iTunes Audiophile Downloads

[labjr]

"Negotiation with labels will not be easy, at best only selection of albums will be in high-res

 

You're right. They aren't going to remaster everything in 24 bit just for Apple. And it's mostly old analog recordings which will benefit. By the early 90's they were doing most recording digitally. Doesn't seem like there would be a huge improvement. There really isn't a huge market for it. Mostly audiophiles. And we certainly aren't going to dictate what the market does.

 

 

 

[Paul R]

It will probably have some new iPad stuff, as well as a new iPhone, iPods, and of course, a music theme. Apple has been building up to that for a while I think. The aquisition of the Beatles catalog, etc.

 

 

[wgb113]

They'll do it because it's another source of revenue that they could desperately use.

 

Nobody was asking for 1080p or 3D but they're giving it to us...wait for it...to make money. If the record industry is smart they'll give us audio in HD as well. Apple just happens to be the biggest outlet for that new product.

 

Bill

 

 

[ehrawn]

Chris, I don't want our back-and-forth to go on too much longer because I think most of us are in agreement that, in principle, the proliferation of high resolution digital offerings is a good thing. I think the Gizmodo author was trying to say that current mastering trends (loundness war) is squandering the potential of 16 bit digital audio. The reason Dr. Dre and company want to push 24 bit isn't because of all the advantages of 24 bit, but to sell a premium product for an inflated price. It's like Toyota starting the Lexus brand. Their cars have the same underpinnings, and, yes, Lexus has a little for fit and finish, but how much really?

 

While I think Souptin is spot on with his comments about the music industry trying to sell us the same product over and over again, my hope is that this is a the start of a couple of changes for the better in the industry. Two things need to happen: 1) the "best" quality music becomes the standard, and 2) the music industry stops selling single format music (i.e. a CD, a vinyl album, an mp3 album, a FLAC album, etc). Instead, what I want to do is buy a album and listen to it how I want to: vinyl, digital, etc. What happens now is, since mp3s are the standard, I buy a vinyl record that may or may not have some crappy digital download included. If 24 bit becomes industry standard, then we should start to see the novel concept of us buying a multiformat album once, and at a tollerable quality for all formats.

 

[Paul R]

We all gripe about wanting 24bit, and probably 96K or even 192K downloads made available. Now.

 

Whey they are as common in a few years as Lady Gaga redbook CD is today, you will hear us all moaning about wanting 256bit 4096K downloads...

 

It is an inevitable as the tides of the sea.

 

-Paul

 

 

[jerico]

... anyone see the HD Tracks email tonight with the subject "Next Week HDtracks is Going to Make History..."?

 

 

 

[MarkS]

Just saw that too. Wonder what it is at HD Tracks????

 

[ted_b]

nt

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

Comment of the month!

 

[labjr]

"I sure hope it isn't Michal Jackson's History in 24/96!!!

nt"

 

 

Why? I want to hear Vincent Price in hi-res!

 

[wgscott]

Lyrics NSFW

 

[Erwin S]

LOL! Somehow, this never made it to Belgian national radiostations. But "joy", it is avalable on iTunes for €0.99...

 

[djjimmylyons]

Dear Itunes We Want Better Quality Audio

this is a facebook page that has been up and running for about a month. Click "like" and join the squawkin'.

 

The limited release Beatles usb drive can be the template for the future. I've copied links to sights that show hi-end (or mid hi end) companies like Denon are actually putting usb inputs on their smaller systems that are 24 bit flac compatible.

 

There's a lot of information to weed through but this obviously would be a great thing. Think about this: the music industry has not upgrade the consumer product since the cd (16 bit) in 1981. C'mon.

 

[djjimmylyons]

Paul,

It's a funny comment but, the point of 24bit being the "target" is, that this is how the music is being recorded(if it's digital which of course 95% of it is). So the music stays in it's source bit depth.

Bit depth is an amplitude assignment and generally represents your systems ability to faithfully represent the dynamic range of your source material... and 24bit is pretty good at that. But when the consumer product is a lower bit depth than the master recording, processing called "dither" is introduced to add noise (yep noise) to the source to aid the bit depth conversion.

I'm sorry I'm geeking out in such a big way. I've just wanted this for awhile and I'm getting excited.

In closing, yes I do want 256bit downloads. hahaha.

-jimmy

 

facebook page:

Dear Itunes We Want Better Quality Audio

 

[djjimmylyons]

That article was weak on so many levels, I don't know where to start. Yes the "loudness wars" is a huge problem but, to say that it's a justification for not improving the consumer product is ridiculous. As a matter of fact you might say that one of the reasons the "loudness wars" is happening is that people are only listening to low quality downloads to begin with.

It's just a bad article.

Here's something: DVD blu ray is selling like crazy and it has 24 bit uncompressed audio. So you can listen to Pauly Shore in 24bit but not Steely Dan or Hendrix? C'mon. What's happening already with blu ray is the price is coming down. The same will happen over time with this.

 

[daniloreyes]

Hopefully is has to do with the HDtracks announcement next week.

I'm so into 24bit, I don't buy itunes music because of the low resolution. This could change it!!!

 

 

[tom]

it might become similar to youtube.. where they added 720p and 1080p.. for the people who are able to use it.

 

for anyone who wants to get 24-96, itunes will probably add that option. offering higher quality is always a great idea for any company that can pull it off..

 

i think the majority of people will stick to the regular music price they pay now for the 256 .m4a files.. but more options help everyone..

 

 

[Paul R]

LOL! Yes, but consider- higher bit depth and higher sample rates easly availabel to we great unwashed masses will equate to much more detail in the reproduction of music we listen to.

 

And more detail means more ugly blemishes will be audible in the music. (Think 1080p TV...

 

The "pros" will be forced to upgrade their equipment just to make their recordings sound better, and here we go again...

 

It's kinda cool isn't it?

 

-Paul

 

 

 

 

[Frank Mercurio]

For Apple to move in this direction it is a good thing. What will really be interesting is how Apple will build better hardware into their iPods and computers that can take advantage of 24bit music.

 

It will also be very interesting how Apple will market this product because that will be telling in how successful it may or may not be on a larger scale.

 

[Enicar]

Of course a lot of audiophiles will welcome iTunes 24/96. Nothing wrong with that.

Personally I would welcome a generally higher quality in most regular CDs. Recording, mixing, mastering and all that is involved in production done to the full potential of the 16/44.1 CD.

That would make me happy 24/7 :-)

 

[f1eng]

Most recent pop CDs contain signal from 0dB to -30dB or so. This means 16 bit is massive overkill, 16 bits is plenty for the sort of recordings many are perpetrating 24 bit just means more zeros...

 

[f1eng]

It seems to me that only a tiny minority of the "tunes" available on iTunes have been recorded and/or mixed anywhere near high resolution, so few can be offered in high res, and even fewer maybe actually sound better because of it :-(

 

[f1eng]

Many old recordings have masters of very questionable quality, making 23/96 versions will not change this.

A huge number of CDs are released which sound awful and some sound fabulous, it is pretty evident that high res is not going to fix this.

 

[labjr]

You will still hear more detail from bad quality master tapes with 24/96 mastering. The differences between analog master quality and digital resolution are not comparable.

 

[Paul R]

Almost all recording today is done at high resolution and down-sampled to redbook quality. Analog masters are brought into digital systems at very high resolutions too.

 

At least that is my understanding. Someone like Barry would be able to answer that with much more authority.

 

-Paul