High Definition iTunes Music Downloads May Be on the Horizon

[217833]

Obviously you've never heard 24/192 audio.

And obviously you have no idea about what you're talking about. Only idiotphile believe marketing crap that higher numbers means better audio. But real scientific and audio engineers know that 24/192 for end-user music download is just useless and means nothing:

http://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html

Actually, 192 kHz is even quite bad because of the lost of accuracy:

http://lavryengineering.com/pdfs/lavry-sampling-theory.pdf

On another note, anyone that can't really pass the Gold Level on the Golden Ears test can't really comment about "audio engineering" and has nothing to add to this discussion:

https://www.goldenears.philips.com/en/challenge.html

Also, a well encoded 320 kbps AAC file is pretty much almost as good as a 16bits/44.1kHz WAV file, which is more than enough for the human being hearing that doesn't exceed 20-22kHz at best and 15-16kHz for most of adult people.

So lossless files is a good thing, but there's absolutely no need for files with sampling rate over 44,1 kHz.

 

[Mr. Wonderful]

I just started using HDtracks to get a few of my favorite albums. All are 24-bit with sampling rates of 88-192 kHz. And, of course, they are sold as uncompressed full-wave PCM in various forms. Since I also have the iTunes Plus versions of the same albums, it's been interesting to compare. I have a high-quality home-theater system with relatively nice speaker. I compared by creating a USB stick with both the iTunes AAC versions and the 'high-res' versions. My Pioneer SC-72 can play both versions directly.

So is there a sound difference? Yes. The high-res versions feature treble which is less 'harsh'. So there's less ear-strain. That's good. The high-res versions have more dynamic range with less compression (thank goodness). But the biggest difference is that the bass has more definition. For example, Michael Jackson's Thriller shows the biggest difference for me. The bass lines actually sound like a real electric bass as opposed to the lower-res versions where the bass is just low notes.

But I can't hear a night-and-day difference with other recordings. Listening to Miles Davis' Kind of Blue (greatest jazz album ever, for sure) gives better definition, but I still don't feel like I'm standing in the same room with him.

Maybe my expectations were too high. Maybe my system just can't really bring out the changes. Maybe I just can't hear them.

Listening to the files on a lower-quality DAC (like an iPhone, or even a Mac) will be even more of a waste. A listener would hear a difference, but would it really be that big for files that are 10 times the size? High-res albums take 2.5-3.5G as opposed to 250-350M.

I would be interested if Apple were to release high-res versions. But I would really limit the number of purchases I did with high-res.

Are they the same masterings? If not, your point is BS.

 

[Takeo]

99% of people, probably even more, won't be able to tell the difference

I guess I'm part of the 1% then. Never bought a single album off iTunes because of it. Looking forward to this update!

 

[DesterWallaboo]

I think Apple will settle on 24-bit 96 kHz sampling rate for their new high-definition audio download format. The reason is simple: compatibility with digital master tapes that record audio also in 24-bit 96 kHz sampling rate

Besides, with 24 bits and 96 kHz sample rate, there's another advantage: treble frequency sounds will be vastly clearer, since you have a lot more data bits to record high frequencies. As such, musical instruments like cymbals, piccolo and the high notes on a piano will sound way more natural.

Ring-out on piano and other acoustic instruments is vastly superior as well.

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Are they the same masterings? If not, your point is BS.

Most anything within the past 10 years has been recorded (or remastered old tapes) at 24/96 minimum... and most within the past 5 years have been recorded/remastered at 24/192.

When we record audio for film/television work... we capture/master at 24/96 or 24/192.

 

[Mr. Wonderful]

Ring-out on piano and other acoustic instruments is vastly superior as well.

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Most anything within the past 10 years has been recorded (or remastered old tapes) at 24/96 minimum... and most within the past 5 years have been recorded/remastered at 24/192.

When we record audio for film/television work... we capture/master at 24/96 or 24/192.

The same mastering, as in, the same audio mix. Look at the sound waves. Do they look almost identical? If so, they're the same mastering. If not, they're different masters.

 

[LLIBSETAG]

iPad 2014?

NEW iPod 24 Bit device in 2014? Upgrading iPod Touch?
Hmmmm….. verrrrrry interesting.

 

[csbo]

Besides, with 24 bits and 96 kHz sample rate, there's another advantage: treble frequency sounds will be vastly clearer, since you have a lot more data bits to record high frequencies. As such, musical instruments like cymbals, piccolo and the high notes on a piano will sound way more natural.

Bit depth doesn't matter for frequencies. The added frequency content is stuff you can't hear, in many cases the mic didn't pick up well, and most likely your system can't reproduce properly

 

[unplugme71]

At 256 I personally am happy with it. I can't really hear the differences beyond that. Not $1 more anyway. Personally, they should move 256 to 128 pricing, 24bit to 256 pricing, and drop support of 128 from sales. You can use iTunes to lower the quality to fit more songs on iPod.

 

[Detrius]

I could be wrong but I'm not personally convinced lossy 96/24 files would be really worth it over 44.1/16 lossless files (which I would love the option for on iTunes) … But other than that, yeah, I agree with all of your post, well said.

DTS is 5.1, 24-bit, approx. 96kHz (might be 92kHz?), but it's at a bit rate of 384kbps. Lossy high resolution can sound way better than lossless low resolution.

Here's another way of looking at it: would you rather have a 640x480 uncompressed image or a 12MP JPEG?

 

[teknikal90]

I guess I'm part of the 1% then. Never bought a single album off iTunes because of it. Looking forward to this update!

because of a superiority complex or because you haven't done a double blind a/b test that proves you won't be able to
haha

 

[ActionableMango]

Double-blind test

http://mixonline.com/recording/mixing/audio_emperors_new_sampling/

Summary:

Very high-end audio equipment set up by professional audio engineers in a noise-isolated environment. Four different high-end systems were used in order to prevent criticism about the equipment.

60 listeners participated, all of whom were recording professionals, nonprofessional audiophiles, or college students in a well-regarded recording program. 554 trials occurred during which the subjects were asked to pick which track was high resolution.

They answered correctly 49.82% of the time.

 

[Ted13]

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?

You do realize that anyone who cares about music quality has their Mac connected to a high end receiver via optical cable (or iPhone via airplay to Airport Express/AppleTV and optical cable from there) and uses the receiver's Burr Brown DAC converters?

 

[torturegarden]

I know I'm kind of late to the conversation, but feel the need to reply. Several points on this topic:

1. I generally prefer analog (vinyl) playback to digital playback
2. The loudness wars needs to end. This is the biggest issue with the way music is being mastered today
3. I can generally tell the difference between lossy (AAC or MP3), CD quality (16/44.1 lossless), and high res (24/28, 24/96, 24/192, DSD etc.) and prefer high res.
4. I don't care what science says or what the Nyquist theorem says, this is what I can hear.
5. People used to lossy quality or with bad/mediocre equipment might not know what to listen for.

I have a modest system (~$7M) and playback digital files in a variety of word lengths and sample rates via Itunes/Amarra and a 24/192 DAC and absolutely prefer my 24 bit files 99% of the time. Friends have commented on how good my high-res music sounds compared to their MP3s. I haven't done blind tests, I'm just commenting on what I think sounds better.

 

[Dreamer2go]

So, they want to charge a PREMIUM on top of their already "premium priced" music? They're already one of the more expensive music stores.

They should be swapping the old low bitrate music for free with the higher better quality.

Do i have to buy all my music AGAIN? do i have to pay a premiumm upgrade fee just to get better quality of the same music?

Sounds like a desperate money grab

As a DJ, I like iTunes. Most songs are 0.99 or 1.29 USD, where as "premium" electronic dance music stores like beatport.com, they costs 1.99 or even 2.49 (320kbps mp3 format).
Beatport offers .wav upgrade (of course you have to pay more) to the existing music files you downloaded.
I think that's fair.

 

[RMo]

FLAC is lossless, as is Apple Lossless, he could easily convert the files over and suffer no degradation *at all*

Yes, which is consistent with what I said: "without any degradation beyond whatever may be inherent with your destination format."

 

[nawoo]

Apple needs to improve and get in the game with high res audio.

The new sony ZX-1 is super gorgeous, so are the Astel & Kerns

They both accept flac files right out of the box which apple doesn't do.

ZX-1 is sold out every where, proving that there is strong demand for high res audio players

 

[linuxcooldude]

I blame Apple for the $1.29 price point. They passed it off like it's the labels fault.

Notice that when prices went from $.99 to $1.29, that was a 30% increase. Exactly the cut that Apple takes every time it sells something in the iTunes/App store.

I think you got that backwards. If its 30% more, then its the record companies that raised the price. So yeah, I think its the record companies fault.

People who think they can tell the difference a good MP4 (or even MP3) vs. uncompressed formats, fail in a true blind test. That data is out there. Or: if they can perceive a boost in quality, it's actually because of a re-mastered source file (and thus not a real test case).

Maybe not everybody can tell.

But play it on a proper stereo system instead of laptop speakers or earbuds. Probably makes much more of a difference.

 

[NewishMacGuy]

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

You'll find people with high end headphone setups like mine saying the same thing.

See what you get for assuming what I listen through? I don't even own a laptop.

For $2 a song, Apple is out of their mind.

But songs will sound the same to our ears. We can hardly hear the difference between 256 kbps and 320 kbps songs. This will be the same case.

I appreciate your honesty. I can't imagine I'd be able to tell either, despite my obsession with increasing my aural palette. However to call it a 'placebo' as Razeus did is going a little far, I think.

Especially when you consider everyones discernible audio spectrum differs from person to person, especially as you get older.

I can hear the difference between CD and <192k file. At 256k I can't tell 95% of the time. This is with high end AKG's and close to high end Grado's and an amp/dac.

That's why I stick with that tier of quality and don't even bother archiving a backup with FLAC/ALAC anymore like I used to. I figure a new format is just around the corner so those 16-bit lossless files are useless anyway. And with iTunes HD files, looks like I made the right call.

I'm good with 256k for now.

and you're saying you can hear the difference between 44.1k vs 96k in a double blind a/b test?

Really? I'd love set up a double-blind ABX listening test for you on equipment of your choice to see if you can tell the difference, if you're in the Toronto area.

Spoiler alert: you can't.

Folks, the point is rather that you can really only claim to know what you can hear and what you can't. Making presumptions about what other people can and can't hear is just 13-year-old-boy foolish.

My well-amped "high end" AKGs enable me to to distinguish between 16/44.1, AAC-192, AAC-256, and 24/96 pretty easily if the original recording is any good. If you can't then you are both blessed (in wallet) and cursed (in enjoyment) - bully for you and sorry for you in equal measure.

Oh, and ABX double blind tests often fail because all "switcher boxes" just murder sound quality. You should try manual double blind testing. It's more of a bear to co-ordinate but it's also a better test because you're not including the effect of crappy switching equipment in your testing results.

>

 

[Supacon]

Useful article

24-bit 192 kHz is indeed a waste of space and solves nothing, while at the same time can introduce extra audible distortion. Humans simply do not benefit from the extra fidelity. Read the article on Xiph.org before you argue titled "24/192 Music Downloads and Why They Make No Sense" http://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html

What would be nice, however, is for better mastering to be done that doesn't overdrive and compress all the sound as well as lossless encoding so one can convert files themselves for different applications without transcoding artifacts.

I guess the time is soon here when we have enough storage in everything that the extra file size won't be a terrible problem, but Apple still sells all their products starting at a mere 16GB of storage, for god's sake. That is barely enough space to store a few apps and games and music albums.

 

[scott911]

I guess I'm part of the 1% then. Never bought a single album off iTunes because of it. Looking forward to this update!

Me too,
The insistence of many on this forum that no one can or will appreciate better audio because they can't is childish.

 

[furi0usbee]

see this is why I hate forums sometimes, becasue of comments like this. it's bad for my industry.
you cannot hear the difference between cd and 256kbps vbr aac like 'night or day'
that is pure exaggeration plan and simple.

I can't speak to *every* song, as I've not done testing on every song. Fro Come As You Are, I could hear the difference *every* time. It was *that* noticeable for me. I heard compression/hiss on the opening guitar riff, on the low end. That same "artifact" was NOT on the CD version.

I said the difference on that song was night and day, and that's a pure fact for me. I'm sure if I sat down and listened to 100 songs, there would be a great portion of those where I could hear audio artifacts of some kind. We are losing massive bits here.

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Are you sure it's not a different master? They came out with a new one a couple of years ago with the remaster, which is what the iTunes one likely is. If you compared the original CD to that, it's probably not a fair comparison.

It was my original Nevermind CD I bought back in 1993-ish. The version of Come As You Are on iTunes wasn't the new releases, it was probably 2 years ago at least. I do have the new releases on iTunes and they sound great.

 

[scott911]

It's interesting that few people will argue that 4k VIDEO isn't better than 1080p, isn't better than 720p, isn't better than auntie carol's 1978 13" tube tv.

But when you talk about increasing audio quality, there's a whole host of people fighting tooth and nail against it.

I've rarely bought iTunes tracks because they paled in comparison to ripping from a cd. I listen via a nice system - a Dac, and Thiel speakers. Of course the recording needs to be good too - that's critically important.

I don't debate the research that concludes kids prefer low res tracks. Maybe it's like Fuji film in the old days - it rendered colors inaccurately, over saturated. And people preferred it over kodaks better accuracy.

I never minded anyone who liked fuji's pop - myself sometimes included.
Why do many if YOU mind that I do like & appreciate better quality audio?

 

[groovyd]

AKG's with plenty of ampage. Don't be ridiculous in your attempt to ridicule.

ah, no wonder you don't hear the difference

 

[csbo]

Folks, the point is rather that you can really only claim to know what you can hear and what you can't. Making presumptions about what other people can and can't hear is just 13-year-old-boy foolish.

Seriously foolish to insist that the human body has limitations, or that the way sampling works doesn't support the claims made about loss of audible content

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to fly somewhere by flapping my arms. Anyone who says that I can't fly that way just because they can't is a fool

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I don't debate the research that concludes kids prefer low res tracks. Maybe it's like Fuji film in the old days - it rendered colors inaccurately, over saturated. And people preferred it over kodaks better accuracy.

I never minded anyone who liked fuji's pop - myself sometimes included.
Why do many if YOU mind that I do like & appreciate better quality audio?

I have nothing against you spending money that way, it's your money. But the claims about it being more accurate are scientifically unsound, and they usually get accompanied by the sort of snobbery like above--sure, it's okay for those silly kids to like something terrible, but you are better than that

 

[DesterWallaboo]

And obviously you have no idea about what you're talking about. Only idiotphile believe marketing crap that higher numbers means better audio. But real scientific and audio engineers know that 24/192 for end-user music download is just useless and means nothing:

http://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html

Actually, 192 kHz is even quite bad because of the lost of accuracy:

http://lavryengineering.com/pdfs/lavry-sampling-theory.pdf

On another note, anyone that can't really pass the Gold Level on the Golden Ears test can't really comment about "audio engineering" and has nothing to add to this discussion:

https://www.goldenears.philips.com/en/challenge.html

Also, a well encoded 320 kbps AAC file is pretty much almost as good as a 16bits/44.1kHz WAV file, which is more than enough for the human being hearing that doesn't exceed 20-22kHz at best and 15-16kHz for most of adult people.

So lossless files is a good thing, but there's absolutely no need for files with sampling rate over 44,1 kHz.

You work in the audio field?