As a creator of video and audio I am trained to look and listen for faults in my productions. Sometimes my boss accuses me of working all day on something that, he thinks, only I will notice. And he’s probably right but I can’t let something go out there looking bad, or, even more importantly, sounding bad. I probably do hear mic rumble no one else is aware of but, I think, this attention to detail is a common trait of video production peeps.

Here is an example of a video, a company put out, probably thinking that, it was good enough, but listen to those audio artifacts! I usually discourage people from learning to hear mp3 compression artifacts because, once you start to hear them, it is impossible to un-hear them and that path only leads to ridiculously expensive hi-fi choices. In this video, even the most untrained ear can hear the compression artifacts. It has been crushed so much the narrator has a digital lisp. There’s also all that high end digital sizzle and zing that’s almost painful to listen to.

If you ever need an example to send to someone who wants to know what compression this is a good example to send them, It is also a good of example of when a technical issue distracts your viewer/listener from your message. Who can even pay attention to what this company is selling when the audio is so distracting?