After the demise of Audio CD's, will we be able to purchase uncompressed music?

[garybUK]

Intell is both right and wrong.

Wrong in that audio CDs are at 320 Kbps. The number is actually closer to 1,411.

Right in that the music itself has often been run through an audio compressor during the mastering phase to create a steady volume (at cost of dynamic range), and resampled from whatever frequency/bit depth is used at the studio. Music studios these days often use 24-bit or even 32-bit sound tracks recorded at 96 KHz sample rate or higher. Resampling from 24-bit to 16-bit would remove some of the audio data, as would resampling from 96 kHz to 44.1 kHz sample rate. This can be thought of in broad terms as a form of lossy compression (discarding of data to fit into a particular data size/bitrate).

On top of that, music studio projects are multitrack; the final output we hear is usually a single stereo track.

There is currently no widely-available audio file format that depicts what engineers and producers heard in the studio. DVD Audio and SACD are closer than audio CD, but not by much.

Windows Media format is one of the best for Studio Master quality and arguably one of the more wider distributed codecs (with Windows). there are stores that sell studio master Linn have a music store with Studio Master in either Flac or WMA. http://www.linn.co.uk/music#studiomaster

It'd be interesting to see if all these devices with airplay built in can playback Alac... that would be killer, distributed lossless audio.

 

[spacepower7]

Windows Media format is one of the best for Studio Master quality and arguably one of the more wider distributed codecs (with Windows). there are stores that sell studio master Linn have a music store with Studio Master in either Flac or WMA. http://www.linn.co.uk/music#studiomaster

It'd be interesting to see if all these devices with airplay built in can playback Alac... that would be killer, distributed lossless audio.

AirPlay is ALAC. All music in iTunes or an iOS device is uprezzed into at least 44.1 16-bit ALAC on the fly, regardless if it is mp3 or AAC. There is a hardware chip in the Airport express that decodes only ALAC, same with AppleTV. With ALAC files, no conversion is needed.

Check out the Stereophile magazine's reviews from 2005 where they send ALAC from iTunes on one CPU to the airport express then digital out to another computer. They compare the ALAC iTunes song to the same WAV original file in an audio editing app and reproduced a perfect bit by bit copy. ALAC is like wireless FLAC via iTunes.

I've been converting all my my old FLAC to ALAC

I also tried various conversions of aiff, wav, FLAC,ALAC, back and forth through many combinations of the codecs and always end of with md5 checksums the same as the original files. Lossless is lossless unless there are bugs in one of the apps, which I didn't encounter using foobar, XLD, max, iTunes, QuickTime etc...

----------

Windows Media format is one of the best for Studio Master quality and arguably one of the more wider distributed codecs (with Windows). there are stores that sell studio master Linn have a music store with Studio Master in either Flac or WMA. http://www.linn.co.uk/music#studiomaster

It'd be interesting to see if all these devices with airplay built in can playback Alac... that would be killer, distributed lossless audio.

In my 15+ years on and off in pro audio and video, I have never seen or received anything in wma format. If online stores sell that, than that is a consumer issue, widely distributed. I have never ever seen wma in the recording, mastering production chain. All PC files are usually wav and all Mac are usually SDII or aiff.

 

[spacepower7]

Dynamics compression has nothing to do with data compression.

Downsampling is not compression.

I agree with the first statement, questionable agreement or disagreement on the second, depending on the relevance and your definition of compression. If I have great magic speakers that can play up to 48khz, then downsambling a 96k signal to 48k signal (signal/2 = audio hz for others following the thread who didn't know) will lessen the signal quality to my speakers, assuming I can hear or at least perceive sounds and harmonics above 24khz.

Since dithering a signal from 24-bit to 16-bit decreases the dynamic range, decreasing the sample rate aka down sampling decreases the harmonic range. It is compression, just not in the dynamic volume sense. It is harmonic compression and file compression, therefore compression

Anyway, way to many people in the world worry about these trival things instead more important matters. Many of the these people can't tell the difference in a true abx test

I'd like lossless downloads too, but for most iTunes users, they can't tell the difference between 128 AAC and 256 AAC so it is apple appealing to the lowest common denominator.

 

[OutThere]

People who really think they can hear the difference between different levels of compression (or lack there of) should really try a blind listening test. It can be eye opening how easy it is to hear a difference when we think there should be a difference, but how hard it is to pick up the supposed difference when you don't know which sample is supposed to sound better...

 

[Tinmania]

I'd like lossless downloads too, but for most iTunes users, they can't tell the difference between 128 AAC and 256 AAC so it is apple appealing to the lowest common denominator.

I agree. However, this forum seems to have attracted all the iTunes users who can tell, or at least "think" they can tell.

You should see the reaction in some of the iTunes Match threads about the horror of going from 320kbps to the unimaginable crappy 256kbps (which is what you get with matched tracks).




Michael

 

[thenaes]

I can't really tell the difference between lossless and 256kbps AAC/MP3, but I sure would buy the lossless versions if Amazon or iTunes offered them (for a fair price). They would be a better investment as you can then use any format you want down the road.

I could see lossless downloads coming at some point, but there's no way they would charge the same price. Say... 11.99 for lossless and 9.99 for lossy. In a perfect world they would both be 9.99 and you get to choose.

 

[paolo-]

You do know that audio CD's contain compressed audio right? I think they're around 320kbps and 44,000htz and 16-bits. Uncompressed audio is much higher, about 1,280+kpbs, 48,000htz, and 24/48-bits.

Other than your numbers are off, CD audio isn't compressed in a strict sense, it's down sampled and downresed. Does it reduce the audio quality? Sure, but that's beside the point. The audio is sometimes recorded at higher rates and with a wider bit-depth but that's mainly because it's aiming a high quality 16 bit, 44,1khz format.

When the audio is recorded it doesn't use the full bit-depth because you don't know how loud what you're recording will go. That means even though you're recording at 16-bit you might just be using 8 bits and the rest being headroom in case the performance becomes louder than expected. That's the main reason behind 24 bit recording, you can keep the levels low to make sure you don't ruin the performance by hitting the maximum volume and still have lots of data (for sure at least 16 bits) to work with. The conversion from 24 to 16 bit is done after the track has been mastered and at the point the track is usually sonically compressed, in other words some of the dynamic range is removed and the track is made louder http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_range_compression . At that point, it's quite safe to go from 24 to 16 bit because you'll be using the whole 16 bits. The difference is practically inaudible (I can't hear it) compared to .mp3 which adds some artifacts (I can find in a blind test high quality mp3 against a lossless file) . Also, since you go from 24 to 16 just once you're not pilling the 16 bit "errors" on top of each other when mixing.

Back to the question, I wouldn't be surprised if it start being common in the next years. Some website will probably start offering it and when the big boys start seeing the niche growing will offer it.

 

[athens]

Here is the thing about Audio. The most important factor is the equipment reproducing the sound. If you have cheap speakers and cheap equipment it will be hard to tell the difference between a Digital CD and a high quality AAC file. If you have real good full range speakers and good equipment you will hear a marginal difference between a Digital CD and AAC.

The next part of this is what you gauge quality by. If you are old enough to have experienced analog music from a record on good analog equipment, then even Digital CD's will sound worse and compressed digital music like AAC will sound horrible on good equipment. The younger generation who only know AAC and grew up with that as the standard will think Analog music sounds terrible. The taste they have developed around it.

I am a middle generation I grew up during the transition from record/tape to Digital CD.

If I had a choice of how I could buy my music it would be analog recorded records or tape because I like to listen to music loud. And only analog music retains its quality at loud volumes.

This has to do with the nature of digital, so CD and Compressed files suffer the same effect. I am not going to go into the technical details but you can compare it like this. You know how a LCD monitor has a native resolution and the image only looks correct at the resolution. If you change it to a lower resolution it looks blurry and not as good. VGA could scale any size monitor with no loss of quality because it was analog. Well music is the same way. Digital music has a set recording volume and any deviation from its native volume distorts. This is why digital music, CDs and AAC sound worse the louder it gets.

So its not so much the loss of Audio CD's that is the future problem of music but the recording to digital that is which I think all music is now. We have already lost the high quality music when the masters went from Analog to Digital. We will never have the option of getting Analog music because the source is now digital. Uncompressed CD's is still better then AAC/MP3 but the quality difference is marginal unless you have that wicked audio system to tell the difference.

 

[Tinmania]

Back to the question, I wouldn't be surprised if it start being common in the next years. Some website will probably start offering it and when the big boys start seeing the niche growing will offer it.

It's interesting that a primary reason MP3s took off was because it allowed songs to be small enough to reasonably download over dialup connections, back in the mid to late 1990s. If there was some miracle compression technology in the mid 90's that allowed the same file sizes uncompressed then that is the format the record companies would have had to have addressed.

But in this day in age where our download speeds have increased enormously the idea that we have an artificial limitation on music, and not a technical one, is disappointing. Twenty years ago the average purchased music was of higher quality than what is purchased today (studio and other equipment not withstanding).




Michael

 

[firestarter]

But in this day in age where our download speeds have increased enormously the idea that we have an artificial limitation on music, and not a technical one, is disappointing. Twenty years ago the average purchased music was of higher quality than what is purchased today (studio and other equipment not withstanding).

You forget that just as bandwidth improved, we started the switch from conventional hard drive to flash memory devices - with a corresponding decrease in storage space available. This is still an issue, and compressed formats are still required in order to fit a decent amount of music on your iPod/iPhone/iPad.

 

[athens]

In a perfect world you would buy a license key for each song, video or any other media you purchase and use that key to obtain the media. Be it as a digital download or physical.

IE say I bought Sum 41 - Chuck, $8.00 for the license

I should be able to use that license code to download a 256kb AAC, a 500mb Digital AIFF CD which I could burn or make my own 256kb AAC files or order the physical Printed CD $2.00

If the Physical CD is busted I should be able to re-order a replacement copy for the same price. If I delete the music or hard drive fails I should be able to re download the music.

I think its retarded that we have to pay over and over again full price because the media format changes. Should only have to pay for the content once and pay the min cost for the physical media if thats what is desired.

 

[Tinmania]

You forget that just as bandwidth improved, we started the switch from conventional hard drive to flash memory devices - with a corresponding decrease in storage space available. This is still an issue, and compressed formats are still required in order to fit a decent amount of music on your iPod/iPhone/iPad.

I did not forget that... I don't think it applies.

My point was about buying music. No reason you have to keep it uncompressed for restricted mobile devices.

That said with cloud services, good lossless compression, and larger mobile devices I would have no issue using uncompressed everywhere. But a simple checkbox in iTunes can force synced music to 128kbps AAC if space is a concern.

As for me the mobile devices I have used for music have indeed increased in storage sizes every bit as much as bandwidth has increased. I have never owned an iPod or any other dedicated MP3 player. In 2000 before the iPod was even released I had an iPaq Pocket PC with a whopping 64MB memory and a 64MB memory card. A few months later I had a "huge" 1GB tiny microdrive to use with it. A 64GB iPhone or iPad has 64 times the storage.




Michael

 

[lewis82]

In a perfect world you would buy a license key for each song, video or any other media you purchase and use that key to obtain the media. Be it as a digital download or physical.

IE say I bought Sum 41 - Chuck, $8.00 for the license

I should be able to use that license code to download a 256kb AAC, a 500mb Digital AIFF CD which I could burn or make my own 256kb AAC files or order the physical Printed CD $2.00

If the Physical CD is busted I should be able to re-order a replacement copy for the same price. If I delete the music or hard drive fails I should be able to re download the music.

I think its retarded that we have to pay over and over again full price because the media format changes. Should only have to pay for the content once and pay the min cost for the physical media if thats what is desired.

In an ideal world, yes, as you would pay to have the right to listen to the songs. We're in a capitalist world, and the industry has decided that it only grants you the right to listen to the specific version you bought the license for. Profits, profits, profits.

 

[OutThere]

In a perfect world you would buy a license key for each song, video or any other media you purchase and use that key to obtain the media. Be it as a digital download or physical.

IE say I bought Sum 41 - Chuck, $8.00 for the license

I should be able to use that license code to download a 256kb AAC, a 500mb Digital AIFF CD which I could burn or make my own 256kb AAC files or order the physical Printed CD $2.00

If the Physical CD is busted I should be able to re-order a replacement copy for the same price. If I delete the music or hard drive fails I should be able to re download the music.

I think its retarded that we have to pay over and over again full price because the media format changes. Should only have to pay for the content once and pay the min cost for the physical media if thats what is desired.

Who, then, pays for the servers and bandwidth for you to keep downloading all those files willy nilly?