Who cares about the hi-end audio gear any more? Very few and most of them are doing it in between downloading their free audio content from the web as they read pages like this one.
The latest buy out of NullSoft by America On Line has made all of us Hi-Fi Audio enthousiasts to think well about the future of our hobby. It looks as if sooner than later we will concentrate more on the encoding and decoding algorithms rather than the science of materials that formed the foundamentals of good, pure sound.
MP3 is becoming more and more the industry standard and now the difference in sounding good is a matter of better software than anything else. It's a difference we can all hear (we don't even have to listen carefully - it so apparent). Just download Null Softs WinAmp 2.23 play song and then try to listen to the same song with your Windows Media Player. Win Amp stands out as the best - virtual - "machine".
I don't know a lot about the legal consequences of the fact and to be frank with you, I just don't care. There is a need, there is the feed and the seeds have already given place to a plantation that is too hard to uproot even for the skillful lawyers of the Media multinationals. The fragmentation that comes hand in hand with "globalization" made even the "flexible" multinationals of this industry to flex their skills in seizing a good portion of the new market rather than jointly fight it. In the automotive industry we used to play by the rules... here its not the case, even if only because the rules are re-written on a daily basis. Music industry's worst fear became a reality. An experiment (MP3) that could have as well died, became a standard protocol well before they noticed it. By word of mouth, in the dark - and not as glossy as their promo leaflets of products such as the DVD or minidisk - alleys of the web a miracle is happening. Sound that is as good as that of the CD player makes our websurfing more enjoyable. Many have started web surfing just for that: To find songs - content this is - they missed for one reason or another.
