An MP3, by it's very nature, is missing a lot of the original signal. period. I don't know how to say that any differently.

Musical appreciation is truly one of the most subjective subjects to be talked about... ever. How good are a person's ears? What type music do they like or dislike (perfect audio reproduction of a song that you hate is pointless... to you, don't you think?).

So you read every word. Comprehension comes to the forefront.

I don't recall degrading any form of sound reproduction. I did, however, mention in passing the QUALITY of different reproduction methods. If you're going to argue, endlessly, that MP3s have the same tonal reconstruction of a song that a WAV has, or a vinyl disc (that was mastered from analog tape), or even a tape mastered tape, then I'm going to let you live in your little world and I'll expect you to slam artists who are now trying heartily to turn music around from being a hollow shell with a "beat" back into the rich and full spectrum of sound that is produced from the end of a horn or from the speaker of a guitar amp or from the keys on a xylophone...

You can continue to tell me, ad nauseam, how am MP3 is a wonderful medium for reproducing songs and I will continue to explain to you, if possible, that an MP3 has had so much "information" removed from it that, while it resembles the song it was made from, it has no more in common with that song than a banana peel does to the banana inside... it's a husk.

Petty and Young aren't trying to sell you more stuff... they've made it... they have theirs... you 'being strongarmed' into buying more expensive audio reproduction gear is not their goal (wait a minute... isn't this /r/audiophile? seriously... think about it).

They ARE, however, trying to reclaim music from becoming a hollow five note fugue with a synthetic bass beat imposed over it...

I applaud what they're doing even though I'll most likely never buy their stuff. Hopefully the music listening world will applaud their efforts after a while when music begins to sound more like what it did when it was made, and NOT like what it does in order than Amazon be able to download songs without using up too much bandwidth.

And manufacturers trying to shove more "song list" onto their devices? And now that MicroSD cards are now approaching the terrabyte capability, MP3 just won't hold water to better formats.