Higher Quality iTunes Coming?

[lazyrighteye]

I haven't heard it mentioned either, but I collect live music, all of which is only traded in flac/shn... ONLY. Simply because you don't know what someone has done to mp3s and it's quite possible that they have been re-encoded and the quality compromised. This is great news for me since I have over 2000 hours of music archived in Apple Lossless. If the industry swings this way, this would justify all my re-encoding to this format.

One final thing... Apple Lossless will be about 3-4 times the size of an AAC file. How long until bandwidth and HD space increases by that much? A few years. Plus blu-ray and HD DVD are coming to give you more archival storage. The size is worth it! Forget 192k etc. Go with 128k lossy, or lossless. Keep it simple. I like how it's done at livephish.com, you can buy flac or mp3, slight price difference.

Jephrey

Agreed.
The majority of my collection is live music and I too feel livephish.com is THE model - one they've been successfully using for a few years now and one I could see the labels (and Hollywood) get behind.
Keep it simple, offer two options: high(er) & lo(wer) qualities. And charge accordingly. The hardcore will happily pay premium for uncompressed aud/vid while the vast majority of people will be perfectly happy going with the lower priced option.

Wait, did I just rehash what Jephrey wrote?

Dang.

 

[asaraiva]

Apple Loseless Codec and source quality.

I am really no expert on this subject but wouldn't it make much more sense to use ALC to "rip" other source, with better audio quality, than a CD?

If we are discussing here that there is no much audible difference between 128 Kbps ACC stream and a CD (which already has compressed music recorded in it) maybe it makes no sense at all to use ALC to convert an already "bad" source.

I love music and being able to listen to it as close to original as I can. So I think Apple could have a good salling point if they offer from iTMS music that is "better" than what you can get from a regular CD. They could do that, maybe, by using the original recordings and compress it with ALC. Don't you agree?

I really love my 1.6 QR Maggies by the way

 

[iDrinkKoolAid]

I can tell the diference between a 128 and a 196 depending on the song and I can definitely tell the difference on the MP3s I get from eMusic (but they are DRM free and I am not an audiophile).

Not to doubt your hearing abilities, but to be fair, one must not know what s/he is listening to make an honest assessment. You should have a friend make you two versions (i.e. 128 kbps & 196 kbps AAC) and randomly name them something like 'A' and 'B'. It is your task to identify which one is which.

This exercise may or may not be an eye opener.

 

[Mulyahnto]

The debate on whether one can hear the difference is stupid. The truth is that some people CAN hear the difference and most people, as suggested from double blind tests, CANT hear the difference between 128 and 196 kbps. What we're concerned about here (or at apple at least) is what the "average" person can distinguish between. And since comprehensive tests have shown that a significant majority doesn't hear the difference, I wonder how good of a business decision it is to make all songs available in two formats.

 

[Ted13]

Disk space

Isn't Apple lossless half the size of AIFF? Who has the hard disk space???

That is correct -- Apple Lossless is about half the space of AIFF.

While this may be too big for iPod bound files -- transcoding to AAC for the iPod would be necessary -- it certainly isn't a problem for your desktop Mac:

If you were to buy (or rip from your own CD collection) 1000 CDs worth of songs to Apple Lossless that would take up at most 300GB -- and if you can afford $10,000 for the 1000 CDs you can certainly afford $150 for a 300GB drive...

 

[hawken1]

no, it was 128 AAC before

But... the previous version of the iTunes Producer (1.3.1) was also ONLY able to import as Apple Lossless.

As far as I know iTunes Producer can't even encode to a lossy format and Apple has been collecting lossless audio for a long time now.

I guess Apple does the final encoding to 128 kbps AAC + DRM.

I use iTunes Producer. It was encoding to 128kbps AAC before the new version.

 

[A is jump]

Well, if you're a fanatic there is no point in discussing it is there? Even if the music is the same, fanatics wouldn't agree.

I listen to iTunes music on Grado RS-1's, with fully balanced XLR cables into a C.E.C HD53 Class A headphone amp, and trust me when I say the sound quality is so close to a CD that in a blind test anyone would fail.

but yea.. if you're a fanatic, all the power to you.

ok... you're right, Theres no difference and I'm simply being stubborn.

I wasnt even listening to the music on any thing that fancy... I worked at a guitar store and we had the music going through 2 mackie 1530s and one of their 18 inch active subs. their stuff isnt that nice and the difference was huge.
if I encode a few cds to AAC I (Mogwai rock action, flaming lips yoshimi battles the pink robots) even at 320kb the low end flubs about and is quite frankly disgusting. I encoded them multiple times, with the same results, soon as I put them in lossless, it was much better. am I making that up too? For the record, for many many things 320 is just fine, I'm not going to be a snob about it, and say just that its not good enough, just because I know its compressed. heck, lately a good portion of the time I'm listening through apples ear buds and those things sound way worse than any compressed file.
but, you can have your fancy pants headphones and amp.... but when it comes down to it, if you cant tell the difference theres no point in me telling you there is one.

 

[hawken1]

getting rid of the plastic

My reason for not buying from the itms even if they move to alc? I can buy 90% of the CDs I want from Amazon new for less than $9.99 plus I get the physical CD, the front packaging thing, and a pretty CD with a design on it. Plus, I just love importing CDs. No real reason why, it just makes me feel like I have to "work for it" and I feel accomplished

I really appreciate to no longer having to store a lot of cd:s everywhere.
Also, how safe is a CD anyway. Some of them will selfdestruct within 10 years. I feel that for me to have the music on file with the ability to fast and easy backup to another harddisk is much safer.

And what about interactive digital booklets - that's just so much better than a piece of paper - also for saving the trees!

 

[celebrian23]

I really appreciate to no longer having to store a lot of cd:s everywhere.
Also, how safe is a CD anyway. Some of them will selfdestruct within 10 years. I feel that for me to have the music on file with the ability to fast and easy backup to another harddisk is much safer.

And what about interactive digital booklets - that's just so much better than a piece of paper - also for saving the trees!

What, are my CDs going to spontaneously combust?

 

[bilbo--baggins]

That is correct -- Apple Lossless is about half the space of AIFF.

While this may be too big for iPod bound files -- transcoding to AAC for the iPod would be necessary -- it certainly isn't a problem for your desktop Mac:

If you were to buy (or rip from your own CD collection) 1000 CDs worth of songs to Apple Lossless that would take up at most 300GB -- and if you can afford $10,000 for the 1000 CDs you can certainly afford $150 for a 300GB drive...

I can afford hard drive space for Apple Lossless. I've imported my CD's to Lossless for the last year or two, and my library is about 63GB. I have a 60GB iPod which fits most of that onto it.

Currently I mostly buy CD's - partly because of the higher quality, and partly because some of the music I buy isn't available on the ITMS. If the ITMS offered lossless files I would be more inclined to buy them, provided they weren't more expensive than the CD. For new releases I would definitely buy them as I'm impatient! A few times in the past I've bought the ITMS version to listen asap, and bought the CD too!

I would be happy not having music on CD, because most of my CD's are quite worthless - look on Amazon marketplace and a lot of it people cannot give away. My shelves are overflowing with CD's too, so I'd much rather have a smaller number of DVD backups than hundreds of CD's. With Blueray/HD-DVD arriving soon it will be even better!

 

[Diatribe]

As I said before the bigger issue with Lossless iPods is the RAM not the space.

 

[ennerseed]

When It Happens I will start buying songs from iTMS

When It Happens I will start buying songs from iTMS

 

[Evan_11]

Jazz and Classical fans

The lossless music will most appeal to the audiophile crowd. The iTunes store does indeed have a good collection of Jazz and Classical titles yet those who listen to that type of music usually want the best quality. On a good stereo jazz and classical really show off how good a recording is.

 

[milo]

What is CD quality? Other online music stores sell CD quality songs for $.99.

CD quality is lossless 16 bit, 44.1khz. I'd also consider anything else that 100% passed a double blind test vs. a CD - at a high enough data rate, even lossy compression sounds indistinguishable from CD. I doubt any other online stores sell real CD quality.

Unfortunately, there's no truth in advertising and vendors claim "cd quality" all the time even if it isn't. I'd bet none of those stores sell cd quality, feel free to prove me wrong.

I politely beg to disagree. The reason Apple chose 128 Kbps encoding for AAC is because in double-blind ABX testing, AAC-128 was the rate at which a very high (maybe 96%? can't remember) of all listeners could not distinguish between uncompressed (CD quality) and the compressed version.

You have a link to a source on that? I'm skeptical of those sorts of claims without knowing details.

Lossless? Who has that kind of disk space, or iPod space?

I'd love to have it, even if if I only kept it for archival and rendered down to a smaller size for ipod.

If we are discussing here that there is no much audible difference between 128 Kbps ACC stream and a CD (which already has compressed music recorded in it) maybe it makes no sense at all to use ALC to convert an already "bad" source.

CD's are NOT compressed audio. They are uncompressed 44.1/16, which is the best audio you can buy other than dvd audio (which didn't really catch on).

ok... you're right, Theres no difference and I'm simply being stubborn.

If you're not doing a blind comparison, it's enitrely possible. It's a proven fact that placebos work, and that applies to audio. You can play the same audio source twice for someone, and if you give them a story why one should sound better, they WILL think they hear a difference.

 

[hawken1]

What, are my CDs going to spontaneously combust?

"Subject: [7-22] Is there really a fungus that eats CDs?
(2005/10/12)

Yes. It appears to be limited to tropical climates. Two articles from mid-2001 (no longer on original sites, so archive.org links are provided):

http://web.archive.org/web/20041101034932/www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_328113.html
http://web.archive.org/web/20040608203933/http://www.nature.com/nsu/010628/010628-11.html
The incident in question was discovered by a researcher from Spain who visited Belize in Central America. What is believed to be a strain of Geotrichum entered a CD from the outer edge and destroyed the aluminum reflective layer as well as some of the polycarbonate.
A person in Australia reported a few years earlier that store-bought pressed CDs were getting eaten, but gold CD-Rs were doing rather well."

 

[celebrian23]

"Subject: [7-22] Is there really a fungus that eats CDs?
(2005/10/12)

Yes. It appears to be limited to tropical climates. Two articles from mid-2001 (no longer on original sites, so archive.org links are provided):

http://web.archive.org/web/20041101034932/www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_328113.html
http://web.archive.org/web/20040608203933/http://www.nature.com/nsu/010628/010628-11.html
The incident in question was discovered by a researcher from Spain who visited Belize in Central America. What is believed to be a strain of Geotrichum entered a CD from the outer edge and destroyed the aluminum reflective layer as well as some of the polycarbonate.
A person in Australia reported a few years earlier that store-bought pressed CDs were getting eaten, but gold CD-Rs were doing rather well."

Lucky me, I don't live in a tropical cliimate, unless you consider Ohio tropical

 

[hawken1]

why ALC in iTunes Producer

I think the reason for the change to a higher quality format in the iTunes Producer program is that Apple wants to be able to encode songs into other formats than AAC 128 at a later stage in time. I seriously doubt they will start selling ALC files.
My guess is that this change could also have something to do with the DRM debate. That Apple wants to be flexible if there would be new laws regarding this. Scandinavia, France...

 

[reallynotnick]

Personally I am ok with Lossy formates, I don't want all this Lossless formates filling up my HD. I am pretty happy with 160kbs/192kbs with AAC.

What I don't understand is why Apple does not support aacPlus. From what I see it is the most awsome compresser ever.
http://www.codingtechnologies.com/products/aacPlus.htm

Also here are a few examples of aacPlus, they are really amazing 24kbs sounds great to me. (These have all been then re-recorded into WAV so everyone can play them). I with this kind of quality I could probaly get by with 64kbs or 96kbs, but hearing the example I would probaly only need the first.
http://www.telos-systems.com/?/aacplus/default.htm

 

[Killyp]

192 AAC VBR is the quality I import all my music at. It actually sounds very good indeed coming through my Samson studio monitors from my MBP, and it doesn't take up too much space...

 

[tny]

What, are my CDs going to spontaneously combust?

My oldest CD is 20 years old and still works fine - I have plenty of CDs that are older than (it seems) the majority of people on this forum.

 

[ibook30]

My oldest CD is 20 years old and still works fine - I have plenty of CDs that are older than (it seems) the majority of people on this forum.

Your oldest CD is older than some of the people on this forum ....

Adding higher quality sounds to iTunes would be good- I'm OK with lossy stuff, but I could se myself shelling out some extra hard earned to buy a favorite song wiht better sound.

 

[balamw]

My oldest CD is 20 years old and still works fine - I have plenty of CDs that are older than (it seems) the majority of people on this forum.

I have plenty of CDs from the early 80s too. I did have one pressed RIAA CD out of ~650 [George Harrison - Cloud 9] that was completely unreadable when importing to iTunes and if I hold it up to the light it has become translucent, so they can degrade. Though not combustion per se.

B

 

[johnmcboston]

I have plenty of CDs from the early 80s too. I did have one pressed RIAA CD out of ~650 [George Harrison - Cloud 9] that was completely unreadable when importing to iTunes and if I hold it up to the light it has become translucent, so they can degrade. Though not combustion per se.

B

oh yah. I've had my share of CDs I've had to replace. They get those little pinholes in the aluminum....

 

[zac4mac]

ALAC and battery life

Battery life will be shorter, and Diatribe touched on the reason - the iPod only spins up the HDD to fill the buffer - currently 32MB. If the song is bigger than than buffer, the HDD spins continuously. That was noted when they first came out when playing long (20 or 30 minute +) songs.

Z

 

[Glass]

From software update:

"iTunes Producer 1.4 allows you to import data from a tab-delimited file directly into your playlists and set Sale Start Dates on a per-country basis.

iTunes Producer 1.4 now encodes music in Apple Lossless format, which produces larger audio files and will increase upload time. This version also improves stability of uploading playlists and displays upload progress."


don't know if that was posted before.

Cheers