A Look at Apple's 'Mastered for iTunes' Program and its Effect on Sound Quality

[louis Fashion]

I have, and I will agree on lower end speaker systems it's very difficult to discern. However a poor recording is easily noticeable on accurate systems.

Indeed. If you follow the audio blogs / forums you will see much discussion how certain speakers/amplifies are "unforgiving", that is, poor recordings become almost unlistenable with some higher-end equipment. Of course these are the same blogs that comment on $2500 + speaker cables. Out of my price range.

 

[sonare]

There is another group of people that claim that CD's, which are 16 bit & 44.1 kHz sound significantly worse than master tracks.

Claiming and proving are very different. I produce and engineer classical music, which admittedly is a small piece of the iTunes pie-- but 16/44.1 will ALWAYS exceed even 320KB/s to attentive listeners. And classical is the last frontier where you can enjoy a dynamic range-- even with MP3.

Rich

 

[doctorossi]

All these claims going on here can --and should-- be backed up by blind testing ---- but many would rather just blindly let their mouths run on ... and on ... and on ..... and on .....

Perhaps before you run your mouth on, you can demonstrate to us how you've come to the knowledge that any of us haven't performed the blind testing you describe.

 

[bawbac]

But wouldn't an EMP burst also wipe out everything we currently listen to music on anyway?

Record player + tube amplifier = win

 

[doctorossi]

Electronics+EMP = fail

Internet forums+tinfoil hats = win?

 

[couto27]

hey apple ---read this---


does iTunes sell or provide lossless 24/96
no matter what a remaster does, its a complete rip off , if is not 24/96 its not worth it to buy it

does the mac provide dt-hd and true -hd... it can do, if apple closed system provide the right drivers to the hardware, i love apple products but in terms of sound quality apple jump the ship when used acc file.
for does like me with a dedicated home cinema + av receiver, macs dont support blu ray or lossless music.

another limitation is airplay limited to 44hkz .

max quality in sound and image its what apple needs to provide , it doesn't matter if you hear the difference or not, let our ears be the judge.

 

[benpatient]

Ok, so now answer the question without esoteric nonsense. Next you'll be telling me your $500 custom speaker cables make a difference. I'll grant you 96khz, just because why not. But 192khz is absurd.

It's not absurd, actually. If your particular DACs are 192khz native (such as in most Denon recievers), they will have a better shot of quality conversion if you feed them their "native" signal. Any lower-resolution signal is resampled up to 192khz. If it is an even multiple of 24, it will be a perfect conversion, so 96 and 48 khz signals pass through un-molested.

Mastering plays a bigger factor in the sound, but I do have a DVD-Audio/SACD player, and you can listen to stereo tracks on a hybrid SACD that sound considerably better than the CD layer on the same disc, with the same mastering.

You can do the same with a DVD-Audio disc. There are some that are so poorly recorded to begin with that it will not matter, but some recordings are more open and alive with more resolution. It's only as good as the weakest link in the chain, though, so if you have cheap DACs, you'll never hear a difference. If you have a bad recording, or bad mastering, or a bad amp, or bad speakers, you might not be able to hear anything.

Really all that is required is a dynamic and frequency range that exceeds that of a person's ability to identify. In theory, that's about 18-19 bit and around 60khz.

If you need to carry 1 gallon of water and you have a 1 gallon bucket, you would in theory be able to take it all in one trip. The problem is that reality is dirty, and so you probably want a bigger bucket, to give yourself some margin.

 

[louis Fashion]

Hello, is there anybody out there?

But wouldn't an EMP burst also wipe out everything we currently listen to music on anyway?

Not if you live in a "special" bunker. You know, the bunker with the thick padded walls. Where they can't get me. Well, the doctor comes in sometimes, but I just ignore him.

 

[rwilliams]

Record player + tube amplifier = win

Gotta plug it into something, right?

 

[knucklehead]

Perhaps before you run your mouth on, you can demonstrate to us how you've come to the knowledge that any of us haven't performed the blind testing you describe.

Just make a claim, and put a DBT reference to back it up.
Simple as that!

 

[bawbac]

Gotta plug it into something, right?

Gas powered AC generator.
As long as you have gas and the spark plug works, you're good.

----------

Internet forums+tinfoil hats = win?

Should of bought alumimum stocks.

 

[macmurray]

Once you go FLAC, you'll never go back.

Once you go vinyl you'll never go back.

 

[benpatient]

Indeed. If you follow the audio blogs / forums you will see much discussion how certain speakers/amplifies are "unforgiving", that is, poor recordings become almost unlistenable with some higher-end equipment. Of course these are the same blogs that comment on $2500 + speaker cables. Out of my price range.

Can anyone show me a serious discussion of snake oil speaker cables? I ask because it is a pretty typical strawman to throw in the face of serious music listeners, and yet I've never seen anything but scorn for comically overpriced and over-engineered speaker cables.

Most of the people I know who love music and audio equipment use the equivalent of standard home appliance power cables for their speaker wire, and they attach it to expensive speakers and amps.

The most important elements of a good sound system are, in approximate order:

Source->Room Acoustics->Speakers->Amplification->Processing->Power Supply->Connections (wires and cables)

Any non-damaged HDMI or TOSLINK cable will transfer a perfect signal from source to processor. Any decent set of RCA cables will transfer that signal to an outboard amp, if involved. Any acceptably thick strand of copper wire will pump the signal from the amps to the speakers. Those are the easiest and cheapest parts of a good listening room. Most people who by "moster cables" are fools with too much money and too little sense. Audio guys will spend their money on Amps and speakers and processors and sound treatments for their room.

 

[Abester]

Oh, and I bet if anyone took a Pepsi Challenge on 256 AAC vs 96/24, you would be statistically random. I can beat a 320 mp3 every day of the week, but I can't beat 256 AAC. If that's the case, why can't 256 AAC satisfy?

drumcat, I took the Pepsi challenge......

If you cannot hear the difference between 256 AAC vs 96/24 files, I feel for you. I can easily hear the difference between 256 AAC vs 96/24, and even CD quality which is much less than your 96/24.

In fact, I deleted all of my 256 AAC tunes on the iPod Classic integrated in my car audio setup and replaced them with ALAC (Apple Lossless) files from my CD rips.

Even in the car, I can plainly hear the improvement over 256 AAC. ALAC is so much better. Just because YOU cannot hear the difference between 256 AAC and higher quality files (like 24/96 in your case), doesn't mean everyone should be satisfied with mediocre audio quality. Just my 2-cents worth.

 

[benpatient]

It is hard for me to make out the difference between ALAC and AIFF.

*sigh*

I was fine with everything you said, and then you said this.

Take a look at these two numbers: 312 312

Can you make out the difference? That's the literal difference between an error-free ALAC and the original AIFF. Let me know when you can make out the difference.

 

[scottsjack]

Once you go vinyl you'll never go back.

I've got a ton of vinyl. A lot of it is heavily worn or worn out, especially the outer side of the groove. I haven't worn out even one FLAC file yet.

BTW iTunes downloads come pre-worn out!

 

[cargath]

It enables you to reproduce the necessary frequencies, but it's still a (stair-stepped) mathematical estimation of an analog curve. Increasing the sample rate increases the fidelity to that analog curve. Period. Of course, how much that difference can be heard is another question, but in the abstract, there is still an accuracy gain in an increased sample rate.

That's only half the story. To store music digitally, it has to be converted to a discrete signal, stair-stepped as you'd say. But in order to play it back on your stereo, it has to be converted into an analog signal again. And Nyquist-Shannon says you can EXACTLY reproduce the original, smooth analog waveform of a frequency by using more than double the sampling rate. Period. Increasing the sample rate further will change NOTHING, not even "very small and inaudible", about what comes out of your speakers.

You can make a difference by increasing the sampling DEPTH. But the sampling depth of a CD is already able to replicate a signal with more accuracy than any analog medium will ever be. A CD has higher dynamic range than vinyl and what you loose by creating a discrete representation of the original signal is a lot less than what you loose by playing a vinyl or tape a few times.

Ha, I bet you believe in "the cloud" also. Just you wait until an EMP burst wipes out the cloud. You will rue your words.

You read only half my post. I do collect vinyl. What i'm saying is, if you want to store digital music, why use CDs? There's flash storage and large HDDs. Also, it seems you don't get "the cloud". If you store your music at home, one fire will wipe it out. If you store your music in the cloud, a fire at one datacenter doesn't hurt anyone. Believe it or not, redundancy helps keeping your music safe.

 

[3282868]

I'm glad I tossed the jewel cases (because they took up way too much space), but kept all my CDs in a booklet. I'm not an audiophile by any stretch of the imagination, but something does feel a bit "wrong" about a 256 kbps AAC file being the "master copy" as you stated.

I was stupid, had 3 books of 200 CD's/book back in 1999-2000, and ripped them when I was a Windows user. I was much younger, knew nothing about bitrates and ripped them with the tech of that time. Lesson learned; I digitized all my DVD's, spent a year studying various containers and Handbrake, etc. but kept a 2TB HDD for the original rips with the encodes. Wish I did the same for my music.

CDs ARE digital. And you can get them at every record store.

DOH! True dat, true dat. I suppose I should have stated digital/lossless compared to what you get online. I haven't seen a record store in years. Virgin closed all their stores, the one in Union Sq in NYC shut down a long time ago. The only place I can think of is a used record store or BestBuy.

Is there any online outfit that sells lossless tracks?

 

[pmz]

I still don't understand why they are not selling ALAC. The huge datacenters they built should support those transfers easily nowadays.

They're crazy not to do this. They can easily add this as an option, and charge more for it. I don't understand why they haven't.

I would buy everything in Apple Lossless. What a fantastic codec it is. My entire collection ripped from CD is in Apple Lossless. Any FLAC that i've purchased elsewhere has been converted to and stored in Apple Lossless for iTunes.

I LOVE Apple Lossless, and Apple has been missing a money making opportunity.

 

[cargath]

Record player + tube amplifier = win

So, these don't need power?

 

[dona83]

I'd take the big round black things over CDs. The only problem with vinyl is that they degrade over time, although arguably it adds to the ambience and experience.

There are some songs that use highly detailed instruments with higher frequencies and those are the instruments that get garbled when it's downmixed to 16-bit 44khz.

 

[Rogifan]

I use Spotify quite a bit on my iPhone. What is the Extreme stream setting comparable to?

 

[cargath]

DOH! True dat, true dat. I suppose I should have stated digital/lossless compared to what you get online. I haven't seen a record store in years. Virgin closed all their stores, the one in Union Sq in NYC shut down a long time ago. The only place I can think of is a used record store or BestBuy.

Is there any online outfit that sells lossless tracks?

You don't have record stores anymore where you live? That's really sad. But used records are great. They don't sell used records that you can't listen to anymore, and CDs don't suffer from decreasing quality like analog sources. Just get some used CDs and rip them yourself, a lot cheaper than buying tracks online.

There are some online stores that sell lossless tracks, but most of their selection is some obscure indie stuff. Sadly you won't find lossless files of "popular" music in online stores, at least not that i know of.

 

[iBug2]

I must have golden ears then. Been telling people for years Did you listen to the 15K stereo through headphones? Not psychological at all. Transients are relaxed and smoothed out. Warmth and room ambiance are brought back in. It is hard for me to make out the difference between ALAC and AIFF. But any 320khz or under AAC/MP3 and I can hear it.

There is no difference between ALAC and AIFF. : )

And no, I have tested using speakers, not headphones.

 

[aliensporebomb]

Sigh

As a producer of a musical recording that is on the itunes store I can tell you that the 24-bit 192 khz version definetely sounds better than the 256 kb AAC version for sale on the iTunes store.

The 24/192 version sounds much closer to how it sounded when I recorded it in my studio, the version for sale on the iTunes store isn't terrible but if I had to A-B I could tell them apart instantly - I probably listened to that darned thing a thousand times in the mastering process.

The differences to the average listener though might be subtle. But stuff like the way cymbals sound compressed versus uncompressed, the way I had certain synthesizers panned were somewhat less dramatic and distorted guitar sounds definetely were affected some.

Glad to see they have a process for this now.