High definition not always needed

Do you want to watch all your movies in 3D and 4k definition? Do you really insist to have all your music in uncompressed 96kHz, 20-bit format? Chances are that most of time what we all are looking after is comfortable, practical viewing and listening, rather than pristine, top quality image or audio.

Over the last decade high-tech audiovisuals have reached a level of sophistication and realism that equals or surpasses what even our senses can perceive. This has been made possible thanks to the very advanced state of computers, software, electronics, global networks and all that goes in between. 

Whereas the nirvana of image and sound is at reach, the way we live today calls for something more causal, more convenient than supreme quality. Otherwise how can you explain that most people enjoy music on YouTube where even the best music videos come with average to poor quality sound?

True, the best audio system can reproduce recordings that bring the absolute, the true-to-life sound of concerts, of live instruments, to your living room. The fact is most of the time you are listening to music while doing something else and in such case just want unobtrusive background music, the kind that FM and Internet radios bring.

Tech savvy people know that FM or Internet streaming music is compressed (i.e. altered, damaged) so as to be carried easily over the airwaves or the network. Whereas absolute purists may say and rightly so that this is nothing but a compromise, the majority does not only gladly accepts it this way, but also thinks it is actually more comfortable on the ears than glorious high-definition sound — especially over extended periods of listening.

Indeed, because of, or thanks to the compression it undergoes, FM and Internet radio sound has a more even volume, with less loud and quiet passages, and therefore is easier to listen to, even if technically speaking this is somewhat cheating on the actual sound — in absolute terms.

I have often heard people telling me that watching a movie in 3D is great at the beginning but then becomes tiresome, exhausting after say 30 or 60 minutes. Again, comfort is of essence here.

Image and sound perception is a mind thing, before anything else. A lot takes place in our brain after our eyes and our ears have captured the initial incoming signal. Those who study psychoacoustics know it all too well.

Bose, Sony, Sennheiser and AKG are amongst the leaders in the now very popular noise cancellation type of headphones. These beauties gently wrap around your ears and subtract any distracting external ambient noise, so as to leave only the music you are listening to, for sheer sonic bliss. They are often used aboard airplanes to keep out the external sound of the engines.

Without diminishing the value of these headphones, audiophiles will tell you that even with traditional models, once you are immersed in the music you are listening to, external noise would not rally matter that much for your mind would be “subtracting it” automatically anyway.

In a similar manner, even if you are wearing tinted sunglasses, your mind will adjust and will be able to tell, to see the true colours of what is before your eyes.

MP3 music, YouTube music videos, FM and Internet radios, cheap earphones, small smartphones screens and other similar imperfect but practical means and devices are here to show that convenience and practicality come before absolute technical quality.

All this, luckily, is not preventing the industry from making available the amazing high-end audiovisual equipment that we still enjoy from time to time, in specific context and whenever we have the time.