Apple Had 'Worked On' Offering a High-Definition Music Format

[hachre]

Btw for the people wondering about the 5% statement. It's actually a lot less since he is comparing to a generic MP3.

I would argue that most MP3s even now still use a bitrate of around 192kbps in stereo.

He is comparing to a 192 KHz, 24 bit, 2 channel studio format. Which means uncompressed AIFF or WAV. The bitrate of a stream like this would be 192000*24*2/1024 = 9000kbps.

192*100/9000 = 2,13%

Compared to AAC from iTunes it would result in 256*100/9000 = 2.84%

Of course he is comparing apples and oranges but just to get an idea of how he gets such numbers...

 

[Dan--]

mp3 and wav comparison:

http://www.noiseaddicts.com/2010/04/sound-test-difference-between-wav-vs-mp3/

Night and day.

Ok, I tried it. I would absolutely not call the difference night and day, but I will say I was able to tell.

However, I will add that I was listening to the files via the headphone out port of my Dell desktop, with it's moderately loud fan running, and it's crappy internal DAC on $13 headphones (though admittedly no-so-bad Koss KSC75s).

Now if I could tell the difference on this equipment, the differences would likely be considerably more dramatic on good stuff. And I'm over 40 so my hearing is probably already toast.

The trick here though, is that I had to actually listen. If people are unwilling to listen closely, they will never hear the differences.

And frankly, even people who are willing to listen closely, are not going to listen carefully all the time. In most environments it's actual fairly futile.

But we, as consumers, should be getting the best we can, because the added costs of releasing in the best format are truly inconsequential. We are not talking quadrupling HD movie formats, we're talking audio. Far, far less space.

 

[Obsydian]

Try listening to some hi-definition digital audio

It seems a lot of people have not actually listened to the kind of music that Neil Young was referring to - in his interview he talks about 24-bit/192 KHz music as being the top end - very difficult to find (updated: affordable) audio equipment that can play this - however 24-bit/96 is not only available but if piped into a home theater system that can play blu-ray will allow you to experience the difference between regular iTunes, CD (16-bit/44.1) and what amounts to blu-ray quality music - 24/96 --- to get audio material to try this take a look at HDTracks www.hdtracks.com and a really great website that discusses Hi-def digital audio is Computer Audiophile dot com.

I definitely recommend you listen to 24/96 Hotel California by the Eagles before you decide that it's not worth it.

Looking forward to the day that Apple buys HDTracks to jumpstart hi-def audio downloads.

One last point - the ultimate quality of a hi-def music file is very related to the quality of the sound engineering - not all hi-def music is equally amazing.

Thanks

 

[oshia86]

Loseless does not equal high definition.

To the comment above. 24/192 equipment is not hard at all to find. I got my Nuforce HDP that drive my Sennheiser HD650's, off of Amazon. Wasn't difficult at all.

The 256kAAC format Apple offers is often full of artifacts. I get my music elsewhere and it's sad to see some of the replies of this thread. There are just too many incorrect/misleading comments to qoute.

 

[mwulf67]

Loseless does not equal high definition.

To the comment above. 24/192 equipment is not hard at all to find. I got my Nuforce HDP that drive my Sennheiser HD650's, off of Amazon. Wasn't difficult at all.

The 256kAAC format Apple offers is often full of artifacts. I get my music elsewhere and it's sad to see some of the replies of this thread. There are just too many dumb comments to qoute.

Howbout, we amend that to finding affordable equipment...most people aren't going to spend $1000 on a sound card and a set of headphones...

 

[oshia86]

I would even include a setup such as an Asus Essence ST/X and some Grado SR 80i's to that. All that for $300. I'm assuming most people use a pc/mac in this scenerio, given the forum.

The Nuforce isn't technically a sound card either, just an fyi, its an external headphone dac/amp. I understand your point though, and I agree with that.

 

[subsonix]

Loseless does not equal high definition.

But ALAC lossless can contain a 24/192 data, no problem. It's just like zip, in that the compression is a way to store the data more economically.

 

[oshia86]

Yes, it can, but it isn't always so.

 

[designgeek]

So many posts, has anyone described the difference between digital and analog and how that applies to sound waves? It's been a while and I'm a little rusty so correct me where I'm wrong.

Analog is much more accurate, take this waveform for example:

Granted the sample rate (the rate at which a digital analyzer measures the wave) could be high enough to render audio indistinguishable for human hearing, it frequently is not.

CDs are recorded with a 44.1 kHz sample rate and a 16bit depth, meaning there are 65,536 different levels whit which audio can be represented and the signal is sampled 44,100 times a second. This may seem like a lot but it really isn't. The point at which the difference between analog and digital becomes negligible to most people is at a bit depth of 24 (16,777,216 levels) and a sample rate of around 96 kHz or 96,000 times a second. This produces damn near the infinite variation that analog provides naturally.

For you High Def nuts, think of it as 44.1/16 is like 720i and 96/24 is like 4k.

I hope this helps explain a little bit about the processing. Do keep in mind however, the quality of your setup will have a strong factor in your audio quality as well. With Apple's standard headphones you're not likely to notice a difference. If you have some Grados or a Klipsch sound system though, the difference will be immediately apparent. I know when I got some fairly nice Polk uprights and played a 128k mp3 over my tv the sound quality was awful because the speakers and my receiver were capable of rendering the minutiae of the signal.

 

[Fireboltfury]

This is why I don't buy music anymore. I can pay for ****** quality music or get cd quality music for free. Tough choice.

 

[Fiddler70]

mp3 and wav comparison:

http://www.noiseaddicts.com/2010/04/...en-wav-vs-mp3/

Night and day.

Totally agree... in the MP3 I could not even hear it was a plucked Bass... muddy muddy everything... using Apogee Duet and BD DT 880 Pro headphones.

Cannot bring myself to pay for MP3 and I think it's unbelievable that in the past 20 years sound has gotten worse. Young kids don't know sound any more.

I am a violin professor... and I care!

 

[Sol]

This is why I don't buy music anymore. I can pay for ****** quality music or get cd quality music for free. Tough choice.

That is a self-serving argument. You are ignoring the option to buy your CD-quality music on CDs and contribute to the economy of artists, publishers, distributors and stores. It's theft and you are making lame excuses for it as if you are entitled to have everything you want for free.

 

[subsonix]

Analog is much more accurate, take this waveform for example:

Image

Granted the sample rate (the rate at which a digital analyzer measures the wave) could be high enough to render audio indistinguishable for human hearing, it frequently is not.

The sine wave in that image could be perfectly represented with 2 samples. One for the peak and one for the valley, that is the implication of the Nyquist theorem which states, the sample frequency needed is twice the frequency being sampled. The points in between is created in the DAC with a reconstruction filter and interpolation.

 

[mutantteenager]

If digital music is so great why was Steve Jobs of all people listening to vinyl?

 

[Sol]

If digital music is so great why was Steve Jobs of all people listening to vinyl?

Probably because his hi-fi systems cost more than anyone on this forum makes in a year.

 

[subsonix]

If digital music is so great why was Steve Jobs of all people listening to vinyl?

I don't know. I listen to vinyl, actually, I prefer it. I like the sound and the format. Only negative I have to say is that it's a bit bulky in large quantities.

 

[Dan--]

The sine wave in that image could be perfectly represented with 2 samples. One for the peak and one for the valley, that is the implication of the Nyquist theorem which states, the sample frequency needed is twice the frequency being sampled. The points in between is created in the DAC with a reconstruction filter and interpolation.

Yep. For additional info, see: http://www.indiana.edu/~emusic/etext/digital_audio/chapter5_dac.shtml

"Because the output of a DAC creates a staircase wave (as in the sampling rate diagram of the previous module) instead of a smoother analog one, a smoothing (lowpass) filter tuned to the sampling rate acts to reduce the sharpness of those steps and the unwanted frequencies they can produce. The reason some super high-end audio applications have gone to not only 24-bits, but also to a 96K or 192K sampling rate is to make sure the roll-off of those filters—and the ADC anti-aliasing filters—are not in the audio range at all."

 

[androiphone]

If digital music is so great why was Steve Jobs of all people listening to vinyl?

Probably because his hi-fi systems cost more than anyone on this forum makes in a year.

plus it is the format that he will have grown up with, if he didn't listen to it for any 'sound quality' reasons, he probably listened to it for nostalgia reasons.

people always like what they know, most of what you know comes from your childhood hence most 'old' (you know what I mean) people like and perhaps prefer vinyl. same reasons you get 'old' people still saying how pounds, shillings and pence were better than decimal.

 

[Eric-PTEK]

For those who still do not seem to understand what is meant by Compression read this:

http://www.dr-lex.be/info-stuff/loudness_wars.html

This really came to light with the Red Hot Chilli Peppers release Californication. The vinyl release was awesome, the CD release was compressed to high hell and was horrible.

As far as my comments on a HD multi channel format, fine there are some out there but no content for it at all.

Formats without content mean nothing.

 

[Sol]

For those who still do not seem to understand what is meant by Compression read this:

http://www.dr-lex.be/info-stuff/loudness_wars.html

This really came to light with the Red Hot Chilli Peppers release Californication. The vinyl release was awesome, the CD release was compressed to high hell and was horrible.

As far as my comments on a HD multi channel format, fine there are some out there but no content for it at all.

Formats without content mean nothing.

There is definitely a problem with over-compression in pop music but let's not throw the baby out with the bath-water. Recent Radiohead albums and the entire Chemical Brothers catalogue use compression liberally and sound amazing as a result, at least to my ears. The technique should not be used in everything the same way but depending on the music, it can add a layer of polish that makes a good album sound great.

 

[firestarter]

So many posts, has anyone described the difference between digital and analog and how that applies to sound waves? It's been a while and I'm a little rusty so correct me where I'm wrong.

Analog is much more accurate, take this waveform for example:

Image

Designgeek... you used the same nonsensical graphic from the incorrect 'How Stuff Works' article that mutantteenager quoted a page ago.

http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/question487.htm

As others have pointed out - there's no 'staircase waveform' effect like that shown in the diagram, due to anti-aliasing filters used in the D to A.

44.1kHz sampling rates can recreate sound below 22.05kHz (above the limit of human hearing), and more than 16 bits gives plenty of dynamic range in a playback medium. 24 bits is used for professional recording - but that's just to provide extra headroom. Once music is 'normalised', extra headroom is not required.

Read this!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyquist–Shannon_sampling_theorem

 

[androiphone]

ok fun facts:

according to wikipedia iTunes has 20million tracks around the world, if we take that each track is on average 5 minutes each then that is 100,000,000 minuets if music, if all that music was in Stereo WAV DXD 24BIT/352.8kHz which takes up 1GB per 10 minutes, then apple will need 10PB (10,000TB) to store them all.

if music was sold in Stereo WAV DXD 24BIT/352.8kHz then a 60 minute album would be 6GB, on a 50Mbit connection it would take 16 minutes to download, which I don't think is too bad. (though on an 8Mbit connection you are looking at 102 minutes to download)

also it is important to note that apple and all digital music sites (7digital/amazon/spotify) get all their music from the music labels in lossless already, and it is up to them to convert them,
therefore if they decided to sell it lossless they would require significantly less server storage than now, considering they have a copy in lossless and a copy in lossy.
(if anyone knows exactly the quality of the lossless they get please post)

 

[kdarling]

plus it is the format that he will have grown up with, if he didn't listen to it for any 'sound quality' reasons, he probably listened to it for nostalgia reasons.

Perhaps.

He also grew up when 8-track tapes and reel-to-reel were popular, but he didn't latch onto those

I think it was probably not quite nostalgia, but maybe a retained belief that we all had at the time that vinyl was more personal than tape. For example, it was usually part of the ritual that you'd read the album cover while listening to the songs. A tiny electronic device just doesn't recreate that feeling.

 

[BubbaMc]

Band limited does not mean limited in resolution. You set your sampling rate according to the nyquist frequency, but the absolute quantification error is set by the converter resolution (16-20-24bits).

Even better, if you raise the sampling frequency you can lower the quantification error for a given resolution, that's what DSD does. (see "noise shaping", "dithering")

But this discussion will be steril as long as people will use "pretty much" and "exact" next to another in the same sentence.

How much dynamic range do you think is present on the most dynamic recording? I'll tell you right now that it's waaaaaay under the 98dB limit of the CD medium.

The signal to noise ratio of the CD medium is more than enough for audio.

 

[Aragornii]

Then what is the point ? Analog vs Digital ? I think we've already talked about that...

The point, as I understand Neil Young to be saying, is that digital audio out there currently, i.e., CDs, does a poor job of recreating the artist's music. He's not saying that we need FLAC to replace 256kpbs, but that we need something that is superior to CDs.