I just posted a short video demoing how you can upgrade your songs to iTunes Plus for free now, and all of your meta data is saved.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaSn9C30wuo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaSn9C30wuo
Basically what we have here is Apple redefining "streaming".
Perhaps this is part of/the beginning of that "new technology" Apple is working on ?
Go ahead. Give me them -1
You know, you're wrong. Lossless audio is the only kind of audio thats interesting to me, when it comes to my personal collection. I tolerate other bit rates, but not for music I truly care about.
Live performances should never be listened to in anything other than lossless, or you're simply listening to a bunch of noise.
I did a Foobar2000 ABX Comparator test between 320Kbps LAME, V0 LAME, 320Kbps AAC, 320Kbps Fraunhofer, 320Kbps ABR LAME, ALAC and FLAC. The lossy formats were derived from the FLAC original.
You know, you're wrong. Lossless audio is the only kind of audio thats interesting to me, when it comes to my personal collection. I tolerate other bit rates, but not for music I truly care about.
Live performances should never be listened to in anything other than lossless, or you're simply listening to a bunch of noise.
Done volume matched, double-blind? Otherwise your comparisons are meaningless.
Yet its funny that the vast majority of musicians I know, especially the really good classical ones, care little about recorded audio quality, and can be moved deeply by a piece played over the radio on a crappy car stereo.
However I would much rather listen or play it in an acoustically designed building.
Of course. This was in response to people who act like the only music worth listening to is in a perfect environment. In my experience, those are the people who tend to like listening to the equipment rather than the music.
A couple things - it's impractical to stream all your music over 3G, but it will be great for those times when you want a particular song that isn't on your device.
Also, people seem to forget that you can use it over wifi as well. You wouldn't use streaming in that situation but it would be great for road trips - listen to a bunch of music, next time you're in your hotel room or a coffee shop with wifi you refresh your playlists and download a bunch of new songs. Not to mention things like listening to your iTunes library at work.
That's exactly what he said... you can only stream things you own. Whether the iTunes store actually carries it or not is irrelevant; that's why they allow you to upload those files manually. But you cannot stream the entire iTunes library (ala Spotify) on demand; it is only the music you personally own.Nope, that doesn't seem to be the case at all. Some songs are matched, any that aren't in the apple store are uploaded so they are available to you.
You do realize that this is exactly what is happening, though; a song only stays in the cache until the next song begins playing. So unless you are listening to the same song over and over again, you are transferring the data for that song every time you decide to play it.It would make no sense for Apple to stream-only, as most users are going to re-listen to favourite songs and albums, so it makes no sense to stream them time and again when you can just keep the whole file from the first play-through and re-play it.
Unless you mean cheap-ass speakers. No. They have different dynamic ranges, different response curves, etc.CD and vinyl were proven to have the same audio fidelity, as long as they're through hi-fi speakers.
I tried the iTunes auto-128k-transfer-to-iPhone once. Once. It hurt. Still haven't taken the lossless files off, although I'm coming close to trying 256k.No, he's right. You're not suffering, you're just whining about not being catered to.
That's crap. Let's see them say that. Maybe they care little about recorded audio, period.Yet its funny that the vast majority of musicians I know, especially the really good classical ones, care little about recorded audio quality, and can be moved deeply by a piece played over the radio on a crappy car stereo.
I hope you aren't equating morons with the audiophile group. I can still hear NTSC TV whine. (if I could find such a TV) 15.7KHz, and I'm 40 and male. Per the standard charts, I should already be down to 13KHz or so at conversational dbs.Most of the people complaining are going deaf any how. None of the people have ever had their hearing checked. They probley have alot of loss in the upper and the lower ranges. When you can hear them coming down the street from 2 blocks away, and you can feel the bass pounding away. They don't realize what they are doing to their hearing. And once it goes it never comes back.
Once again, the point of this service is not to debate the merits of modern audio compression, but to provide a streaming option for those who enjoy their music on the go. This service doesn't degrade the audio any further than it already is being provided today; if that isn't good enough for you then you aren't in the iTunes demographic to begin with.Blah blah blah... I can hear better than you.
I'm still skeptical. Let's assume an average song is about 3.5mb in size, and you have monthly data allowance of 500mb. That allows you to download roughly 143 songs before reaching your data limit.
Now, let's factor in data that's used for other downloads/games, apps, email, etc. Assuming that eats about 100mb - leaving you with 400 - you then have enough data for about 114 songs before exceeding your data allowance.
Assume you have 4 playlists with about 40-50 songs on each, and you can easily exceed your monthly data allowance. If you have to rely on a wifi connection, then you're not really able to listen where you want/when you want. I just don't see how people can take advantage of the iCloud concept given the data restrictions they have to work with. Canadian consumers are being gouged by the big telecom companies, so perhaps this is a more pressing issue north of the border?
I did a Foobar2000 ABX Comparator test between 320Kbps LAME, V0 LAME, 320Kbps AAC, 320Kbps Fraunhofer, 320Kbps ABR LAME, ALAC and FLAC. The lossy formats were derived from the FLAC original.
Between the lossy formats, there was little to no difference in sound quality. V0 had the lowest file size, which makes sense because it's a variable bit rate.
The difference between the lossless formats were nonexistent.
The difference between lossy formats and lossless formats were extremely clear. Because I listen to non-compressed music (as opposed to the 21st century's heavily compressed waveforms), the song I chose was 1812 Overture Telarc edition because:
Cannons provide high peak volumes
The choir entrance provides low volumes
The quality of the recording captures a large range of frequencies
It's an epic song to listen to and does not bore you when you listen to it for the 10th time
In most of the lossy formats, the peak volume of certain cannon shots were distorted. Low volumes were hard to hear. A certain ambience was removed from the original lossless version. The distortion was heavy, especially during the "s" sounds of the choir.
I could write a science paper on this...
Point being, the majority of people listen to the compressed music of the 21st century (see Death Magnetic). Which means the music is somewhat distorted to some extent already when in a lossless format, and when you transcode that music into a 320Kbps file, you won't really notice the degradation because the original itself was already distorted.
When the lossless original is distortion-free, such as the 1812 Overture recording that I tested with, the lost of data is clearly audible when you convert them into MP3s.
(compression in this post means dynamic range compression)
And it's often times not the device that limits the sound quality, but rather it's the speakers. The majority of users either go with the comfort of Apple's remote and mic or with cheap Skullcandy/JVC/etc. which don't even come close to replicating the fidelity of lossless music. When you have high-fidelity studio headphones and speakers, you can enjoy lossless music to its fullest extent.
Sometimes there are smaller threads within a forum thread. Roll with it.Once again, the point of this service is not to debate the merits of modern audio compression, but to provide a streaming option for those who enjoy their music on the go. This service doesn't degrade the audio any further than it already is being provided today; if that isn't good enough for you then you aren't in the iTunes demographic to begin with.
I don't have a problem with that, I just think you're about 20 years late if you want to start debating the merits of mp3 compression.Sometimes there are smaller threads within a forum thread. Roll with it.
im more than happy on Google Music Beta.
you can stream, or download the song onto your phone. you know, choices.
oh and its free (up to 20,000 songs)
i have about 8 Google music invites so if anyone is interested pm me.