Are iPods Ruining Music?

I never listen to my iPod because I find that compressed music sounds bad. Jazz, my favorite genre, sounds especially bad. Now it turns out that in addition to serving up poor quality sound, the popularity of the MP3 format is actually creating poor sound.

Those who work behind-the-mic in the music industry -- producers, engineers, mixers and the like -- say they increasingly assume their recordings will be heard as MP3s on an iPod music player. That combination is thus becoming the "reference platform" used as a test of how a track should sound. (Movie makers make much the same complaint when they see their filmed images in low-quality digital form.)

But because both compressed music and the iPod's relatively low-quality earbuds have many limitations, music producers fret that they are engineering music to a technical lowest common denominator. The result, many say, is music that is loud but harsh and flat, and thus not enjoyable for long periods of time.

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