For smartphone users, I definitely don’t recommend using lossless formats unless you can afford the space, have good enough ear/headphones to notice the difference and good enough ears! The first reason is the primary reason I don’t use my iPhone for music – it’s too space constrained and I believe that lossless formats also tax the battery more than compressed formats.

But, like most others, I would certainly recommend trashing the earbuds that come with your phone! They are universally 3rd rate, and if you care about your music at all, you deserve better buds or cans. I’m not real keen on earbuds because they never stay in my ears and they let too much sound escape. My favourites are definitely IEMs like my IE-40’s, but the danger in these is that they block out all sound, so you definitely don’t want to use them while engaging in activities that require your attention – like driving or walking! Also, because they go directly into the ear canal, you need to ratchet the volume back quite a bit to avoid hearing damage.

BUT for the ultimate in listening experience, IEMs are the way to go when used sensibly and safely. They literally fill your head with sound and you hear all the nuances (and flaws) of your recorded music. The best IEMs are expensive – my IE-40s cost $400 when I bought them (although I believe both they and the UE Triple Fi Pros, of which the IE-40’s are a clone, are a bit cheaper now), but you needn’t spend this much. You can get decent IEMs for about $100 (sorry about using $s but I’m American and don’t know what the equivalent in Pounds is).

Second best, in my opinion, are open cans like my Senns and Grados. The Grados cost $60 and equal the sound of cans that cost double or even triple that amount. The sonic clarity of these phones is absolutely astounding. They do lack on the low end in “thump” and if you’re a basshead, don’t even consider them. The low end is there, it’s just not inflated by any stretch of the imagination. The Grados are also HUGE and, frankly, ugly. But the sound is divine. On the other hand, the Senns cost me $110 (and I think they’re cheaper now, as well) and they’re lightweight and quite attractive. They almost equal the Grados in sonic clarity, but have much more of a low end presence, although again, not inflated. I prefer the Grados particular for classical, orchestral and acoustic music because of their clarity and they don’t distort at all. The Senns I prefer for their superior comfort and better low end, although they don’t match the Grados in the high end for clarity. The Senns tend to be a bit too sibilant and bright on the high end for my ears.

It’s hard to describe the clarity and “aroundness” that open cans bring to music, but I find the soundstage of open cans to be fantastic. Downside – everyone around you gets to enjoy your music with you! There is no real isolation with these cans and they’re best used in quiet environments where you won’t disturb anyone!

Phones are a bit of a challenge for finding good ear/headphones because of the way we use them and the fact that they are go everywhere devices. Personally I think that anyone that owns a smartphone and cares about his/ear music quality should have two sets of cans: one for home/stationary environments and one for out and about. Spend your best money on your home cans. Consider IEMs or earphones (but not earbuds) for your out and about cans. There are many good brands and both categories, and no matter what you spend, you’re almost certain to find something better than the ones that came with your phone!

Donald

The iPhone 4 may be one of the very met portable music player ever, but when it comes to getting the best value mobile music it seems that iTunes is not the best place to go.

I randomly chose the following albums / collections at Amazon and iTunes and came up with the following UK prices. The fact that you can download from Amazon straight to your iTunes library takes the hassle away as well.

The Epic Masters (Shakin Stevens)  Amazon £27.99  iTunes £34.99
Aphrodite (Kylie Minogue) Amazon £7.00  iTunes £7.99
Set The Night On Fire (The Doors) Amazon £43.49  iTunes £44.99
Perception (The Doors) Amazon £37.99  iTunes £39.99
Recovery (Eminem) Amazon £5.00  iTunes £7.99
The Fame Monster (Lady GaGa) Amazon £5.79  iTunes £8.99

And yes, I really did search for a Shakin Stevens collection…

Spotify has introduced a new ‘ Unlimited’ plan for just 5 Euros per month. For that you get ad-free access to Spotify, playlists and libraries. There is also a new ‘Open’ plan which lets you trial the service without the need for an invite. Makes sense to me.

“A few weeks back we released the next generation of Spotify and today we’re excited to offer you even more ways to get the most out of Spotify with the introduction of Spotify Open and Spotify Unlimited.

So if you’ve got friends who haven’t managed to get an invite but have been dying to get on Spotify, let them know about Spotify Open.”

Sound quality is something rarely discussed in detail when it comes to the modern MP3 players and smartphones that dominate the music industry today. In Mobile Age, Sound Quality Steps Back takes a look into the cultural changes we have experienced in terms of music quality, and also how most of us have not even noticed.

“At the ripe age of 28, Jon Zimmer is sort of an old fogey. That is, he is obsessive about the sound quality of his music.

The last decade has brought an explosion in dazzling technological advances — including enhancements in surround sound, high definition television and 3-D — that have transformed the fan’s experience. There are improvements in the quality of media everywhere — except in music…”

Vodafone has claimed that it has 450,000 music subscribers to its unlimited subscription music service (the biggest in Europe?) Sadly there is no way to compare this to Nokias Comes With Music service so it is hard to know if this figure is impressive or not.

From mocoNews- “No single kind of digital service is going to save the music business on its own, but every little helps. Doing its bit, Vodafone (NYSE: VOD) came to the Midem music-biz event having totted up the number of paying customers it has for unlimited subscription music – the model that offers perhaps the most likely salvation…

The result: 450,000 around Europe. That makes it the continent’s biggest subscription music operator, it claimed (Spotify has just over 250,000, it said during the conference, and is looking to provide its service to mobile carriers). Voda attracted 100,000 music subscribers in December alone, it said at the event in Cannes.

The telco first started offering unlimited, DRM’ed music downloads for £1.99, via subscription-music vendor Omnifone’s MusicStation service, in September 2007, so has been in the game a relatively long time, but it’s recently started concentrating again on a la carte downloads, striking deals with major labels to remove DRM. That allows is to offer a bundle of 10 MP3s a month to consumers – an offering that labels have made standard to many retailers.”

MP3 is of course the format of choice for digital music at this time, but plans are afoot to bring something new to the party. The MusicDNA format will supposedly provide “lyrics, videos, artwork and blog posts, which will continually be updated, as well as the music.”

From the BBC- “It has been created by Norwegian developer Dagfinn Bach, who worked on the first MP3 player in 1993.

And its investors include German researcher Karlheinz Brandenburg, who is credited with inventing the MP3.

British record company Beggars Group, whose labels are home to Vampire Weekend, MIA and The Strokes, has signed up to use MusicDNA, as has US label Tommy Boy.

But no major labels are currently on board and the MusicDNA files are likely to be more expensive than current music downloads.

It will also be in competition with Apple’s iTunes LP, which gives users added content including bonus tracks, lyrics and video interviews.”

The European Commision wants to limit the volume of all MP3 players, and presumably smartphones as well. The reasons make sense, but personally I like my music ‘loud’ and would not be impressed. How about you?

From BBC- “The European Commission is calling for a suggested maximum volume to be set on MP3 players, to protect users’ hearing.

The commission wants all MP3 players sold in the EU, including iPods, to share the same volume limits.

This follows a report last year warning that up to 10m people in the EU face permanent hearing loss from listening to loud music for prolonged periods.

EU experts want the default maximum setting to be 85 decibels, according to BBC One’s Politics Show.

Users would be able to override this setting to reach a top limit of 100 decibels.

In January, a two-month consultation of all EU standardisation bodies will begin on these proposals, with a final agreement expected in the spring.”

New York, NY (PRWEB) May 28, 2009 — Didiom, an award-winning mobile media service provider, today announced licensing agreements with finetunes-solutions and A-Train Entertainment. The agreements enable Didiom to make highly regarded catalogs of independent music available to millions of BlackBerry and Windows Mobile phone users. Didiom also has announced that, for the second year in a row, it has been honored with a Gold Award for Best Consumer Information from the Horizon Interactive Awards, a prestigious international competition that recognizes outstanding achievement among media producers.

Didiom’s free mobile service allows users to stream songs, playlists and podcasts from their home computer to their phone over the air, and also to buy new music from Didiom’s Mobile MP3 Store. Unlike any other service, Didiom gives users the power to bid on more than 1.5 million songs directly from their phone. When users find a song or album they like, they can buy it or name their own price to get deep discounts. By using a proprietary algorithm, Didiom accepts and rejects bids on the spot. As an additional incentive for users to discover new music, Didiom is implementing a cash bonus program that pays up to a 35% bonus toward music downloads. There are never any membership or service fees. Users pay only for the music they download through Didiom’s secure, credit card service.

“Didiom takes placeshifting and variable pricing to a whole new level and makes mobile music complete, interactive and affordable,” said Ran Assaf, Didiom’s founder and CEO. “A-Train and finetunes-solutions share our entrepreneurial spirit and passion for indie music, which now accounts for almost 40% of digital music sales in the US. We are delighted to add these world-class distributors to our burgeoning roster of music partners, and look forward to mobilizing their rich catalogs.”…

Vodafone has become the latest music provider to drop DRM. Hooray! “11 March 2009 — Vodafone announces today that it has signed deals with the world largest record companies Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and EMI Music to offer their tracks and albums DRM free (without digital rights management) across Vodafone markets for both mobile phones and PCs.

The new deals are the first of their kind for a mobile network operator enabling dual delivery of DRM free music to a wide range of mobile phones and PCs with no need to sideload or synchronize. With over a million tracks available from every music genre, for the first time customers will be able to play and enjoy music bought from these three labels via the Vodafone Music store without any limit to the type of device provided they belong to the customer.

In addition, those customers who have already bought tracks or albums from Universal Music, Sony Music or EMI in WMA format (with DRM) will be able to upgrade them to MP3 at no extra charge within the existing download allowance. DRM free music will be available through a number of Vodafone countries by the summer and will complement Vodafone’s current music offerings.

Music is central to many of our customers said Pieter Knook, Vodafone Internet Services Director. By Vodafone pioneering DRM free on mobile and offering MP3s on PC, they will now have the freedom to download tracks from their favourite artists without any device restrictions allowing them to experience their music however they want it, wherever they are…”

Here’s an interesting article at Times Online which suggests that younger people prefer the tinnier sound of digital music to analogue which people over a certain age seem to prefer. I always presumed that a good MP3 player was perfectly acceptable, until I heard my friend’s stereo system playing vinyl (over £5,000’s worth)- the difference was incredible!

“Many people complain that pop music was better in the good old days. Arctic Monkeys and Lily Allen are poor substitutes for the Beatles and Bob Dylan, the argument goes.

Older fans also insist that songs heard through iPods just don’t rock as they used to, compared with the clarity of CDs and the crackling charm of vinyl.

Research has shown, however, that today’s iPod generation prefers the tinnier and flatter sound of digital music, just as previous generations preferred the grainier sounds of vinyl. Computers have made music so easy to obtain that the young no longer appreciate high fidelity, it seems.

The theory has been developed by Jonathan Berger, Professor of Music at Stanford University, California. For the past eight years his students have taken part in an experiment in which they listen to songs in a variety of different forms, including MP3s, a standard format for digital music. “I found not only that MP3s were not thought of as low quality, but over time there was a rise in preference for MP3s,” Professor Berger said.”