#64 - Music Tech - how are you listening?

I still have a collection of LP record albums. Though I don't quite remember what speed the record player ran at (33RPM? 45RPM? 78RPM?). They are well worn since I collected the vast majority of them in college. I think the pops, skips and beeps add character, but then I'm a throw back. CDs were invented in the early 80s so they aren't a very new technology. Sony and Phillips invented the CD. Did you know the first recording on a CD was Billy Joel's 52nd Street?

CDs essentially eliminated the Pops and beeps, but you can still have skips. There is a plastic layer on the CD that can be scratched causing skips and actual loss of song. So take care of your CD's (and DVD's) by only touching them on the edges, not leaving them in direct sunlight and storing them in a protective sleeve or case.

The next major step in music was the invention of the MP3 Audio format. The MP3 format allowed for the compression of digitized audio into a file of manageable size. The German company Fraunhofer-Gesellshaft developed MP3 technology in the early 1990s and now licenses the patent rights to the audio compression technology. MP3 stands for Motion Pictures Expert Group Audio Layer III. This is a standard for audio compression. MP1 & MP2 aren't precursors to MP3, but different standards dealing with video compression (MP1) and Video AND audio compression (MP2). Since MP3 there have been literally dozens of other compression technologies. WMA is Microsoft's version, ALE is Apple's version.

MP3 players were first designed as software for PCs. WinAmp was one of the first software programs that could play audio files that were compressed. With the shrinking of Hard Drives and the invention of Flash Memory, the first portable MP3 players came to be. We'll talk tomorrow about their technologies.

So how do you listen to music? CD, MP3, or vinyl record? I listen to mine mainly via MP3 on my Palm Pilot.