Streaming links: Google and SoundCloud, hi-res audio, codec snobbery.

 

  • Google might buy SoundCloud, for as-yet-unclear reasons that will undoubtedly make any sense whatsoever to someone at some point. (That story doesn’t advance any, just notes the rumour.) Better happen soon as SoundCloud is haemorrhaging money.

  • The majors and the electronics manufacturers want to push 24-bit snake oil so they can sell you your collection again, this time streaming. Being themselves, of course, they can’t agree on a codec, because 24-bit FLAC is too simple or something. The plus points of this will be (a) recordings without LOUDNESS WARS (except dance music, which sounds wrong if it hasn’t got a LOUDNESS WARS mastering) (b) an uncompressed stream you can rip from the audio to 16-bit. Yo ho ho and three megabytes of hot RAM. They’ve only been working on this six years, I’m sure they’ll get there eventually.

  • While you’re waiting for that, train yourself to hear compression artifacts and turn into a codec snob. Tell people whether Spotify’s playing off the web client or the desktop client!

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