[vorbis] Ear damage by compressed audio?

[Martin Blackwell]

> There was a thread about exactly this some time ago, concluding: maybe the
ear
> adapts to the things you listen and will stop filtering when all this
things
> are done before by the codec, but this is not considered dangerous excecpt
you
> wouldn't listen to anything else than compressed music/speech. Go out,
talk
> with people, visit some concerts, etc. and it will most likely not damage
> anything.
>

The only way that I can see it to be damaging would be in a psychological
sense.
Example:
    Certain styles of music, certain chords, and intervals are considered
"bad" or "discordant" in some periods, and more so now, with the varying
styles of music.
    e.g. a person who liked those panpipe moods CDs would probably not
consider that song by Metallica where every other word is "fuck" a good
song.
Basically, what i'm saying is that if "society" accepts bad lossy
compression as a normal thing, and over time it becomes the social norm,
then after a while, the quality of lossless audio would be considered
strange.
This explanation works better in reverse.
    Consider a person who has never ever bought a CD, or listened to any
recording in their entire life. They will be accustomed to the superior
sound and quality of live music.
    Then for the first time in their life they hear lossy audio. They'll
think its a very bad thing.
Modern generations will grow up believing that lossy audio is normal, and
they won't even consider that there is something missing from the music
    Theoretical Situation:    MP3 was the last lossy audio format ever to be
created.
        For some reason, people are happy with MP3, or there is too much
crap going on in the world, like certain world leaders trying to blow
everything up.
        So nobody gets round to making better lossy audio.    Internet
Piracy is at a high, few people ever go out of the house any more, and the
only music they here is on the radio, TV, or downloaded off the net.
        They download a track. It sounds crap (due to bad compression
technology). They think that band sounds crap. The band doesn't make any
money. The band gets kicked from the label. The label doesn't make any
money. The label declares bankruptcy. All music ceases to exist.

A bit dystopian, but its just an example.

<p>--- >8 ----
List archives:  http://www.xiph.org/archives/
Ogg project homepage: http://www.xiph.org/ogg/
To unsubscribe from this list, send a message to 'vorbis-request at xiph.org'
containing only the word 'unsubscribe' in the body.  No subject is needed.
Unsubscribe messages sent to the list will be ignored/filtered.