Not having a terribly good sense of hearing, I have always taken it on trust when music aficionados tell me that analog recordings are vastly superior to digital. Imagine my surprise, therefore, to discover from today’s Economist that this isn’t always the case and that the “warmth” of sound on vinyl is often the result of distortions in the recording process.
Of course this doesn’t make any difference as far as poor old MP3 is concerned, because any compression method is bound to produce losses, but thankfully it is still good enough for my useless ears.
I haven’t read the Economist article yet, but from what I’ve read elsewhere, I think you’re right. With the warmth of distortion in mind, Cowon, the maker of the iAudio mp3-players, has developed a player that introduces artificial noise to its playback of digital music files, so that they do, in fact, sound warmer. The process is explained on their website: http://www.cowonglobal.com/
I have one of their players and am very pleased with both the quality of the sound produced and the “warmth” resulting from their artificial noise feature. Oh… and no, I’m in no way affiliated with Cowon. ‘,:^D
Oh my, I do happen to be in the market for a new MP3 player. I think you might have just made a sale.