Q: Is The Lack Of Sound Quality Worth The Risk?

As KickinAudio mentioned in one of his previous posts, the quality of a recording is very important, and can easily persuade my loyalty one way or another. Sure the artist could posses actual talent, but if the recording sucks, count me out. This is a problem when downloading music, especially mp3s. The compression strips out a lot of the vital frequencies/tones/whatever that give music that full, rich, and powerful sound obtained in a live performance, or even on a compact disk. To say 128kbps is comparable or even equal to CD quality is sheer ignorance.

Don’t believe me? Find your favorite song in both mp3 format (128kbps) and CD format. Find a NICE audio system (not your car’s OEM speakers), play the song from both sources at a reasonably loud volume and tell me a noticeable difference doesn’t exist. More often than not there’s a lack of resonance in crash cymbals, humming of guitars, and the depth to a voice - all these vital components are removed as a result of the compression and ultimately take away from the overall sound quality.

So here’s the question:

Is downloading music stripped of the essential components that make up quality really worth saving a few dollars and risking the possibility of paying thousands of dollars in fines, even facing jail time?

Some will say they’ll never get caught, some probably don’t care about the loss of quality; but lately, I’ve really been considering purchasing all of my CDs from now on. One of the reasons I don’t currently purchase CDs is because I feel record labels screw the musicians, and the RIAA is just out to get rich. I’d much rather purchase a t-shirt and a concert ticket to see a band perform live than ever pay for a CD.

The next time you’re tempted to queue up that next torrent or load up your other favorite p2p application, just stop and think about purchasing the album from Amazon. And if you’re really cheap, there’s usually nothing wrong with buying used.