade of superlative musicianship.

Someone says, 'flac is stoopid' and all that's out the window?

I remember the day Bob Dylan said something I disagree with that had little or no consequence to anyone. Fuck that guy to.

Bah, whatever. I just like Radiohead - clearly you don't.

Loved the speaker stands comment.

Jeb_Hoge

@Lupison: BREAKING NEWS: Earth continues rotation. More after the break.

Kaiser-Machead

@OMG! Ponies!: dude, you don't even know. lo-fi is the new FLAC. I listen to Aphex twin @64kbs in mono at 200% volume through my audiovox boombox with a hole in the speakers and one blown, rattling woofer. It sounds like Angels making love to the concept of freedom. Wrap your hoity-toity FLAC format around THAT one.

What bitrate does iTunes encode their music in? That always does me fine?!? How much more quality do you need?

And I've seen the greatest live performance Radiohead have ever done and are likely to do at Reading '09 last weekend! Was amazing!

@photophile: how is the sound quality not 'truly unimportant' ? Even if they didn't offer flac, 160 is lower then the standard bitrate of mp3s. i cannot see a good argument for defending them on this.

similar situation: dark knight, biggest movie of last year. what if warner brothers said 'eh, we're gonna skip bluray on this one, if you bought an hdtv you've already spent too much anyways, just enjoy the dvd' (while every other studio puts out blurays) . fans of the movie, as well as anyone who appreciates hd, would rage.

september11th

They should have used .FLAC for the sake of making it on-par with what would be available if they had released the CD. If you're not going to even do that much, don't use some shitty CBR. LAWD, don't even go below 192 Kbps. That's the minimum of what's acceptable.

@lostarchitect: huh?

[www.amazon.com]

If you meant it HADN'T been released yet, then guess what, you can wait for it you want the most supreme quality. Until then, enjoy the fact that they are actually releasing the stuff earlier in digital formats.

@tekamul: I accept this response.

I still say the statement itself is dumb. But I can accept that if he cares more about music than he does about tech, then as a musician, he's doing it right.

@Mason Bushard: Stop. You just don't get it!

The idea of fidelity is not to make something sound better... it is to make something sound the same. It seems that any artist would be infinitely concerned with fidelity.

Russ Seehafer

@KaliElephenor: Check your lulz and caust-o-meter. They may be broken

Kaiser-Machead

@OCEntertainment: I think you're kinda missing the point.

If Greenwood had that much insight into the music industry and cared the same way you seem to, he would be more of a businessman, and less of a musician. The result would be crappier music at much higher fidelity.

He doesn't care, because he shouldn't care. It's all about the music, man, not the bits :)

tekamul

160kbps is NOT fine for music you actually really like. And, no, I've never spent more than a $100 on entire sound system before, let alone on a speaker.

My car has the best sound system I own, and it's factory, but it does MP3. I can concur, when I encode "insane" high bit rate VBR MP3s from FLACs that I..ahem..acquire, they're noticeably better in the car than CBR 160kbit. I don't own a dedicated MP3 player, probably because they don't usually advertise if they do FLAC or not.

anderlan

@YasinMocker: But is it on CD? Where is my 192kbs or higher, and instant gratification!

SigmundTheSeaMonster

@Mason Bushard: Way over your head, eh?

@yardameus: That's not really possible. They could transcode it though. They'd just get banned from What afterwards.

@yeti: Audiophiles are the ones who spend the big bucks on audio equipment, who give a purpose to high-tech, fine-grain control systems that so many labels have access to. Just because they don't buy more than one CD doesn't mean they're not contributing huge amounts of money to the audio/music industry.

Fact is, some (most likely several) big companies have some part in making huge music groups into what they are, through sponsorship deals, contracts, equipment contributions. Those companies have tons of money, in part, due to folks who spend big bucks on gigantic, high-quality speakers and high fidelity playback systems. You think a band gets where they do by CD sales alone, you're missing it big time.

It's that kind of shallow understanding of a complex industry that leads to remarks like this.

@yeti: It's not an idiom.

Your argument is invalid.

@cipotefello: maybe we do?

@Lupison: Because they actually want people to like music for what it is, rather than fuss about truly unimportant things?

I'm just curious about how many people actually sat down and listened and thought it was really shitty without checking the specs before complaining. Fuck FLAC. Oh my that just slipped right out didn't it?

Kaiser-Machead

At some point, the lower quality of the recording becomes a component to the music itself. For instance, some of the old 8 track and record recordings I have are priceless because of the scratches and squeaks - not the pure fidelity.

At some point, the artist has decided to incorporate that element [some modern artists add those elements into their CDs].

maztec

@matthorn: Also, you don't actually 'catch' a bus. STFU, it's still proper english even if you don't understand it.

yeti

@EBone: I thought I had you hearted but I guess not, there ya go

@OMG! Ponies!: SRSLY, MAI BETAMAX WILL JOIN YOU TOO.

Mint137

Wow, a musician that obviously doesn't care about his own music.. When I heard their album, I was shocked at how crappy the audio recording quality was. Now I'm not so shocked. If they don't respect their own music, I surely won't.. One word, Sellouts.

@drumist: horseshit. the fanciest audio equipment i own is a set of Grado headphones, and i can clearly tell the difference between mp3's recorded at 128k and apple lossless files. it's amazingly obvious. and i actually have fairly poor hearing.

@drumist: Double blind testing. Really?

@OMG! Ponies!: John Mayer here,

I know you're upset, but don't be like me. My stupid mouth got me in trouble, when I say too much again. And as you can see, these people are offended.

So why don't you take a seat, take your life, and plot it out in black and white. m'kay?

Love

JM

Kaiser-Machead

@Phishy: Yeah, you know what? We will. But the fucking CD hasn't been released yet, so you're just talking about nothing.

They should record it at 160 quality but then sell it in FLAC and see all that chat about how buying it in FLAC is far superior.

@jthh: if you spend money on your gear the difference is obvious, people who say otherwise are just inexperienced haters

@OCEntertainment: Your richest customers still only buy 1 CD and what makes you think audiophiles would be any more loyal than anyone else who likes their music? It isn't as if they have a history catering to audiophiles.

yeti

@Azures: that is far lower than the minimum standard, IMO.

@Lupison: x2

@GinevraZeiram: They are good but overrated in my opinion.

LEWD98

@jdale: Yeah, it's couldn't. If you could care less, that implies that you care to some degree. If you couldn't care less, it implies that you do not care to any degree.

@Pope John Peeps II: You should have figured out that Ponies was kidding when he said iPod. Everybody knows Ponies is a Zune Subscription guy.

@OMG! Ponies!:

Your bitching because you got to download In Rainbows for free before the official CD release date?

Wow, fucking unappreciative. Like 160kbps ruined your whole life. Like you can even hear full range and fidelity through headphones on a subway. Quit being a cheap ass and support art if you want uncompressed audio.

You don't like Greenwood? Then don't listen to his band's fucking music.

Mason Bushard

People obsessed with the technical details of music are truly truly missing the point. Just as he mentioned in the article.

A higher bit-rate or analog signal is not going to turn Ludwig Van into Lil' Wayne, or vice versa. (Lil' Wayne. . .damn you to hell)

Not to mention the damn encoding rate has so little to do with what you are actually hearing. Unless you are dealing with music actually sampled at a higher rate your ears can kiss my ass.

It has nothing to do with standards it has to do with:

"Lost to the world of high fideliy."

Which means, you twats are more obsessed with the damn encoding rate rather than the music itself, as music, not a science experiment.

There are audiophiles out there who are crazy, but at least music is the first motivating factor.

@jthh: There is ALWAYS crap. Even live, there's poor gear on the place, screwed up building acoustics, there's the drunk guy on your side hitting on the hysterical chick. It will NEVER be perfect, and that's what's great about it.

What I mean is just that the flawlessness of the "medium" shall never be considered above the message.

Peace bro.

TheAlmeida

@OCEntertainment: Just watch, he'll start using computers to fix his pitch next, then instead of real musicans playing horns or violins they'll join in the MIDI fun..

Lupison

@GlenTen: Don't listen to the golden-eared crybabies. They're wasting valuable LP coddling time.

Kaiser-Machead

@bitslammer:
Bad recording /= bad audio file quality.

I'd rather hear something recorded badly in good quality than bad quality digital audio.

I have no complaints about the sound quality of the IN RAINBOWS download. I got it early on during the "pay what you want" period. It goes on my iPod right along with all of the other Radiohead albums that I do own on CD and ripped to 224K AAC files. This is music that is highly manipulated and/or created by electronics to begin with. Most Radiohead songs have some level of distortion/hiss/static that would mask right over any super clean studio quietness anyway.

Radioheadonist

They just lost a whole lot of my respect.

Lupison

@OMG! Ponies!:

nukee

radiohead and its members can do whatever they want.

they are the greatest band who has ever or will ever exist.

period.

GinevraZeiram

Brilliant. I agree.

A lot of people are listening on iPods or integrated sound-cards anyway, and the D/A converters are doing much more damage to fidelity than the bitrate or format is going to do.

I think it is a relatively small minority that are listening through proper Apogee/RME convertors, into a quality power amp, into quality monitors, in a properly acoustically tuned room.

I could be wrong.

getz76

@OMG! Ponies!: Sounds like you've been waiting awhile to get that off your chest. And I do agree with your argument, except for the Obama part. Statements like this are why I'm glad that bands like Widespread Panic sell soundboard recordings of all their shows in FLAC and MP3.

ThickSkinned

@Pope John Peeps II: it was, his name is ponies, that's what he does, that's all he does

on a side note chilax, and billions of dollars says you're wrong, just because you can't doesn't mean others can't

@TheAlmeida: I agree, as does Jonny Greenwood, in this quote from the article.

"SFJ: Freestyle here. Inject any relevant, burning thoughts.

JG: I find this sound quality stuff both fascinating and ridiculous. It’s like the pixel resolution of digital cameras: higher numbers are better, but that discussion always pushes the actual photography to one side, somehow."

@davidm: Which just means they acknowledge it's wrong, but it's such a common error that they've thrown up their hands and accepted it.

Do we have to settle for that? The nonsense of the lowest common denominator?

jdale

@OMG! Ponies!: I almost pissed myself, that could be from the coffee though. Thanks for that

@Pope John Peeps II: I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought he was serious. I don't see the usual /sarcasm or /rant like Ponies! usually does.

ddmeightball

@jp182: I agree that the whole article needs to be read to understand what he's saying. That one little quote posted up there makes Jonny seem like an idiot, but when you read the rest of the article, you realize what he's saying, and it makes a lot of sense.

Also, Radiohead's last release, These are my Twisted Words, was released for free, as an MP3 encoded at 320 kbps.

@gloveofpower: Oh, I think they care about fidelity. Just not when fans/critics complain about fidelity. Maybe that's a little arrogant, but I can't totally blame them.

newgalactic

@More Ron: Maybe if you singers could project, I wouldn't have to gain the vocals up so loud, and wouldn't have a line of overheads across the front of the stage.

@badhatharry: turn the f*cking cymbals down, liveguy.

More Ron

When you say "could care less" you are saying that Radiohead could care very much about FLACs. What you should say is that they "couldn't care less," meaning that they care as little as possible about FLACs.

tmgold

@Kaiser-Machead: But I think it's 256kbps CBR, not VBR. While CBR is perfectly fine for some songs, complex songs are really best listened to when encoded in VBR. Personally, I don't use to FLAC. It just takes up too much room and I don't have enough space for ALAC on my iPhone. I usually use v0 because it's the best quality without the huge size. On my everyday headphones I usually can't hear the difference between v0 and FLAC anyways. Not because they aren't high-quality, but because there's too much noise in the room I'm listening in.

Man, that's downright disheartening. I mean, I understand hating on people who frivilously throw away cash on audio bricks and other nonsense that does nothing, but c'mon.... Radiohead saying that 160mp3 is enough is like Scorcese saying, I don't need a Red One, shooting DV is good enough... w-w-w-whaaaat? Are you KIDDING me? It's disillusioning that such famous musicans could be so tone-deaf to the importance of fidelity in reproducing their music at home. I mean, if that's the case, why do you even bother recording in a studio? Just go to guitar center, buy the shittiest cables they sell and do it in your own basement on cassette recorder. That's disregard for fidelity, and the path that "160 is good enough" is walking down. C'mon man. What the hell?!

gloveofpower

@Kaiser-Machead: Thank you for putting this guy in his place. Now, I need to go clean out my ears because according to him, I can't hear very well.

e2drummer

@squirrelbo1: came to post the same thing. could care less doesn't mean anything. drives me nuts when I hear/read that phrase misused.

m-unit

I re-encoded all my mp3s songs to 128kbps just to get more songs in my ipod. I think that is my sweetspot as anything lower than that I could recognize crap. I'm just saying I found something that strikes a balance between file size and quality. But in the end for me it's all about enjoying the music.

Imtheredude

@mangochutney: Don't band guys have such ruined hearing that their opinions on sound quality aren't really valid anyway?

gssbymcfgs

They could have given us the choice... just like NIN did (you could choose between FLAC, Itunes Lossless, mp3 320kbps and m4a if I recall), so everyone's happy and we could have died in 2012 listening to our favorite albums without all this useless controversy or something...

johneaster

@G.O.B.: Come on!: Exactly. And the fact that you can convert it to whatever you want without any loss of quality. Now or in the future.

yupislyr

@Moordryd: That's not a difference of analog vs. digital. It's a difference of how things are master nowadays (loud crap without DR).

andyo

Greenwood's ridicule of audiophiles just comes off as disingenuous and self-serving. Yeah, he's sort of self-deprecating, saying he "was nearly one of them" but bitch, please. We've seen RH's gear. If they don't care about this stuff then how come they aren't just recording on a fucking 4-track in Thom's kitchen.

yojeezy

No longer available for download...
[www.inrainbows.com]

PaddyDugan

it's all about the MUSIC - could you not listen to the Beatles until they were on CD? no i didn't think so

@m-unit: What do you mean, "could care less doesn't mean anything"? It means something, just not what they were trying to use it for. It drives ME nuts when people don't think about the stupid things they say.

cnewhall

@Moordryd: Interesting notion, since bass response of a digital system is more linear than that of an LP, which relies upon the RIAA equalization curve in your phono preamp. In fact, the bass on an LP is recorded -20dB lower than the rest of the signal simply because of the physical amount of wiggling that a high-amplitude bass note requires of a stylus.

So, that makes me think that either something in your signal chain is over-emphasizing the bass (and that the digital chain is probably more correct) OR your turntable was picking up feedback from the vibrating floor.

i live my life at alt preset extreme.

endless

@yojeezy: Sir, if I had the means, I would promote this comment.

the world should be thankfull for radiohead and greenwood. someone has to carry the musical torch when the floyd is done. radiohead = genius.

@tmgold: Could care less is an idiom. Grammatically he's incorrect should you pursue it at the literal value.

Gary Chaing

@lpranal: I don't know which comment wins between this and the Dorian Will Smith one, but "angels making love to the concept of freedom" is a great band name.

@Mason Bushard: *waving* HI doesn't-get-the-bit-guy! Wanna cookie???

Buford T. Justice

@maztec: Yeah, it's great when the artist intends a scratchy sound, but when you encode it to 160kbit CBR, the soft scratchy sounds disappear, having been decapitated, so to speak. Yah, that's awesome.

I've rediscovered some pretty neat effects, like the ones you speak of, in my favorite songs since I've moved to FLAC, or using very high maximum bitrate VBR encoded from archived FLAC.

Once you go FLAC, you don't go back.

anderlan