Apple Reportedly Looking to Offer 24-Bit Music Files in iTunes Store

[ironsienna]

Quote:
Companies though like Chesky, TELLARC and Harmonia Mundi are prominent for the quality of the equipment they are using. It is then that a high quality cable can do the difference. Not when you are listening e.g. to Rihana screaming "disturbia".
It saddens me that you're drawn to listening to test recordings over thousand dollar wires, rather than 'real music'. Music isn't about the very last nuance in tone - it's about emotional impact. Those that push the limits of music aren't the people making 'purist' recordings in studios which have a side business selling audiophile loudspeakers.

You consider Harmonia Mundi and Telarc test recording companies? Oh my you are hilarious.. I am not going to respond anymore on personal attacks.. I have more important things to do with my life. Each one with his life.. And if you don't have a life then go get one..

 

[jowie]

You consider Harmonia Mundi and Telarc test recording companies? Oh my you are hilarious.. I am not going to respond anymore on personal attacks.. I have more important things to do with my life. Each one with his life.. And if you don't have a life then go get one..

Funny that you are the one making the personal attacks. This would be an interesting argument if you didn't end up responding by telling people to go and get a life.

 

[firestarter]

You consider Harmonia Mundi and Telarc test recording companies? Oh my you are hilarious..

Laugh away... You're the one choosing your listening material based on the equipment used for the recording, not the artistic and emotional content.

I am not going to respond anymore on personal attacks.. I have more important things to do with my life. Each one with his life.. And if you don't have a life then go get one..

You've made this personal, and about you. That's probably unavoidable though, if you're defending a position based solely on your personal perception, and not backed by science or industry practice.

 

[ironsienna]

You've made this personal, and about you. That's probably unavoidable though, if you're defending a position based solely on your personal perception, and not backed by science or industry practice.

In my previous posts I backed my beliefs by suggesting 2 "industry practice" articles and one scientific paper. The only reason I dont continue this argument is my limited time and not the lack of proof on what I am supporting. I really don't have time to write lengthy posts with proofs (not to mention that I also don't need to defend personal choices) and as I see here people are quite hard core on doing that. Anyway I apologise for my tone on the previous post, but if you read my first post I didn't have the intention on insulting anyone.. O tempora o mores..

The way each one enjoys his music is respectable. Doesn't matter if its your way or my way. Can we please move on now and focus on the hi-rez itunes music news?

 

[faust1229]

HD AAC an Important Step in Digital Music Evolution

Um, I assume you know that DVD-A and SACD have been around for years?

However, 24bit is completely irrelevant for music that has been heavily compressed and limited (ie dynamic range compression, not data-storage compression as in lossy mp3/aac etc): the dynamic range that you can get with 24bit audio is really only of interest for jazz and orchestral music, or for other styles where there is a large dynamic range: flatline-limited rock and pop has virtually no dynamic range these days. Just google "Loudness War" or read this page:
http://flowingdata.com/2010/01/05/a-visual-history-of-loudness-in-popular-music/
There's a relevant comment on that page:

In that context, 24bit is really irrelevant.

Anytime you dither or truncate audio from 24 bit to 16 bit regardless of how much limiting goes on in mastering you lose quality that is audible to the listener. With the introduction of HD AAC which is 24 bit and up to 192 Khz it would be easy for iTunes to make the move to offering HD audio as an option to the consumer. I believe it's an important step in the evolution of the digital music age and I hope this does happen. Of course consumers benefiting from the higher fidelity audio files would be contingent on them owning equipment capable of reproducing the higher quality audio along with decent speakers or headphones. Lastly the statement that 24 bit audio being useless because the average human can't hear above 20 Khz and there is a lack of dynamic range in current popular music is simply not true. First of all, with all due respect this person is at least partially confusing bit depth with frequency response. Bit depth corresponds to the resolution of each sample and sample rate corresponds to how many samples per second are recorded. When you talk about sample rates which for consumer audio are currently 44.1 Khz or 44100 samples per second this is twice the sample rate of what the average human is capable of hearing (woman can hear frequencies up to about 22 Khz, men typically don't hear above 16-18 Khz). Current consumer grade digital audio is usually recorded at twice that of the maximum frequency rate detectable by human ears, hence the 44.1 Khz. This was arrived at through Nyquist theory. However many believe that sampling rates above 44.1 Khz effect the sound of audio within the frequency range that is audible by the human ear. In other words some believe that through adding harmonic information above the range of a human's ability to hear effects the sound of the audio within the range of human hearing. Bit depth again refers to the resolution of each sample in a recording and has nothing to do with the sample rate or frequency of the music. Also bit depth is exponential so 24 bit is more than twice the recorded information per sample as 16 bit. In a nutshell there would definitely be a noticeable quality difference between 16 bit and 24 bit files when played on a decent sound system even for music that has a limited dynamic range due to heavy limiting in mastering.

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

Anytime you dither or truncate audio from 24 bit to 16 bit regardless of how much limiting goes on in mastering you lose quality that is audible to the listener.

That is pure unadulterated bologna.

Let's see the double blind tests to back that up. "Any time" is so broad it's ridiculous. If you don't have 16 bits of dynamic range to begin with, you can hardly lose anything but noise by dithering down to 16 and MOST music doesn't have anywhere NEAR 96dB of dynamic range in it, particularly in 2011 (probably less than 30dB with most "rock" music today that is so compressed it's just ridiculous).

Being able to "hear" a dynamic range difference also depends on playing it back at levels that recreate that much dynamic range. Otherwise, it tends to get lost in the noise floor. Add to that the fact the listener has to be able to reliably even notice the difference and your statement is just so much nonsense.

 

[firefoxussr]

24-bit is the best possible format even if they offered it in Apple Lossless. You could easily just transcode it to FLAC with no loss in quality. I would LOVE this and actually buy music from the iTunes store. This would probably also put the finishing touches on killing CDs, if the price of an album was less digitally still. Having my favorite albums in 24bit, without the pops in the vinyl rips is a something I've been waiting for.

Also, if this is true, there is virtually no way the iPod Classic will die. It will have to live in some form (HDD based player), because 24 bit files are absolutely huge. I have 2 24-bit vinyl rips that are about a gigabyte for an album, and that's not even a particularly huge album (Your Favorite Weapon and The Devil and God are Raging Inside Me by Brand New).

Is there anyway you could point me at that Your Favorite Weapon 24-bit? firefoxussr@gmail.com or pm/friend me.