The Distortion of Sound is a 2014 advertisement for Harman produced by Vice Media. The advertisement presents itself as a documentary on the decline of sound quality in music distributed with lossy compression algorithms. The ad features paid interviews with vocalists, guitarists, producers, writers, rappers, film composers, mixing engineers, mixers, music journalists, acoustic researchers, loudspeaker engineers and chief engineers—including such artists as Mike Shinoda of Linkin Park, Slash, Quincy Jones, Snoop Dogg and Steve Aoki.The ad was uploaded to YouTube using YouTube's lossy audio compression. The trailer of the film was also available on YouTube. The ad, as well as a trailer, was available on the official website of the film.

The film was premiered at a paid event in Los Angeles on July 10, 2014.