Dean's Blog

I don’t download music from file sharing sites. The reason? Despite going against my rough moral fiber, the quality is terrible. Here is the beef.

The 128kbps Song you downloaded sounds fine on your crappy computer speakers, but slap on a set of studio quality headphones, or listen to the song on a good home stereo.. and something is lacking.

It’s the same reason that your favorite DVD has little digital artifacts that show up on your big screen TV.

Digital Compression generally reduces quality, and unless you have very good compression software, the results are less than desirable. I’ve purchased MP3’s from overseas record companies that have had terrible blips, pops, and skips in the audio, and I find that unacceptable. The fidelity of the sound on a high quality stereo system also speaks for itself.

Now I do have an iTunes account, and I find the 192kpbs ‘equivalent’ bitrate to work fine for casual listening, and allows me to purchase albums that I can’t find in stores. However, I much prefer the real thing.

But I don’t share songs online, and all my software is legitimate.

And I really doubt that if that woman who was charged $220000 pays up to the RIAA, that a single red cent will actually go to the artists in question.

Similar to how I really doubt that any of the levies in Canada go to the artists.