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High Definition iTunes Music Downloads May Be on the Horizon
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Neil Young won't be too happy about this.
To be fair to Mr Young he probably doesn't care, he is hardly known for playing by the rules or for following others trends or advice. Remember when the story appeared here, many thought he wasn't going to get a buck but he ploughed on undaunted and seems to be around $6M now, mind you you have to wonder about the Mr Y effect (note not placebo effect) i.e. I donated, I hated the look/dimensions of the product, I love Mr Y.
"red beats run son and the numbers all add up to nothing"
This is complete and utter ********!
Why?
Have you ever listened to an HDCD?
Even on a regular CD player that is not HDCD capable?
It shows how much quality can be extracted from good old 16bit/44.1kHz if you care about QUALITY instead of QUANTITY!
If most music is mastered in CRAPPY quality then it won't matter whether we store that CRAP in 16 or 24 bit!!!!!!!
This makes me MAD!
As one might be able to tell ;-)
Why?
Have you ever listened to an HDCD?
Even on a regular CD player that is not HDCD capable?
It shows how much quality can be extracted from good old 16bit/44.1kHz if you care about QUALITY instead of QUANTITY!
If most music is mastered in CRAPPY quality then it won't matter whether we store that CRAP in 16 or 24 bit!!!!!!!
This makes me MAD!
As one might be able to tell ;-)
No, I'm not joking. I'm sorry it's hard for you to understand anything outside your bubble.
so to combat declining sales apple are adding another tier at extra cost meaning those who have already bought tracks are looking at another purchase?!!!!!
Duh that is not how to increase sales!
I don't know if apple even understand bit depths and sample rates but considering human hearing and the speakers/headphones are always inadequate compared to the source it's putting the cart before the horse.
Even the best speakers struggle to depict the resolution of 24bit and is only useful if you are mangling audio with complex FX in a DAW in actuality. 44.1Hz is plenty as it's well over twice the resolution of the human ear and most speakers also struggle to reproduce the bandwidth available.
There is so much distortion and colour added by 99% of systems there is simple no point in higher than CD res audio.
Also wave or aiff are all better in their original intended format no matter the system, most audio is still recorded in 44.1 24bit as a maximum. Bands maybe at higher but dance and electronic is most certainly done at the bare minimum.
uncompressed or lossless is all apple should offer and it should cost the exact same or free to owners. Apple is providing the content at the cost it offers compressed files because the customer doesn't have loads of space to store it and the quality loss is negligible for the gains in storage.
Apple needs to realise that people need free music as the starting point and apple don't offer that in most countries.
Apple should offer free radio with DJs etc, independent of carrier bandwidths now that would drive sales, as people listen, like and then decide to buy. that mechanism just isn't there.
Duh that is not how to increase sales!
I don't know if apple even understand bit depths and sample rates but considering human hearing and the speakers/headphones are always inadequate compared to the source it's putting the cart before the horse.
Even the best speakers struggle to depict the resolution of 24bit and is only useful if you are mangling audio with complex FX in a DAW in actuality. 44.1Hz is plenty as it's well over twice the resolution of the human ear and most speakers also struggle to reproduce the bandwidth available.
There is so much distortion and colour added by 99% of systems there is simple no point in higher than CD res audio.
Also wave or aiff are all better in their original intended format no matter the system, most audio is still recorded in 44.1 24bit as a maximum. Bands maybe at higher but dance and electronic is most certainly done at the bare minimum.
uncompressed or lossless is all apple should offer and it should cost the exact same or free to owners. Apple is providing the content at the cost it offers compressed files because the customer doesn't have loads of space to store it and the quality loss is negligible for the gains in storage.
Apple needs to realise that people need free music as the starting point and apple don't offer that in most countries.
Apple should offer free radio with DJs etc, independent of carrier bandwidths now that would drive sales, as people listen, like and then decide to buy. that mechanism just isn't there.
I've not read the whole thread, so apologies if this has already been linked, or something equivalent (there are many such articles out there):
http://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html
A brief summary: high sampling rates are unnecessary, as you are effectively sampling stuff we simply cannot hear (an interesting comparison with a proposed videophile movement which might insist on a video disc format which sampled and played back the infrared spectrum is made). Worse, unless you filter the high frequencies off at point of playback and have a different amplifier/speaker serving them you are liable to introduce distortion into the audible playback. In other words, high sampling rates give us no benefit, and can potentially sound worse than 44.1/48kHz.
As for high bit rates, 24 bit and higher is used in the studio when recording and mastering for very good reasons: it gives you a higher ceiling and allows you more room before you hit distortion at either end. It also is needed for some production work. Once it comes to mastering however, it's no longer needed. The good news here is at least it doesn't sound worse if you have high bit rate playback: it just won't sound better and it takes up more space.
That's a brief and probably fairly poor summary. Have a read of the full article though.
http://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html
A brief summary: high sampling rates are unnecessary, as you are effectively sampling stuff we simply cannot hear (an interesting comparison with a proposed videophile movement which might insist on a video disc format which sampled and played back the infrared spectrum is made). Worse, unless you filter the high frequencies off at point of playback and have a different amplifier/speaker serving them you are liable to introduce distortion into the audible playback. In other words, high sampling rates give us no benefit, and can potentially sound worse than 44.1/48kHz.
As for high bit rates, 24 bit and higher is used in the studio when recording and mastering for very good reasons: it gives you a higher ceiling and allows you more room before you hit distortion at either end. It also is needed for some production work. Once it comes to mastering however, it's no longer needed. The good news here is at least it doesn't sound worse if you have high bit rate playback: it just won't sound better and it takes up more space.
That's a brief and probably fairly poor summary. Have a read of the full article though.
As someone who actually understands digital audio, enjoys music as an actual active listening experience, doesn't need to crap on things that other people enjoy even if I don't when they don't affect me, and wants the best music quality available- this just made my day!
If you doubt you can hear a difference, go listen to a demo of some Wilson audio or Meridian systems in a proper audio listening environment
----------
This.
If you doubt you can hear a difference, go listen to a demo of some Wilson audio or Meridian systems in a proper audio listening environment
----------
This.
just because apple may start to do this, then everyone has to complain that it'll be too expensive...
and suddenly everyone feels a deeper force that forces them to buy it!
do people have any knowledge of already existing hd-music-stores websites? do people know what's the average price for 24/192 files? yes, they are expensive!
is it just marketing? it may be! but i, personally, don't have the hardware to worship the difference in sounds, and have never listened to such an hi-fi so i can't say for sure that 24/192 is useless!
and a person who has the possibility to invest 20->50k$ in a high quality stereo system, wouldn't indulge, in my opinion, in giving out 25-30$ per album..
and suddenly everyone feels a deeper force that forces them to buy it!
do people have any knowledge of already existing hd-music-stores websites? do people know what's the average price for 24/192 files? yes, they are expensive!
is it just marketing? it may be! but i, personally, don't have the hardware to worship the difference in sounds, and have never listened to such an hi-fi so i can't say for sure that 24/192 is useless!
and a person who has the possibility to invest 20->50k$ in a high quality stereo system, wouldn't indulge, in my opinion, in giving out 25-30$ per album..
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When I got my first really good stereo I noticed that 99% of all CDs didn't sound much better. Before we up the bitrate, we should make sure that ALL CDs are actually mastered well so that we actually use all these bits! Otherwise it's just higher bitrate crap.
Couldn't agree more.
However the point is to THEM it sounds better. :/ and to everyone else, its better with the right equipment.
However Z+ music app on the app store fir iPhone, suppose to prove otherwise.
If people can tell the difference with that app, then maybe the higher bit rate could be true "in theory". Anything is possible *in theory*
128GB pleeeease
I'm waiting for a 128GB iPod Touch since 2009.
Back in the days when my iPod Photo broke I had to switch back to a top-shelve Sony discman, figuring ... "Wow, there is more music hidden inside this music". Since then I'm ripping all my CD's with ALAC. (I don't dare to make a judgment, if 320kbs would also be enough)
I was almost considering to buy a Pono Music Player or even a NWZ-ZX1.
But no iTunes compatibility is a real deal-breaker.
Now to something completely different:
Seeing all the kids in the Pono add being excited about the sound, makes me almost suspecting the Pono team of adding some kind of filter to the output. Also because they are claiming that the player will even make your regular MP3 files sound better.
Remember the "live" button on discman's? It made music sound so much more exciting and spacious. Than again it was not how the artist or mastering-engineer were intending the music.
I'm waiting for a 128GB iPod Touch since 2009.
Back in the days when my iPod Photo broke I had to switch back to a top-shelve Sony discman, figuring ... "Wow, there is more music hidden inside this music". Since then I'm ripping all my CD's with ALAC. (I don't dare to make a judgment, if 320kbs would also be enough)
I was almost considering to buy a Pono Music Player or even a NWZ-ZX1.
But no iTunes compatibility is a real deal-breaker.
Now to something completely different:
Seeing all the kids in the Pono add being excited about the sound, makes me almost suspecting the Pono team of adding some kind of filter to the output. Also because they are claiming that the player will even make your regular MP3 files sound better.
Remember the "live" button on discman's? It made music sound so much more exciting and spacious. Than again it was not how the artist or mastering-engineer were intending the music.
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You aren't hearing a difference due to the format, you are hearing the differences in the mastering process. SACD releases are nearly always remastered.
If nobody could tell the difference with statistical significance, it wouldn't matter if one user was at 65% or whatever you might like to see. All it means is that one person had slightly different results from their guessing, not that they can hear better than someone who was at 50%
You don't have any idea what bit depth means, do you?
Another thing folks, as one of you who likes his gear, and has a setup worth more than many entry-level cars, what I found when I went through the double blind tests for myself years ago was that their was virtually no correlation to the quality of ones gear and the ability to tell the difference. It only takes gear of marginal quality (ie. a set of Sony MDR-7506's or better) and better gear doesn't improve your results. The few people who could reliably tell 256Kb from the higher res files freely admit that it's not because the higher res files sound better, but because they have been taught exactly which artifacts to listen for. The take-away is that you should find music you like and listen to it, and let your gear fade into the background.
I'd much rather have lossless ALAC files than the stupid 24/192 scam. According to the physics (described in the article already posted here) the 192kHz sampling renders the sound actually worse. I tend to believe it as with my experience in EEG processing removing all the frequencies above useful threshold makes the processing much much more performing.
Surprise
Hi everyone,
is it a surprise that Apple just after the big success of Kickstarter project PONO by Neil Young seems to introduce high-res audio files?
I don't think so.
It looks like Apple fears to loose business.
This concept has been put in a drawer for years ans now it has to come
for this exact reason.
Apple does not invent, they react in this case.
Compition is good, but it will be typical again for Apple,
Apple Lossless codec is one-way-Apple-only.
Check out the videos from the PONO project, I think they are quite convincing, especially the user tests!
Cheers
Hi everyone,
is it a surprise that Apple just after the big success of Kickstarter project PONO by Neil Young seems to introduce high-res audio files?
I don't think so.
It looks like Apple fears to loose business.
This concept has been put in a drawer for years ans now it has to come
for this exact reason.
Apple does not invent, they react in this case.
Compition is good, but it will be typical again for Apple,
Apple Lossless codec is one-way-Apple-only.
Check out the videos from the PONO project, I think they are quite convincing, especially the user tests!
Cheers
THIS is Apple's strategy to turn things around for declining iTunes downloads? Appeal to rich audiophiles?? Good luck with that.
Apple should automatically replace all previously purchased songs for their HIgh Fidelity counterpart for free. It is this sort of decision that will get or lose you customers.
They should do this as if the service was offered thrn customers would of bought the higher sampled track to begin with.
They should do this as if the service was offered thrn customers would of bought the higher sampled track to begin with.
Finally
What you waiting for?
Ohh wait. The new iphone will be the only one who can handle this type of resolution...
What you waiting for?
Ohh wait. The new iphone will be the only one who can handle this type of resolution...
Me, neither. Hi-Def portable devices have been around for a while now.
The iBasso DX50 can be had for little more than the cost of an iPod Classic and can be expanded up to 2TB with SDXC cards.