Compression oppression

Which would you rather have in your pocket: your entire library of thousands of songs, or a relative handful that sound really, really good? That's the trade-off with the iPod and other portable music players, which require owners to save songs in highly compressed formats in order to pack more tunes into limited storage.

MSNBC.com columnist Gary Krakow urges owners people to kick the compression habit and digitize their music in lossless formats so they can appreciate what it really sounds like:

When music is compressed and then uncompressed, there are losses: little things like spatial qualities of where each sound is and tonal discrepancies. Listen for cymbals, horns, voices and even drums and bass sounds; the more the music is compressed the more it strays from sounding real. Higher compression rates sound better (320K sounds a lot better than 128K) but once you listen to how clear, real and lifelike non-compressed music sounds, you’ll never go back.

To my ears, compressed music files are the equivalent of junk food to the music industry. The difference is like comparing a slice of the best bakery-made chocolate cake you’ve ever eaten to a Devil Dog or a Ring Ding. Fulfilling richness vs. empty calories. Both are satisfying chocolate desserts but which one will you remember as being something special?