Ears On

Over the past couple of years, I've raised the bar for new entries to my music library. I've been steadily giving up lossy audio. In other words, file formats like MP3 and iTunes-approved AAC are no longer welcome. It is time for my library to go lossless. So long, lossy. Quoth the raven, nevermore.

It didn't happen all at once. Back in the day, getting music in the form of free (albeit illegal) MP3s seemed like the realization of an impossible dream. The first time I installed Napster, circa 1999, it blew my mind. All but the most obscure items in the history of recorded music were just a short search and a few clicks away from peer-to-peer downloading from fellow music lovers. I didn't have to pay $15 to explore new music on full-priced CDs. It was like dying and going to heaven, except without the inconvenient dying part.

It was actually the music industry that died. Peer-to-peer file sharing sent the record companies into a death spiral. Despite having launched a massive legal campaign against illegal downloaders, bristling with lawsuits and punitive fines, the industry today is a shadow of its former self. Of course this also has meant that what little money the labels allow to trickle down to artists has slowed into an even smaller trickle or just stopped altogether. Nowadays musicians make their livings from live performance and merch (if they make a living at all). Once upon a time Steely Dan recorded but didn't tour. Now it tours but doesn't record.

Eventually I uninstalled Napster and BitTorrent from my music PC. Even though I never stopped buying CDs and LPs, I couldn't absolve myself from the guilt inextricably linked in my mind with illegal downloading. Don't kid yourself: It is basically stealing. I'm the author of a book that makes bill-paying money every month and I'd be pretty cheesed off if someone stole my intellectual property. (Incidentally, most of the pirated versions are outdated editions and come with liberal helpings of malware.)

But something else stopped me from downloading MP3s: They were a sonic compromise. Once my curiosity about a pirated album was satisfied, I just got bored and walked away from it. I didn't feel the all-encompassing emotional involvement I feel with vinyl, high-res digital, or even CDs. Incidentally, this has also been my reaction to satellite radio and lossy streaming (the lossless version of Tidal may prove to be the exception). At first I thought my waning interest was just the mechanism I use to evaluate music, sorting the keepers from the no-hopers. But over a long period of time, I began to see the pattern. Lossless files and streams don't just sound better. They mesmerize better.

I have a small but growing library of high-res audio from HDtracks and other audiophile download stores in 24-bit FLAC for consumption on my desktop 2.1 system. A good USB DAC helps me get the best out of them. My ripping practices have changed too. I no longer rip CDs into MP3s. If I rip a disc, it is now in a lossless format. That usually means Apple Lossless, which enables my two iPads to feed any AirPlay compatible audio system.

While lossy audio formats have smaller file sizes than lossy or uncompressed formats, the cost of external hard drives (and computer storage in general) has dropped so much that I no longer prize efficiency over sound quality. A one-terabyte hard drive costs about the same as four full-priced CDs.

There are times when a CD is actually cheaper than the lossy equivalent. I fell in love with the Jorma Kaukonen song "Genesis" when I heard it in the movie soundtrack of Transcendence. The CD on which the song first appeared, Quah, is just $4.99 on Amazon, just one short step away from free as far as I'm concerned. Amazon's MP3 version, in contrast, goes for $9.99, and the vinyl reissue for $18.49. I bought the CD and ripped it into lossless, reveling in the fact that I was getting better sound quality than the MP3 version for half the price.

I loved the album so much that I began exploring the rest of Kaukonen's neglected (at least by me) solo discography. In no time at all the gorgeous Blue Country Heart, another $4.99 CD, was spinning away in my music PC en route to the two hard drives on which I back up my music library. I'll play the disc itself a few more times and shelve it. After that, I'll be accessing it from the music PC (which feeds my desktop 2.1 system) or one of the iPads (which feed my 5.1 system wirelessly via the AVR du jour).

Ah, but even well-intended resolutions can crumble in the face of implacable fate.

I wanted to acquire another Jorma Kaukonen album, Stars in My Crown. Amazon sold the MP3 album for $9.99 and the CD for $13.99. But I had ten dollars and change in unused iTunes gift cards. So I followed the path of least financial resistance and downloaded the iTunes version—in lossy AAC—for $9.99 in credits. Would I have preferred an Apple Lossless version? Sure. But Apple doesn't offer lossless downloads.

Lossy can also come in handy when I need to try before I buy. If I want to audition some new music, my first stop is the website of the New York Public Library, since a disc qualifies as uncompressed audio. But the library doesn't have everything. By temporarily relaxing my standards long enough for yea or nay, I can access new music on Spotify or YouTube. The latter often has entire albums, though the legality is dubious. Depending on the deals Google strikes with the labels, it might be construed as the new Napster (crap sound and all).

Then there's bedtime music. The only devices on which I still routinely load MP3s are the aging iPod nanos and SanDisk Sansa players that serenade me while I'm falling asleep. These old warhorses have limited flash memory. For background listening at almost subliminal levels, I don't mind MP3.

Then there's sheer inertia. There are still plenty of MP3s in my library that can't be reripped because the CDs they came from are long out of print and not in my possession.

So I've given up lossy audio. Except when I haven't. Quoth the raven: Well, once in a while.

Audio Editor Mark Fleischmann is the author of Practical Home Theater: A Guide to Video and Audio Systems, now available in both print and Kindle editions.