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That's Q-O-B-U-Z.com. More

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to come in the break.

0:44

You're listening to 20,000 Hertz.

0:47

Recently,

0:49

our producer Andrew Anderson randomly

0:51

hit me up to chat with him on mic. I

0:54

think I'm getting a little bit of bumps

0:56

and stuff on your microphone. Okay, I'll

0:58

stop tapping the table. That was me tapping the table, I

1:00

think. Specifically, I wanted

1:02

to ask Dallas how he usually listens to music.

1:05

So are we doing like a whole show, or are you just quizzing me?

1:08

Well, we'll see how far we get. Because

1:11

I know Dallas has strong opinions when it comes

1:13

to his listening experience, and that includes

1:15

the music he streams. The first

1:17

time that I heard high-definition streaming

1:20

music in my studio, I audibly

1:22

gasped.

1:24

Luckily for Dallas, these days it's super

1:26

easy to listen to high-fidelity music. All

1:28

you need is a decent internet connection, and

1:30

you can have musical accompaniment for whatever

1:33

you're doing. What do you actually do while you're

1:35

listening to music? The thing I do

1:37

the most is cooking.

1:41

That pairs very nicely with music.

1:43

What kind of music do you like to listen to while you're cooking?

1:46

The most recent thing I listened to

1:48

was like a French playlist of

1:50

just French pop hits.

1:53

Cool.

1:54

I should make you a Bulgarian playlist.

1:56

I would love that. But

2:02

that got me thinking. How did people experience

2:05

music in the past before hi-fi streaming

2:07

came along? What were the most popular formats?

2:10

What was the quality like? And what role did

2:12

recorded music play in popular culture?

2:14

Recorded

2:17

sound, it's such a rich source

2:20

of social history. That's

2:22

Adam Tovell, who works in a department called

2:24

Sound and Vision at the British Library. The

2:27

British Library holds the National Sound

2:29

Collection. So that's a vast collection

2:32

of over 6 million recordings.

2:35

That collection reaches all the way back to

2:37

the 1800s and the earliest days of

2:39

recorded sound. We have to go back to the

2:41

1860s when we think about

2:44

the first recorded sound.

2:46

So, Edward Leon Scott de Martenville's

2:49

Phone Autograph, which was

2:51

a means of recording

2:54

sound visually.

2:55

De Martenville was as much an eccentric entertainer

2:58

as he was an inventor. He'd

3:01

take his phone autograph to carnivals where people

3:03

would pay to use it. The whole thing looked a bit

3:06

like a small metal barrel, about the size

3:08

of the reservoir on a water cooler. He'd

3:10

speak into the horn at one end. That

3:15

would move a membrane, which moved

3:17

a needle, and that scratched a pattern

3:19

onto paper. It

3:22

was like your voice was being turned into a picture.

3:27

For the time, it was very impressive. But…

3:30

It couldn't be played back. It was purely

3:32

intended as a means of visualization.

3:35

Luckily for us, scientists have since used

3:37

digital technology to turn those patterns

3:39

back into sounds. Here's a recording

3:41

made on the phone autograph in 1860.

3:44

The voice on the recording is most likely

3:46

de Martenville himself, singing the French

3:48

folk song, Le Clerc de la Lune.

4:02

So, who recorded the first sound that you could actually

4:05

listen back to? Well, that was a man whose

4:07

name might be familiar to you, Thomas

4:09

Edison. Yeah, I think I've heard of him.

4:14

So Edison's work used cylinders coated

4:17

in a thin layer of tin foil and

4:19

grooves were essentially embossed

4:21

in that tin foil in the same way that

4:24

one would imagine an LP working today.

4:26

An LP, or long play, is another

4:29

term for a vinyl record. In 1877, when

4:32

Edison debuted his tin foil cylinders,

4:34

they wowed the public. We

4:36

all know that if you record your voice and play

4:38

it back, it sounds super, super weird. So

4:41

I could only imagine back in 1877,

4:43

recording a voice and playing it back for

4:46

that person and going, wait a second, that doesn't

4:48

sound like me, like that weird, uncanny

4:50

thing. But as impressive as these

4:52

cylinders were, they weren't very durable. The

4:55

reproduction of sound from that tin foil

4:58

was incredibly difficult because tin foil

5:00

had to be very malleable in order to

5:03

emboss the sound into it. That meant

5:05

that after a few plays, the recording would

5:08

stop working. As a result, most

5:10

of the original tin foil recordings have been lost.

5:15

Before long, other inventors started improving

5:17

on Edison's original idea.

5:19

They included Alexander Graham Bell, inventor

5:21

of the telephone, and his cousin, Chichester

5:23

Bell. The way they introduced was

5:25

a wax coating to replace tin

5:28

foil, which was soft enough

5:30

to be cut into, but equally solid

5:33

enough to be replayed.

5:35

Here's one of those early wax cylinder recordings

5:38

from the 1890s. Wow,

5:40

were those violins? It's

5:46

a violin player, yeah. Wow, that's

5:48

cool. But

5:51

soon enough, a rival format came along.

5:53

These were large,

5:56

flat discs that could be made from shellac,

5:58

lacquer, or even aluminium. You

6:00

played them on a gramophone and they basically worked

6:03

the same way as vinyl records do today. And

6:05

the invention of discs triggered... The

6:07

original format war, right? So you've got

6:10

cylinders, which were great. They're incredibly

6:12

useful medium for home recording.

6:15

But discs had other advantages. You

6:17

can have two sides on a disc, which means

6:20

that you can have more music for your money. Discs

6:23

were also way faster and cheaper to

6:25

produce than wax cylinders. So

6:27

in terms of industry and commerce, discs

6:29

won

6:30

out. I

6:34

can actually play you now a very early example

6:36

of a gramophone record. This is from 1901

6:40

and it's William Tell, played by the NBC

6:42

Orchestra.

6:50

That's incredible. That's the type of stuff I'd

6:53

be listening to on the gramophone. The quality

6:55

is actually not bad, even, you know, 120 plus

6:57

years later.

7:05

Disc recording was so simple that it soon

7:07

became accessible for the general public. You'd

7:09

go into a shop with a disc recording machine, pay

7:12

a small fee, and record your own voice directly

7:14

onto the disc, which could then be played back

7:16

on a normal gramophone at home. Here's

7:18

a recording that two parents made

7:20

for their children as a Christmas present.

7:22

Good morning, Simon. Good morning, Janet.

7:26

Mummy and Daddy wish you both a very happy Christmas.

7:29

Mummy and I really wanted to say that this record

7:31

plays a joint Christmas present for you. Oh,

7:34

gosh. Was everyone a voice artist back then? That

7:36

was so perfect. Yeah, it's lovely, isn't

7:38

it, hearing that? I love how intentional

7:41

the wording is, because it's clear that they know that

7:43

they have a limited amount of time, so they're choosing

7:46

every word very carefully. And

7:48

I love how precious

7:51

that recording is to these

7:53

people.

7:54

available

8:00

to use at Third Man Records in Nashville. When

8:02

I visited, my friend Mike stepped into the booth

8:05

and recorded this little number.

8:18

The disc format was a big success,

8:20

and before long record companies were selling millions

8:23

and millions of them.

8:29

In fact, millions of disc recordings are

8:31

still sold today. The material is different,

8:34

vinyl rather than lacquer, and the albums

8:36

are now in stereo, but the concept is

8:38

the same. And it turns out both

8:40

Dallas and I listen to music this way. You're

8:43

also a bit of a vinyl buff though, right? You

8:45

know, I'm not a vinyl buff due

8:47

to the sound quality, because

8:49

a lot of old vinyl still has a lot of

8:52

clicks and pops, but I will

8:54

use vinyl as a way to

8:56

put me in the right mindset of

8:58

listening to music.

8:59

I like the act of pulling

9:01

out a vinyl record and being intentional

9:03

with listening. Even like turning the album

9:06

over and kind of reflecting on the first half

9:08

and thinking, why did they pick that song

9:10

as the last song of the first half to make me listen

9:12

to the second half, and all of the artist

9:15

intention, like you kind of said there.

9:22

These days, the sound quality of new

9:24

vinyl records is pretty fantastic.

9:26

But back in the early 1900s, there was a big

9:29

difference between how a performance sounded in real

9:31

life,

9:39

and how it sounded on a disc recording. What

9:49

was needed was a medium where the recording quality was

9:51

just as good as being there in person. And

9:54

that medium was magnetic wire.

9:56

Wire was useful in that it

9:58

was relatively Wires

10:01

were incredibly thin around the thickness

10:03

of a human hair and one could record

10:06

for a long time on a wire. This

10:08

made wire perfect for situations

10:11

where weight and length of recording were important.

10:13

For example, black box recorders.

10:16

Flight control, this is Captain Dallas Taylor

10:18

speaking. We're currently holding at 20,000

10:21

feet. Over.

10:22

But wire wasn't only used for black box recorders.

10:25

Although it wasn't common, some music was

10:27

recorded onto wire, including this 1949

10:30

performance by Woody Guthrie.

10:39

That's incredible. It sounds great. I can't

10:41

believe it's about as thin as the smallest

10:44

string on a guitar. Yeah, it's

10:46

really, really thin. That sounds

10:49

pretty great for a very

10:51

thin wire.

10:58

So wire had its uses,

11:00

but it never caught on as a medium for music

11:03

because of another format that worked even better.

11:05

Magnetic tape.

11:07

With magnetic tape, the improvements in

11:09

the length of recording were extraordinary

11:12

and the fidelity of the

11:14

recording was indistinguishable

11:17

over the airwaves from someone speaking live.

11:20

I'll give you a hundred dollars, Dallas, if

11:22

you can guess the person that really pushed

11:24

this technology along and led to a

11:27

lot of the early breakthroughs. Hmm,

11:30

the

11:30

ghost of Thomas Edison? Well, that's why

11:32

I could bet $100. Bing Crosby. Oh,

11:36

wow.

11:39

Back in the 1940s, Bing Crosby

11:41

was the biggest star in America. He

11:43

appeared in movies and television programs and

11:46

sold everything from Scotch tape to photocopiers.

11:49

Here's another great boon for the businessman. This

11:52

Thermophax copying machine is

11:54

really a marvelous little helper. But

11:56

at the center of it all was his weekly radio show,

11:59

The Kraft Music Hall.

11:59

program. The Craft Music Hall with

12:02

Bing Crosby, John Scott Trotter's orchestra, the

12:04

Charioteers, and Metro Golden Mayor's

12:06

charming star of the Technicolor musical Best

12:08

Foot Forward, Lucille Ball.

12:10

Now, Bing loved his radio show. But

12:13

it was also a lot of work. That's because he had

12:15

to perform each episode not once, but twice.

12:18

Once for audiences on the East Coast, and

12:22

once again for audiences on the West Coast.

12:25

And it was all live, which meant no mistakes.

12:28

This didn't leave much time for his other passion, golf.

12:31

Nothing like a game of golf, you know, to chase the cobwebs

12:34

out of your brain.

12:35

So when Bing heard about the possibilities

12:37

of tape, he invested millions. He

12:39

even became the US distributor for both the

12:42

company that made the tape machines and the

12:44

company that made the magnetic tape.

12:51

After a few test runs, the system was ready.

12:54

In August 1947, he recorded his

12:56

first show to magnetic tape,

12:57

which was broadcast later that year to an audience

13:00

of millions.

13:01

Hey, Jerry, what are we sweeping

13:03

up the studio for? Bing Crosby

13:05

is coming back on the air tonight. Hey, hey,

13:07

Bing, you made it just in time. Look.

13:11

Look. However, this kind of tape was expensive,

13:14

so it was mostly used in professional recording

13:17

studios.

13:17

But soon enough, other recording devices

13:20

would find their way into people's homes and offices.

13:22

These included personal recorders called Dictaphones.

13:26

Secretaries too find the Dictaphone

13:28

easy and pleasant to use. Of great

13:30

help in all their work. No wonder it has

13:33

given business an entirely new conception

13:35

of dictating machine usage. Inside

13:38

the Dictaphone was something called a Dictabelt. It

13:41

worked in a similar way to a wax cylinder,

13:43

but instead of wax, Dictabelt were

13:45

made from colorful bands of plastic. That

13:48

meant they looked pretty funky. What

13:50

the heck is this? It looks like, um, fruit

13:53

roll-ups. Yeah, it looks like a kid's suite. That's

13:55

a really good way of putting it, yeah.

14:00

By the 1960s, it was possible to

14:02

record your voice at the office using a dictating

14:04

machine Note to

14:06

self the office bar is low

14:09

on bourbon

14:11

And then when you got home, you could listen to high

14:13

quality music on a reel-to-reel tape machine

14:18

Although these tapes were pretty expensive,

14:21

so they never really competed with vinyl in terms

14:23

of popularity But music still

14:25

wasn't portable sure you could take a record

14:27

play with you But even the so-called portable

14:29

ones were pretty heavy and of course

14:32

you could listen to the radio But that wasn't the same

14:34

as taking your own music collection with you

14:40

Then along came a new invention that changed

14:42

everything Radio Shack has

14:44

a super half-price deal now on an 8-track

14:46

car stereo tape player Put stereo 8-track

14:48

players in two cars for the regular price of one

14:51

or buy one and have enough money left over

14:53

for car speakers And your first tape

14:56

get on the road to savings now with the sale

14:58

price realistic 8-track car stereo tape

15:00

player I

15:01

Am down to buy an 8-track

15:03

because I hear that I can buy one

15:06

and have enough money for another or have money

15:08

for speakers Left over get on the road

15:10

to savings. Yeah, that's a great copy.

15:12

We should use that in our ad Get

15:15

on the road to savings now

15:17

with promo code to zero

15:22

We'll get on that road catch some stories

15:24

from our listeners and hear about what might

15:27

just be the worst audio format ever

15:29

Created after the break

15:39

Remember the good old days where you could spend hours

15:42

pouring over the booklets to your new CD

15:44

or vinyl record?

15:46

You could see album art band photos

15:48

and read the lyrics Or maybe

15:50

you don't remember because you're not old like I am

15:53

The good news is we don't have to go back to CDs

15:56

because Cobas provides a complete music

15:58

experience

18:00

ahead of the other kids.

18:01

The Talkboy's appearance in the film launched

18:03

an actual toy that was really popular

18:05

in the early 90s. Now you can be as

18:08

clever as Kevin with Tiger's new Talkboy tape

18:10

recorder.

18:11

And here are this episode's mystery sounds.

18:24

If you know where those sounds come from, submit

18:26

your guess at the web address mystery.20k.org.

18:30

Anyone who guesses it right will be entered to win a super

18:32

soft 20,000 hertz t-shirt. If

18:35

you weren't our lucky winner this week, don't worry.

18:37

You can still get your very own super

18:39

soft 20k t-shirt at 20k.org.shop.

18:50

The first portable music player that really

18:52

took off was the 8-track. 8-track

18:55

tapes were great because they were durable, affordable,

18:57

and could hold a lot of music, up to 80 minutes

19:00

in some models.

19:03

Dallas, originally I gave you a chance to win $100

19:06

if you could guess who pushed forward the

19:08

development of magnetic tape recording in the US.

19:11

But here's a chance for you to win $1,000 with this second

19:13

challenge. If

19:15

you can guess which company developed

19:18

the 8-track.

19:20

I'm gonna go with Sony. Sony. I'm

19:23

afraid I will once more be keeping that $1,000.

19:26

Learjet. Learjet.

19:29

Learjet. Like the airplane company?

19:32

Exactly.

19:37

8-tracks might have had a jet plane company

19:39

behind them, but they weren't perfect. For

19:42

example, each 8-track tape was divided into

19:44

four sections of equal length, called programs.

19:47

Each program was around 10 minutes long, which

19:49

was long enough for at least a couple of pop songs.

19:52

But if there was a song that lasted more than the

19:54

length of a program, it would fade out.

19:57

Then the program would switch over. And

20:00

the song would fade back in again.

20:09

When I lived in America, I bought a car that had an eight-track

20:12

player in it. And the guy that sold it to me

20:14

said, I could keep all of the tapes. That's

20:17

a huge bonus. Yeah, but it was exactly

20:19

what you would imagine. Led Zeppelin, Black

20:21

Sabbath, 70s kind of

20:23

rock, R-A-W-K rock

20:26

music.

20:29

You know, I would probably buy that car. If I

20:31

was in the market for an old car with an eight-track, and they

20:33

were like, you're going to get a bunch of 70s

20:36

rock eight-tracks with it, I'd be like, OK, fine,

20:38

it's sold.

20:43

Eight-tracks peaked in popularity around the mid-70s.

20:47

And not long after, another tape system started

20:49

making its mark. It was called the Compact

20:51

Cassette. Cassettes were actually introduced

20:53

back in the early 60s by Dutch company Philips.

20:56

Philips Cassette Loading Battery Recorder. It's

20:59

easy because tape comes in compact cassettes

21:01

that you clip in for instant use.

21:03

For a long time, cassettes were simply too expensive

21:05

to compete with eight-tracks. But by the 80s,

21:07

it was finally the cassette's time to

21:10

shine.

21:12

In the 1980s, the cassette

21:14

became ubiquitous. And in many

21:17

ways, it's one of those images that we associate

21:19

with that period. Oh, yeah. I think

21:21

I literally still have a box of cassette

21:23

tapes in a closet somewhere. Tell

21:26

me what's cool about cassette tapes. Out of all

21:28

physical media, the cassette

21:30

tape is the most satisfying tactically.

21:33

If we're going to compare it to vinyl records, vinyl is cool.

21:36

You know, you pull it out of a sleeve, you're real delicate

21:38

with it, you put it down. But cassette tapes are like, you

21:41

can just roughhouse

21:42

them. I love just all the little

21:44

plasticky sounds of putting it into

21:46

a player and then snapping it back.

21:49

And then there was always a big physical button

21:51

that's just super satisfying. Now,

21:55

there is a downside to cassette

21:57

tape, and that is the horrible moment

21:59

when it sort of...

21:59

choose itself. Oh,

22:03

gosh. And then you pull the cassette out and all the tape

22:05

just gets mushed in there and you pull it all out.

22:07

And then you try to rewind it with a pencil

22:10

and you try to get it all back to the way it was, and

22:12

it's just never the same.

22:21

But these problems didn't prevent people from

22:23

enjoying cassettes. And at least

22:25

some of our listeners loved them.

22:27

When my sister and I were young, we

22:30

had a toy Fisher-Price

22:32

tape recorder. We used to

22:35

record a radio show

22:37

on it and we took this very, very

22:40

seriously. I always hope that one

22:42

day we'll find those tapes

22:45

and get to listen to them again.

22:46

The compact cassette also triggered a very

22:49

important cultural icon, the

22:51

mix tape. For

22:53

music loving nerds like me, flirting

22:55

would never be the same again. If

22:59

you were recording a bunch

23:01

of songs, you know, like they had to be related in some way.

23:04

The more effort you put into it, like here's

23:06

the list of all the songs on this little

23:08

note card, here's some drawings or something else that you

23:10

would stick in it. Those you only gave to people

23:12

that you really, really liked.

23:20

By the mid 80s, more than 50% of all music was purchased

23:22

on compact cassette. But that domination didn't last long because there was

23:24

a new format that was about

23:27

to take over, the compact disc or CD.

23:32

Here's one of the original efforts for CDs from 1984 starring

23:34

John Cleese. Pure sound played by

23:37

laser. Just listen to that. No hisses

23:39

and crackles of course, but if you do want that, munch

23:41

a biscuit, sip

23:44

a cup of cocoa and it'll sound just like your old

23:46

record player. You know what I mean?

23:51

You know what I mean?

23:53

The CD's quite maligned, but revolutionary

23:56

in the 1980s, right? The quality

23:59

of a CD version.

23:59

versus what was possible

24:02

with an average cassette

24:04

deck was an incredible improvement.

24:07

They had a decent length, 74 minutes, pretty good.

24:10

Is that because of Beethoven's ninth? Is that

24:12

right?

24:13

["Bethoven's Ninth"] ["Bethoven's

24:17

Ninth"] Allegedly because of the length of

24:19

Beethoven's ninth symphony. Depends

24:22

how fast you play it, I suppose. Yeah,

24:24

good point. ["Bethoven's

24:27

Ninth"]

24:31

People loved the quality and convenience

24:33

of CDs. However, they could also

24:35

be really irritating.

24:39

They were really easily scratched. And

24:41

in cars, they would skip

24:44

all the time because it was a real tiny

24:46

laser. And if you can imagine just little bumps

24:48

in the road, I remember

24:51

out of everything, that was the most fickle

24:53

format for a vehicle. And it

24:55

seems that a lot of listeners shared the same

24:58

experience.

24:59

Back in the 90s, I

25:01

used to be really afraid

25:03

of thunderstorms. Something

25:06

I used to try to drown out

25:08

the sound was my CD

25:10

player. So I had a CD player, I had

25:13

my headphones on, but the

25:15

problem with that was every

25:18

time the thunder would

25:20

sound, my CD would skip.

25:23

["Bethoven's Ninth"]

25:30

Final Records had over 50 years as

25:32

the dominant format. Magnetic tapes

25:34

managed about 20. But for CDs,

25:36

it was barely 10. Because by

25:39

the early 2000s, they were already being

25:41

replaced by MP3s.

25:45

MP3s were amazing. You

25:47

could download them from the internet, load them

25:49

onto a music player, and take them anywhere.

25:52

Here's our producer, Marissa Flaxbart.

25:54

For my 17th birthday, my

25:56

dad got me this tiny little turquoise.

26:00

64 megabyte mp3 player. And

26:02

so he told me about how you could go online

26:05

and there were software you could use to find whatever song

26:07

you wanted in mp3. And you could fit,

26:09

as I recall, about 16 songs

26:12

on the 64 megabyte mp3 player. And

26:14

I remember that being so amazing. I

26:17

took it on a study abroad trip to Germany

26:19

and I listened to those 16 songs that

26:21

I painstakingly picked over and

26:23

over again. I think that was probably the last

26:26

time in my life that my

26:28

dad was the one that was teaching

26:29

me about a brand new technology.

26:35

However, while previous formats had improved both

26:37

quality and convenience, this time

26:39

the quality was actually worse. And

26:41

that's because mp3s are a compressed or

26:44

lossy format.

26:47

The space needed back then, a

26:49

lot of people were on dial-up internet, you just needed

26:51

to make sure that these things were teeny tiny and

26:54

making sure you could kind of make them at the best

26:56

quality where your casual listener wouldn't

26:58

notice. It's kind of complicated,

27:01

but basically an mp3 works in the same

27:03

way as a JPEG. When you look closely

27:05

at a JPEG, you can see it's pixelated

27:07

and colors that are similar get grouped together

27:10

as a single color. With mp3s,

27:12

the same thing happens except with sound.

27:14

For example, it cuts out any quiet

27:17

sounds

27:17

that would be partially masked by louder

27:19

sounds. The result is a smaller file,

27:22

but with less depth and spaciousness.

27:25

We've reached a point today where actually we've

27:27

gone back a little bit. A lot of us are just

27:29

streaming things now from compressed

27:32

sources, and we care

27:34

less about that quality than

27:36

perhaps we did before.

27:40

There was one format that maybe best represents

27:42

this urge for convenience over quality.

27:45

It was called Hit Clips. Coming

27:47

at you right between the ears of Hit Clips.

27:50

Hit Clips is a slick micro audio system.

27:52

This type package is small, pumps out

27:54

monster sounds. So

27:57

it just played like the chorus?

28:00

over and over again? Yeah. Come

28:02

on.

28:03

So what you're saying is you're not going to be converting

28:05

to hit clips anytime soon? Ugh.

28:08

Ugh. This sounds

28:11

like misery. But

28:16

despite Dallas' misgivings, there

28:18

were actually some people who really liked hit

28:20

clips. Here's one of our sound designers,

28:23

Soren.

28:23

You gotta remember, these were made for children,

28:26

and mostly they were distributed through

28:29

kid-friendly sources. Like, I remember getting

28:31

them in McDonald's Happy Meals. It

28:33

was the early 2000s, and most people didn't

28:36

have tech that could support MP3s. CDs

28:39

were expensive and not something most kids had, so

28:41

hit clips? Getting this cartridge

28:44

the size of a thumbnail that could play back choruses

28:46

of radio singles? For a kid,

28:49

that was so cool.

28:55

Today, MP3s are still the

28:58

dominant format, though

28:59

most of us don't have a dedicated MP3

29:01

player. Instead, we just stream

29:03

MP3s over the internet using our phones or

29:05

computers. In fact, this podcast

29:08

is in MP3 format. Although,

29:10

we always make sure to use the highest-quality

29:12

MP3 possible that isn't too huge

29:15

of a file. These days, some music

29:17

platforms do have an option for higher-quality

29:19

MP3s, though you might have to turn it on in

29:21

the settings, and a few services

29:23

go even further and stream audio

29:25

in a lossless format. — We have so-called

29:28

lossless encoding

29:29

technologies now, so bit

29:31

perfect transmission and replay

29:34

of sound, which is amazing. But

29:36

that came at quite a cost in terms of storage

29:38

size, and back when devices

29:41

were relatively small, that meant

29:43

that they were expensive to store. Storage

29:45

is bigger now and cheaper, and

29:47

it's much easier to store those lossless formats.

29:50

— But then, why not just stick with MP3

29:53

as the small, very convenient, easy

29:55

format? Isn't it good enough? — Was

29:57

VHS good enough?

29:59

DVD good enough. It's perfectly

30:02

acceptable now to stream endless

30:05

amounts of 4k video. You

30:07

don't have to be a videophile to go,

30:09

oh, I can now appreciate video

30:12

because it's 4k now. We'd never

30:14

do that with video. The kind of weird,

30:17

mysterious gatekeepy world

30:19

of audio seems as if the

30:21

layman couldn't possibly appreciate

30:24

a higher quality format if they

30:27

didn't understand the mystery

30:29

and the nuts and bolts

30:29

and the bit range and the sample,

30:32

blah, blah, blah. None of that matters. The

30:34

point is the highest quality of

30:37

audio in the world will

30:39

be acoustic audio. When

30:41

there's a vibration off of something

30:44

that travels into your ears. So

30:47

the closer and closer we can get to that digitally,

30:50

the more human and the more

30:53

powerful listening experience. And

30:55

I just want to get as close to that

30:57

purity as possible. If someone can't

30:59

afford high quality streaming service, I

31:02

understand that. Can you still enjoy music? Otherwise,

31:05

of course you can. But once you get a taste

31:08

of that sound, especially from a track that,

31:10

you know, for me, I

31:12

can't go back.

31:28

20,000 Hertz is produced out of the sound

31:31

design studios of DeFacto Sound. Find

31:33

out more at defactosound.com.

31:35

This episode was written and produced by Andrew

31:37

Anderson. It was story edited by

31:40

Casey Emmerling.

31:40

With help from Grace East. It

31:43

was edited and sound designed by Soren

31:45

Bejan, Joel Boyder, and Colin

31:47

Daverney. A special thanks to our

31:49

listeners, Christina, Jamie, David,

31:52

and Julia, whose messages were used in the

31:54

show, as well as to everyone else who called in.

31:56

We really loved listening to all of your stories. Thanks

31:59

to Qobuz.

31:59

for making this episode possible. And thanks

32:02

also to our guest Adam Tavell. For

32:04

another great music episode, check out our two-part

32:07

series on mastering. Part one is episode

32:09

number 77, The Compressed History of

32:11

Mastering. I'm Dallas Taylor. Thanks

32:14

for listening.

32:21

Thanks again to Qobuz for bringing you

32:24

this episode. Partners like them make

32:26

it possible for us to continue telling the

32:28

stories we want to tell. Support

32:30

us by supporting Qobuz and their mission

32:32

to create a complete musical experience.

32:35

Get a free trial right now at Qobuz.com.

32:38

That's Q-O-B-U-Z dot com.