Today, most of the music we hear is com-pressed to a fraction of its original sound, while analog masterpieces are turning to dust in record company vaults. As these record-ings disappear, music fans aren't just losing acollection of notes. We're losing spaciousness, breadth of the sound field, and the ability to hear and feel a ping of a triangle or a pluckof a guitar string, each with its own reso-nance and harmonics that slowly trail off into silence. The result is music that is robbed of its original quality—muddy and flat in sound compared to the rich, warm sound artists hear in the studio. It doesn't have to be this way, but the record and technology companies have incorrectly assumed that most listeners are satisfied with these low-quality tracks.
