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February 13, 2008
The time has come for original CD quality uncompressed music for all
Sure, it was understandable back in the days before broadband and flash, having to create compressed formats like MP3 for music.
But that was then and this is now.
Consider that you can now buy — retail — 16GB of flash memory on a chip for $72.49.
That means the wholesale cost is half that, and buying in megabulk like Apple does for its iPods probably cuts that in half — at a minimum.
So now we're talking maybe $15–$20 for that 16GB.
Apple charges $79 currently for its 1GB shuffle.
Seems to me they could bump up that capacity.
How about a 16GB shuffle for $150?
Plenty of profit still built in.
With that much capacity, we could go back to the real music, like it was recorded and mastered and sold on CDs.
"MP3 compresses CD-quality sound by a factor of 8–12."
You could look it up.
That means a 16GB shuffle could hold more than the current 1GB iteration's 240 songs — with original CD quality.
Who's gonna be the first to take this ball and run with it?
And don't bother weighing in with tech talk about how you can already find uncompressed music: I know that.
And I know also that for TechnoDolts™ like me, it's a non-starter.
As they used to say, "It doesn't compute."
Fyi, Toshiba's new 32GB SD card
is to be released any day now.
I'm just saying, is all.
February 13, 2008 at 02:01 PM | Permalink
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Comments
And anyway, CD isn't a "gold standard" - there are better storage systems that will store CD-style infomration (i.e. digitised but uncompressed), like Monkey's Audio.
Posted by: Skipweasel | Feb 14, 2008 4:03:46 PM
Just a note of caution. These high capacity cards are marked SDHC (Secure Digital High Capacity). Most older equipment, and even a lot of newer equipment, cannot read SDHC cards, so be sure your unit can use SDHC before buying such a card.
Posted by: Paul Biba | Feb 13, 2008 5:22:13 PM
Considering almost no one can tell the difference between 160kbps and uncompressed, who cares?
I know some musicians who's ending point is 320kbps. But beyond that...I've not anyone that can tell the truth and tell the difference in a double blind test ABX'ing it.
Posted by: clifyt | Feb 13, 2008 3:56:15 PM
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