Dithering with Sasha Frere-Jones

September 15th, 2009

Sasha Frere-Jones is The New Yorker’s pop music critic and he recently began a series of posts called “Dithering” to address the “sound quality of recorded music—analog, digital, or any combination thereof”. His first post outside of the introduction was with Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead.

Sonic quality is important. I’d feel frustrated if we couldn’t release CDs as a band, but then, it only costs us a slight shaving of sound quality to get to the convenience of the MP3. It’s like putting up with tape hiss on a cassette. I was happy using cassettes when I was fifteen, but I’m sure they were sneered at in their day by audiophiles. If I’m on a train, with headphones, MP3s are great. At home, I prefer CD or vinyl, partly because they sound a little better in a quiet room and partly because they’re finite in length and separate things, unlike the endless days and days of music stored on my laptop.

Related posts:

1. Show #103: 15" Per Second
2. An Audiophile's Nighmare
3. Show #76: The First Anniversary
4. Townshend Warns of Deafness By Ear Buds
5. Casualties of the Loudness Wars