High Definition iTunes Music Downloads May Be on the Horizon

[haravikk]

Here's to hoping they allow upgrades to the 24bit quality via iTunes match.

I'm hoping for the same thing; I do have quite a large collection of ageing files but so far haven't bothered with iTunes Match for replacing them. But if I could switch to really high-quality versions then I'd be much more interested!


Although, I wonder what the file-sizes will be like; I assume they'll still use lossless compression, but I wonder if Apple will be rolling out any improvements to their lossless codec to keep the file-sizes from getting too huge. Not that I'm short on space, but I have over 10,700 songs, with roughly 40% at 256kbps or better AAC already. I also collect new music relatively slowly as I can be quite picky, so I'm sure there are plenty of people with much, much larger collections than mine. AAC gives good sound for good file-sizes, so I'm bit concerned my library might explode in size if I want to make the push to even higher quality files…

 

[Cycles2]

Keep an Open Mind

Only a fool would by 24/192 "hi-res" files. It's placebo.

True, hi-Res won't mean much if you're listening on your phone or computer speakers. But if you've ever heard hi-res on a quality DAC with a good stereo system, you wouldn't say it's a placebo effect. Just listen to the Who's Tommy on CD and compare it to the HDTracks hi-res version at 96K, 24 bit. Not even close as the CD version is just about unlistenable. Same for lots of other 96K/24b bit hi-res tracks. I'll admit that it's hard to justify 192K as the difference in sound quality vs. 96K is not so obvious.

 

[Chupa Chupa]

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

1. Intentionally or not your post comes off condescending and snobbish.

2. I don't think anyone is objecting to higher bit rate audio, just having to pay 80-100% more for it. I for one still buy CDs & convert them myself because I can achieve better sound quality for the $ -- ironically CDs are often less expensive than their d/l version. But sadly, all CDs at some point will end up in a landfill. If the music industry, talent, & retailers really cared about the environment as much as the claim they do then we'd have true CD quality or better audio d/ls at no extra cost right now.

 

[Zimmy68]

Neil Young won't be too happy about this.

He will be ecstatic because he actually sells a portable player that can play these files.

Still waiting for answer to my question through all this debate:

What is everyone going to play these hi-rez files on???
VLC player on their computer?

 

[Mr. Wonderful]

True, hi-Res won't mean much if you're listening on your phone or computer speakers. But if you've ever heard hi-res on a quality DAC with a good stereo system, you wouldn't say it's a placebo effect. Just listen to the Who's Tommy on CD and compare it to the HDTracks hi-res version at 96K, 24 bit. Not even close as the CD version is just about unlistenable. Same for lots of other 96K/24b bit hi-res tracks. I'll admit that it's hard to justify 192K as the difference in sound quality vs. 96K is not so obvious.

The HD Tracks version is a different master... They aren't directly comparable.

If you wanted to compare formats, convert your HDTracks version to 256kbps, and "hear" the difference.

 

[sj27]

As a former audiophile geek, I’ve enjoyed reading through this. When CDs first came out, they gained a bad reputation for sounding too bright and brittle, with vinyl offering a notably warmer sound.

Some of this, though, was due to poor mastering as well as cheap DACs and other dubious links in the system.
In 1990, I picked up a then well reviewed Rotel CD player, and even my vinyl-loving, CD-hating musician friend was surprised at the improved sound; much of the hardness was gone.

Obviously, on all fronts, technology has progressed much further in the digital realm, but still, I always felt higher bit and sampling rates would be beneficial. After all, CD’s came commercially available in 1983, when VHS was still battling it out with Betamax.

Since then, video has gone from VHS to DVD to Blu-ray to, in the near future, 4K, and I’ve already heard rumblings about 8K. Consequently, why shouldn’t audio enjoy the same resolution upgrades. (And as with photography, I realize that increasing video resolution becomes somewhat frivolous unless the screens become larger).

However, from what I’ve read here and elsewhere in the recent past, it appears that 16-bit/44.1 kHz pretty much hit the mark. Yes, I would still like to do a blind A/B test between 16/44.1 and 24/96, but I guess I shouldn’t be surprised if I couldn’t tell the difference.

What I wonder, though, is if there are those slight intangibles, that is, would the prized “warmth” come through just a little better at a higher bit rate? Would the soundstage or the underlying breath of a hi-hat improve? Frequency specs and linear measurements are only part of the equation, as each stereo system has its own characteristics.

Much of this is out of curiosity, since I blew one of my ears out (sort of) back in 1993, putting a damper on the high end endeavors. And ultimately, it is the music, in that I would rather listen to the Stooges through a Delco AM radio than Celine Dion through a Krell / Martin Logan system.

But in any event, and I realize this is much just a matter of principle, I will not buy any music unless it comes in lossless format…and if it’s still 16/44.1, fine.

 

[csbo]

Technically, yes, there is a difference between 16-bit and 24-bit that can be heard (again, will all the right gear and environment). For one thing, you get much more dynamic range. But the benefit of that dynamic range is debatable, especially since most music today is mastered for lower end environments (i.e. iPods) anyway.

My problem with the additional dynamic range isn't necessarily the mastering, it's the fact that all my listening takes place in relatively normal environments. Between ambient noise(even my own breathing) and listening at normal/non-ear damaging levels the signal (assuming a recording that managed to get something useful down there) just isn't audible

 

[pianophile]

More capacity

Finally! Now all we need is a 128gb iPhone

I'd buy a 256GB iPhone. Really a 1TB iPhone wouldn't be too large.

 

[Frankied22]

I'm not going to buy all my music again just for it to sound a little better. However, if they want to automatically upgrade all my iTunes Matcg music then I'm fine with ir

 

[janstett]

I thought to really take advantage of higher fidelity, the player also needs to have a high quality chip.

Would the iPhone/iPod's DAC be able to handle the bump in quality?

Even on old iPods (pre-iOS) I had some limited success re-encoding high-res flacs to ALAC, which has supported the higher resolutions for years even though there was nothing natively available.

I think Apple is seeing a crack in its armor that people can exploit, the quality of the DACs Apple uses have been going down, and other competition is popping up to fill the vacuum. Sony's Walkman ZX1 is an Android phone with a high quality DAC and built-in headphone amp aimed at audiophiles. Not available in the US yet but you can import one from Japan. Then there's also Pono.

Personally I'll be glad to see Apple join the party... There's an underground of high-res vinyl rips, and high-res stores like HD Tracks already exist. Apple getting on board will give legitimacy to the market, increase demand, drive competition, and maybe Apple will pay more attention to audio quality in its future products.

 

[RedOrchestra]

...i have over 10,700 songs ,,, i can be quite picky…

Really?

 

[bsolar]

I find that people who have spent their lives listening to music through crummy laptop speakers often say similar things.

There is an excellent article explaining the technical reasons here: http://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html

TL;DR: there is no point to distributing music in 24-bit/192kHz format. Its playback fidelity is slightly inferior to 16/44.1 or 16/48, and it takes up 6 times the space.

 

[warpoholic]

Really?

Really?

At this moment I'm counting 12365 (legally acquired) tracks in my iTunes.

 

[janstett]

Finally! Now all we need is a 128gb iPhone

This! Maybe they need a business case for more storage (as if video wasn't enough).

 

[RedOrchestra]

At this moment I'm counting 12365 (legally acquired) tracks in my iTunes.

With that many tunes ... quite picky is an oxymoron.

 

[RMo]

True, but who would download an HD, lossless file just to encode it with aac or mp3?

People who want to save space on a mobile device where the quality difference, if perceptible, is much less likely to matter?

 

[DenBeke]

Still waiting for answer to my question through all this debate:

What is everyone going to play these hi-rez files on???
VLC player on their computer?

iTunes?

 

[warpoholic]

With that many tunes ... quite picky is an oxymoron.

Ok, I get it, but I would also consider myself rather picky.

 

[janstett]

Apple should move on. People don't care about fidelity.

Audio quality has gotten worse with every new format starting with the CD. Are the masses going to pay more for quality audio files, or continue to stream for pennies.

The pennies win.


B

You are right that the pennies win, but wrong that audio quality has gotten worse with every format since CD. DVD-A and SACD are the spiritual predecessors of today's high res audio (many of the high res masters used were made for these formats).

I think finally, 15 years after the iPod revolution, we have reached the bottom of the audio quality canyon, and we may be starting to bounce in the other direction where quality matters again.

The real enemy here, however, is on every format regardless of quality -- dynamic range compression.

 

[jhwalker]

With that many tunes ... quite picky is an oxymoron.

Depends on how long you've been buying. We have over 60k legally-acquired tracks (most ripped losslessly from CD), with another 1,000 (or so) CDs yet to rip.

And, yes, I'm picky about the music I buy.

 

[RedOrchestra]

Depends on how long you've been buying. We have over 60k legally-acquired tracks (most ripped losslessly from CD), with another 1,000 (or so) CDs yet to rip.

And, yes, I'm picky about the music I buy.

Unless they're say classical movements, ripping entire CDs is hardly being picky - that's just plain old hoarding - not much thought in that.

 

[jephrey]

Thank You, thank you, thank you, thank you thank you. That's 5 thank yous.

24/48 is excellent for consumer hi-res audio, but 24/96 IMO, would be VERY welcome. I might actually buy from iTunes. But why stop there, I'd buy DSD128 files if iTunes could play them. With optical audio out, the weak links in the system would all be outside of the computer (as long as you're not using the headphone jack for audio-out of course)

To those of you saying that anything over xx/xxx is indiscernible to the human ear and that it's placebo are straight wrong. Read countless numbers of comments by all kinds of folks comparing various bit rates and DSD encoded audio. (FYI, DSD is kind of like 1/2800 and is what is used on SACDs). In blind and un-blind listening tests, in the proper setting,

Finally, whether you care or would or wouldn't buy the hi-res audio files is of no consequence. There is a VERY large market for hi-res audio and it's good that apple may finally give us what we want. I think that starts with 16/44.1 but should never end. As storage sizes go up, the question becomes less of why and more of why not.

thanks again

 

[RedOrchestra]

This is all pretty funny stuff - Samsung's got Apple on the run on phones, and now PONO is working them over on music quality downloads.

 

[djphat2000]

There may be animals that can hear a difference.
From the studies I've read, increasing the resolution of an audio file above CD quality is as useless as adding an infrared channel to a video file.

Terrible analogy. No different then saying the same thing about the Sun. Take away Infrared or UV light from the sun to the earth may not effect what you see. But you will experience a difference. Same with higher resolution music. There is a difference. Some you will hear right away (usually in the bass and in the highs), but almost right away when you turn the music louder. If your on a cheap under powered audio system, don't bother. If you have anything decent, and you turn up an MP3 or AAC, you will start to hear it sound; well crappy. Same track on a higher res (FLAC/lossless, 24bit 96/192Khz source) sounds wonderful.

Just by definition of what MP3's and AAC are (lossy). They take away frequencies that are assumed you can't hear (or tell are missing) to save space. Many people simply don't care, and have become incredibly used to it. This isn't better in any way shape or form. You can't hear below 20Hz but, you sure as hell can feel it.

 

[Mago]

Ha Ha, Old News for me... https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=18980127#post18980127

I said that days ago. (HD 24bit@96Khz AUDIO IS THE NEXT iTunes REVOLUTION).