MP3s suck the soul from your music, finds new study
A new study by the Audio Engineering Library claims that MP3s and similar formats negatively impact "the timbral and emotional characteristics" of music.
The study, succinctly titled The Effects of MP3 Compression on Perceived Emotional Characteristics in Musical Instruments, looked at various "compressed sounds pairwise over ten emotional categories at several bit rates."
The AEL found that while MP3 compression enhanced the effects of neutral and negative "emotional characteristics" (such as shyness or sadness) it weakened the punch of positive ones (such as happiness or tranquillity). The emotion of 'anger' was totally unaffected, apparently.
Differences were also found across instruments, with the trumpet most affected and the horn "by far" the least affected.
The study offers a reason for these bizarre emotional alterations - the "background 'growl' artifacts added by MP3 compression."
Neil Young was right, basically.
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