The iPod offers sound at a ‘Fisher-Price toy’ level according to Neil Young. This is quite a slap in the face for Apple who have engineered the leading portable music product of our generation. Neil was speaking at a Tech Conference called ‘Fortune’s Brainstorm Tech Conference.

In Neil Young’s address to the audience he stated:

Apple has taken a detour down the convenience highway. Quality has taken a complete backseat - if it even gets in the car at all.

He went on to say that the quality of music has been “dumbed down” as a result of MP3 files and MP3 players. He claims that MP3s represent poor audio quality, and is pushing for Blu-Ray to become the music standard going forward. He is also producing his life’s works on Blu-Ray, which he intends to release later in the year.

He hopes that Blu-Ray replaces MP3 as the musical standard.

During his talk Young criticised Apple in particular for what he called bring the quality of music down in a policy of convenience over quality.

He lamented:

We have beautiful computers now but high-resolution music is one of the missing elements. The ears are the windows to the soul.