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 今日主題：Designer headphones-- The sound of music  設計師耳機--音樂之聲

 康康精選GRE&GMAT會考的主題，堅持每天精讀一定會進步的哦!!
 MP3音檔 (按右鍵可下載聽)：喜歡的同學，幫忙推或按讚哦~~
http://xia2.kekenet.com/Sound/…/08/headphones_4611637bF3.mp3

 只有音檔怎夠，聽不懂地方，不用怕，康康幫你準備好中英文稿了：

 中英文稿：
Designer headphones-- The sound of music
設計師耳機--音樂之聲

Dr Dre’s creation of a market for costly cans may herald the return of true hi-fi
說唱歌手Dr Dre創造的高端耳機市場可能預示著高保真時代的回歸

FOR decades the market for expensive headphones was mainly limited to hi-fi buffs. But now that the boxy stereo system in the corner of the bedroom is largely a thing of the past, and young music fans listen mostly on portable devices, headphones have become as much of a fashion statement as the music player itself. Among the first to spot the potential of this market was Dr Dre, an American rapper-cum-tycoon. In 2008 he and Jimmy Iovine, a record producer, launched their Beats range of headphones, to great success. They have all but created a new product category: premium-priced ($100-plus) cans whose sound quality is good enough, but which mainly sell on their brand image.
幾十年以來，高端耳機市場都局限在高保真行家圈裡。但是現在箱式音響系統已經過時了，年輕的音樂愛好者基本都用可擕式設備聽音樂，耳機跟音樂播放機一樣成 了一種時尚。Dr Dre就是最先發現這個市場潛力的人之一，他是一個著名的美國說唱歌手。2008年，其與音樂製作人Jimmy Iovine一起推出了他們的Beats系列耳機，大為成功。他們創造了一種全新種類的耳機品類：高價耳機，（價格在100美元以上），音質足夠好，銷售 主要靠品牌形象。

Beats Electronics and its founders have proved adept at using celebrity endorsements and product placement to plug their headphones. In America the company now has almost half the market for premium-priced cans, compared with 21% for Bose, a longer-established maker. Beats headphones are bassy: that’s what hip-hop fans want, but might not suit opera lovers. Overall, though, they are a lot better than the earbuds that come free with most portable devices.
Beats電子和它的成立者擅長利用名人效應和植入式廣告宣傳其耳機。在美國，該公司現在擁有高端市場接近一半的市場份額，相比之下，老牌耳機生產商 Bose只有21%的份額。Beats耳機重低音表現絕佳，這正是嘻哈樂粉絲想要的，但是可能不對歌劇愛好者的味。然而，總的來說，它們比可攜式裝置標配 的耳機好多了。

There is in any case a limit to how good music will sound through even the best headphones. Most of the music tracks on portable music players are in the form of mp3 audio files, in which the music has been compressed to make the files smaller and thus fit more of them into a given amount of storage capacity. Jim Anderson, a sound engineer who teaches at New York University, first plays his students an mp3 music file through good speakers, and then an uncompressed master recording of the same song: they are amazed at how much they have been missing, he says.
無論如何，即使是通過最好的耳機，好音樂也無法完全展現出來。大多數便攜音樂播放機上的樂曲都是mp3格式的，這種格式下，歌曲被壓縮的更小，以便在有限 的容量內放更多首歌。音響師Jim Anderson在紐約大學任教，他說，他先通過優質播放機給他的學生播放了一首mp3格式的歌曲，然後播放了未壓縮版本的歌曲，他的學生驚訝于前者丟失 細節之多。

Since consumers have been persuaded, largely by Beats, that it is worth paying a fair whack for some half-decent headphones that look nice, perhaps they could be persuaded—especially since the storage capacity of many portable devices is now huge—to turn their backs on cheap mp3s and seek out recordings in true high fidelity. Linn Records, an online distributor of high-resolution music files, sold around 60,000 songs between April and June of this year, most of them in the FLAC format, which compresses the music lightly, saving a bit of storage space, without any loss of quality. Apple’s iTunes has a similar, though slightly lower-quality offering.
既然Beats說服了消費者放棄那些外觀不錯但是不夠像樣耳機，可能消費者也能接受購買高保真的音樂，而不是便宜的mp3格式音訊，尤其是現在很多可擕式 音樂播放機容量變得巨大。線上高保真音樂銷售商Linn Records今年二季度賣出了大約6萬首歌曲，大部分都是Flac格式的歌曲，Flac格式對樂曲稍稍壓縮，節省了一點空間，但是音質卻沒什麼損失。蘋 果的iTunes也是一樣，儘管品質稍差一點。

If sales of these hi-fi recordings take off it may boost the market for really top-notch cans like those of Grado Labs, another American firm. Grado has for decades relied on reviews in specialist magazines, and word-of-mouth recommendations from fans, to spread news of its headphones’ faithful reproduction. In contrast to Beats, it has eschewed image-making: it has not advertised since 1964. Unlike Dr Dre, then, its fortunes are less tied to the fickle tastes and fast-changing fashions of the young.
如果這些高保真音樂的銷量飛漲的話，可能會使得頂級耳機生產商，諸如另一家美國公司Grado Labs生產的耳機市場火爆起來。幾十年來Grado都憑藉專業雜誌的評測和粉絲的口耳相傳傳播其品質過硬的耳機資訊。相比Beats，它避免品牌化，自 1964年以來從未做過廣告。所以不像Dr Dre，其命運也與瞬息萬變的年輕人的品味與潮流無關。